Ethics Codes

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 form of government, featuring a county...

One Moore County (NC) commissioner has been faced with two conflict of interest matters in 2010, one of which led him to recently resign from a board. Although the two have nothing to do with each other, they have become politically intertwined which, along with the lack of an ethics program, has prevented the responsible handling of the conflicts.

Bullheadedness is unprofessional, at least in most professions. By "bullheadedness," I mean doing what you want no matter whether a professional tells you not to do it or whether your boss tells you not to do it, even if they tell you why and they are clearly right.

One of the professions where bullheadedness is somewhat acceptable is politics. Take the Louisville council, for example. According to...

The Green Bay Packers football team is going to try to win its game today in order to get to the playoffs and seek its first Super Bowl victory since 1996. Before 1996, the Packers hadn't won a Super Bowl since Vince Lombardi coached them there in 1967.

An ethics board meeting is not quite a Super Bowl, but Green Bay's record isn't much better. According to...

In February, Florida governor Charlie Crist asked for a grand jury to report on government corruption in Florida. The first interim report was filed yesterday. Its recommendations involve local government as well as state ethics laws.

The recent arrest of the Prince George's County (MD) executive and his wife, who is a new member of the county council, shows how wrong it is to give the county executive and individual council members power over development projects, a topic I've written about with respect to Dallas and...