City Related

In January, I wrote a blog post about the District of Columbia ethics board's first public forum seeking recommendations for ethics reform. On April 17, the ethics board published a report that makes recommendations for improvements to the city's ethics program (attached; see below). Of the five re…

Phoenix has followed Chicago in taking a task force approach to ethics reform. As in Chicago, the mayor selected the task force. The Ethics Task Force, which according to an article in the Arizona Republic, consists of "prominent attorneys and judges," filed a report with the council on March 6. I …

This week, San Antonio's mayor and city attorney proposed a number of reforms to the city's ethics code and campaign finance regulations. I will deal here only with the ethics reforms. A summary of the proposed reforms and a red-lined copy of the ethics code are attached (see below). The impetus fo…

Applicant Disclosure Is Good for Officials If Ontario or Mississauga required broad applicant disclosure, Mississauga's mayor would not be in court this week arguing that she didn't know that her son had invested in a huge hotel and convention center deal. According to an article yesterday on the 6…

Police Officer Side Businesses and Revenue Distinctions There's an interesting article in yesterday's New Pittsburgh Courier about Pittsburgh police officer side businesses and the sorts of problem they create. One of the problems derives from a false distinction between different sorts of revenue.…

There's a lot of food for thought in the February 21 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in the case Lodge No. 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Philadelphia. The suit was brought in order to end the prohibition on police officers making campaign…