Conflicts of Interest March 8, 2011

Confidentiality After an Official's Resignation

It is generally agreed that it is best to preserve an ethics commission's jurisdiction over officials and employees after they quit or leave office. There are two reasons for this. One, to prevent them from escaping enforcement by quitting or leaving office. This is especially important because it can take a long time for information to come out that an ethics violation might have occurred, and for an ethics proceeding to be completed. The second reason is to allow for post-employment restrictions.
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Ethics Codes & Reform March 7, 2011

Ignorance or Faux Ignorance re Government Ethics?

What politicians say about a government ethics issue is sometimes so devoid of a basic understanding of government ethics that it's hard to believe that they are not being willfully ignorant (i.e., not discussing ethics matters with ethics professionals) or cynically disingenuous. If only there could be some requirement that, before an official opens his or her mouth to say something about government ethics, he or she actually discussed the matter with someone who does understand it. Not any lawyer, but a professional in the field.
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Conflicts of Interest March 6, 2011

Voting with a Conflict of Interest Is Not Always Illegal, But It's Never Good for Democracy

"It's a very powerful story of a public official who wanted to do the right thing, who got appropriate advice, and then ended up being punished. He was punished for doing his public duty and voting, just because a political ally was involved. I don't call that a conflict of interest. I call that democracy."

—Joshua Rosenkranz, a New York lawyer representing Sparks City (NV) council member Mike Carrigan in his appeal to the U.S.
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March 4, 2011

How Can I Hamper Thee? — Let Me Count the Ways

In the last installment of the ongoing Stamford (CT) ethics battle, the major antagonist had reached a settlement with the ethics board, and the principal cases, both ethics proceedings and a federal suit against the ethics board and the ethics complainants, were withdrawn. But this is a grudge match, and the major antagonist, who resigned from his position as chair of the board of finance, has friends. So the battle goes on.
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March 3, 2011

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana Undermines His Ethics Reforms

On February 10, 2008, Bobby Jindal, the newly elected governor of Louisiana, said in a big speech:
    Today, we take the first step towards building a better Louisiana where our ethics laws are the gold standard - letting the rest of the world know that corruption will no longer find a home here. The actions that we will take over the coming days will have a lasting impact on generations to come and help erase Louisiana’s image created by generations past.
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March 2, 2011

Big Questions Arise from Cook County Assessor's Refusal to Abide by Campaign Finance Ordinance

Cook County assessor Joseph Berrios is becoming a regular character in this blog (see below for prior posts on him). This time he is declaring unconstitutional a law passed by the county to limit his fundraising from lawyers who appeal property tax assessments. And he has the support of a questionable opinion from the local state's attorney, according to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday.
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