Ethics Codes

Update: April 29, 2010 (see below)

The idea of a possible conflict of interest should not be an excuse for a fishing expedition to find relationships between local government legislators and people or contracts they vote on. This appears to be what is happening in Crossville, a town of 9,000 in east-central Tennessee.

Gray areas in local government ethics don't necessarily have to be gray areas.

According to an article last week in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a council member whose brother is a lieutenant in the city jail has been very vocal in opposing a plan to lease the jail to the county in which Atlanta sits. It is possible that the council member's brother would lose his job...

Officials soliciting charitable contributions from those doing business before them is unethical conduct too many ethics codes allow, often expressly. Miami-Dade County has in its ethics code what appears at first to be a very reasonable exception to the definition of a gift:

§2-11.1(2)(2)(g) Gifts solicited by Commissioners on behalf of any nonprofit organization for use solely by that organization where neither the Commissioner nor his or her staff receives any compensation as a...

What do you do when an official discriminates against you by sicking a local government inspector on you? This question was raised by David Owens in a post on the NC Local Government Law Blog.

The tendency of local government ethics codes to limit conflicts to financial interests is one of my pet peeves. A current matter in Tacoma shows the downside of this limited definition of interests that can conflict.

The perceived independence of an ethics commission is extremely important. This perceived independence has become an issue in Frankfort (KY), according to an article in Tuesday's State-Journal.