City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

Transparency & Disclosure January 13, 2011

Free Speech and Open Meeting Laws

Are Americans turning First Amendment free speech into a fetish? The reason I ask this question is because, after writing this sentence in a recent blog post — "Saying that a local legislator [with a conflict of interest] has a free speech right to vote is no different than saying that a local legi…

Local Government Practice January 12, 2011

Hatch Act Problems and a Solution

I've written before about some of the problems relating to the Hatch Act's prohibition of local government employees running for office if their agency gets any funding from the federal government (1 2). Jason C. Miller has written an article for the Southern Illinois University Law Review that not…

Ethics Commissions & Administration January 11, 2011

Regional Ethics Commissions via Interlocal Cooperation Agreements

On today's Palm Beach County (FL) Board of Commissioners agenda is approval of an Interlocal Agreement with the city of Lake Worth. The agreement is one of many that will be entered into between cities and towns in the county to give the county ethics commission jurisdiction over the municipalities…

Local Government Practice January 11, 2011

Trust and the Us-Them Mentality

Oxytocin is a hormone released by the hypothalamus portion of the brain which, among other things, makes people trust each other more. In other words, one could argue that local government ethics seeks to increase the release of oxytocin in the brains of people when they think about their local gov…

January 10, 2011

The Carrigan Free Speech Case Goes to the Supreme Court - The Parties' Briefs

This second blog post on the briefs filed concerning whether the Carrigan case should be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court glances at arguments in the briefs filed by the two parties and then makes a different argument for why the First Amendment has no place in this sort of government ethics matt…

January 8, 2011

The Carrigan Free Speech Case Goes to the Supreme Court - The Florida Amicus Brief

Note: I made a few important changes to this blog post on January 10, in conjunction with the posting of my analysis of the parties' briefs in this case. The Nevada Supreme Court's Carrigan decision, which I discussed in detail last month, has been accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court, likely to be a…

Conflicts of Interest January 7, 2011

Local Government Employees Sitting on Councils

An editorial in yesterday's Star Press of east central Indiana calls for passage of a state law to prevent municipal employees from sitting on a body that oversees their department or agency's budget. The focus is primarily on preventing city and county workers from sitting on city and county counc…

Local Government Practice January 6, 2011

Putting a Stop to Going Along

It not only takes a number of officials to allow unethical conduct to occur, it also takes a number of officials to undermine the effect of a good ethics program. An ugly example occurred recently in North Providence, Rhode Island, a city where three former council members are awaiting trial for ch…

Conflicts of Interest January 5, 2011

Vendor Codes of Conduct Sound Better Than They Are

Local government vendor or supplier codes of conduct are not commonly found in the U.S. In a limited search, I couldn't find one. But corporations commonly have them, as do some Canadian cities and some states and state agencies. And they sound like a good idea. The reason I raise this idea is that…

January 5, 2011

New Cuyahoga County Executive Puts a New Ethics Policy First

Cuyahoga County, OH, which includes Cleveland, has been the site of a large number of arrests of government officials, contractors, and developers, primarily for making and accepting bribes (see my blog post). The most recent arrest occurred on December 17. As of this week, the county has a new for…

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