In New York State, lawyers are once again insisting that they are an
exception to ethics laws. The Moreland Commission, a special
investigatory commission called by the governor and consisting of
district attorneys and other law enforcement officials, has
subpoenaed the employers of several state legislators. According to
an
article in the Democrat and Chronicle, most of the employers...
Maryland has a rule that local ethics ordinances must require the disclosure of all an elected
official's real property, stocks, and bonds. According to an
article in the Carroll County Times, the Mount Airy council
keeps passing an ethics ordinance that requires the disclosure only
of real property in Mount Airy and...
As I keep saying, conflicts are about "benefits" and
"relationships" rather than about "interests," and this should be
reflected in the language of ethics codes. The clash of these two
kinds of language is the subject of a recent Virginia Supreme Court
decision, Newberry
Station Homeowners Assoc. et al v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfax...
It's exciting to read a column on a local government ethics matter that shows as deep understanding and as clear explanation as the
column by Ottawa Citizen editorial board member Mohammed
Adam that appeared yesterday. The column focuses on the problems that arise when a
city planner is a small property developer on the side. Both the chair of the
city's planning...
What it found was that at least 30 of the governments had not
updated their ethics laws since the early 1970s, when government
ethics was in its infancy. Almost...