It's amazing the lengths people will go to when they are accused of
bribery. Take Zehy Jereis, a former Yonkers, NY party chair who gave
nearly $175,000 to a Yonkers council member, and is being accused of
doing this in order to get her to make a pivotal vote in favor of his
client's controversial mall, according to an
article in yesterday's New...
Proximity rules are common to local and state government ethics
codes nationwide (see my
blog post on them from five years ago). They require officials
to withdraw from any matter dealing with property within a certain
distance of property they own or rent, no matter how many others have property within the same proximity.
In March, I wrote a blog post
about a nepotism situation in Valparaiso, IN. The city's ethics
commission found that the hiring of the fire chief's son would be in
violation of the ethics code, because the chief would be directly
involved in personnel matters involving his son.
I was just reading a
review in The Economist of Francis Fukayama's new book, The Origins
of Political Order. The review made me think differently about
nepotism, a government ethics issue that is usually considered rather
minor.
Some people may know that the Catholic Church instituted priestly...
Wow! Get a Load of Those Salaries!
It's official. People get more upset over big salaries to government
officials than over bribes, kickbacks, unbid contracts, and the like,
which cost taxpayers far, far more.