In the news

Governors Aren't Always Governors
The involvement of New York governor David Paterson in his aide's domestic abuse matter gets right to the heart of government ethics.

According to an article in today's New York Times, Paterson told a state employee and mutual friend of his and the domestic abuse victim's, “Tell her the governor wants her to make this go away."

Update: March 4, 2010
I am placing this update up front because my consideration of the Committee of Seventy's criticism of the Philadelphia ethics board assumed the truth of the Committee's portrayal of the city's retirement law. Sadly, it turns out that it misrepresented the law, saying that the ethics board was unethically employing a loophole, when the ethics board's rehiring of its general counsel is expressly legal according to the retirement law.

Here is the...

New York City has had more problems with council earmarks than Washington, D.C. (see recent blog post on D.C.), and now the city's ombudsman has come up with a different approach, an approach from outside the council, in fact, from someone with no actual jurisdiction over the council. His plan shows that ethics officers or bodies can make a difference even where they...

Let me take a logical approach to the topic of government ethics proceeding confidentiality before I look at what has been happening in Utah this last week.

There's a lot of ethics news from San Diego today. First, the judge in the San Diego campaign finance case has clarified his ruling.

Second, the case involving the former president of the Center City Development Corp. is going to a hearing before the San Diego ethics...

Update: March 1, 2010 (see below)

The political activity of ethics commission members, staff, and ethics officers is an important topic. The issue has arisen this week with respect to Connecticut's Office of State Ethics, according to Jon Lender's Government Watch column in yesterday's...