City Related

If you had no knowledge of government ethics, and you were asked what, on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, was the most frequent form of unethical behavior in municipal government, you might say 'passing rumors along.' That's the meat and the potatoes of every organization's conversations, and it's only the most self-controlled of us who don't partake in producing, consuming, and passing along rumors, at least occasionally.

Today's New York <i>Times</i> Week in Review section features <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/weekinreview/24liptak.html?ref=weekin… article</a> on local prosecutors and how their ethical misconduct is dealt with by the lawyer discipline system, the profession's disciplinary system.

At first glance, these two logical fallacies don't seem to have much to do with each other.

When you beg the question, you assume something has been established or proved, according to my trusty dictionary. The way a logician would define the begging the question fallacy is that the premises include the claim or assumption that the conclusion is true, without providing any evidence or actual argument. The result is a circular argument, taking for granted what it's supposed to prove. In other words, it's no argument at all.

One great advantage of handling local government ethics matters at the state level is that decisions and advisory opinions can be easily and widely disseminated to all local governments in the state.

<a href="http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-gilesmoving0617.artjun18,0,3279… Hartford <i>Courant</i></a> gives us an excellent picture of a very creative way of making the municipal government work for you, conflicts of interest be damned.

What happened recently in Colorado makes it clear that a state constitution is not the right place for ethics laws.

Last November, an amendment to the state constitution was approved by voters, prohibiting state and local officials from accepting any gift of over $50 from any 'person.' The state Attorney General ruled that this amendment would prevent the child of a government official from a receiving a scholarship, or a state university professor from accepting a Nobel Prize.

We can talk all we want about conflicts of interest problems in municipal government, but it really comes down to what Tom Brokaw, the former NBC anchor, said in his Skidmore College commencement address:

I've been on a sort of work-leave the last two weeks. My town, North Haven, Connecticut (pop. 24,000), has been a mess for a long time, but few people have cared enough to pay attention, and those who criticize the administration are personally attacked and delegitimized. It was my town's mess, and my inability to do anything locally, that led me to do work for Common Cause Connecticut, and then devote myself full-time to municipal ethics by coming to work for City Ethics.

Memphis has been the scene of some serious corruption in the last few years. And for years before that, as well, although they say that in the old days the corruption was institutionalized, so that there were rules about how you could and could not take advantage of your office.

In round numbers, in the last six years, 66 officials, employees, and contractors have been found guilty of various sorts of government-related crimes. In a city of only 650,000 people, that puts Memphis in the per-capita lead.

Many areas of ethics have little overlap with municipal ethics. But one rather specialized area that I came across has some interesting applications: the ethics of casting love spells.