City Related | City Ethics

Conflicts of Interest January 28, 2011

The Need for a Revolving Door Provision, and More, in Hartford

According to an article in Tuesday's Hartford Advocate, a complaint has been filed with Hartford's ethics commission by a council member against the former corporation counsel on the grounds that he had taken a job with a law firm that had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts over…

January 27, 2011

Conflict Over a Gift in Poughkeepsie

Sometimes a conflict situation makes you take a fresh look at common ethics provisions. This is true of a matter that has arisen in Poughkeepsie, New York (pronounced Pah-kip'-see), home of Vassar College, according to an article in Tuesday's Poughkeepsie Journal. The provision in question is the g…

January 21, 2011

Houston Ethics Reform II: The Ethics Provisions

There are several problems with Houston's new ethics provisions, in addition to what I pointed out in my last blog post. Some of them are typical, some of them are unusual. The ethics reform ordinance is attached; see below; the old ethics ordinance can be found by clicking here and scrolling down …

January 21, 2011

Houston Ethics Reform I: The Ethics Commission and What People Are Saying

Last week, the Houston council passed a number of amendments to its ethics ordinance. They were billed as a big step forwards, but I do not agree. In this post, I will look at what people have been saying about the reforms and how the role of the ethics commission has changed. In the next post I wi…

Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play January 19, 2011

Responding to Arguments Against Significant Restrictions on Pay-to-Play

This week, the Pay to Play Law Blog took a snapshot of the status of pay-to-play laws across the country, breaking them down into four categories: jurisdictions that impose significant restrictions, including debarment; jurisdictions that require disclosure; jurisdictions with limited requirements…

January 15, 2011

Insurance Schemes

Insurance is a big area for abuse in local government. It usually constitutes a sizeable dollar percentage of a town's contracts, and an insurance broker who works in government can use his or her position to get the insurance business of companies that do or want to do business with the town. And …

January 14, 2011

A Look at a Proposed Ethics Code for Glen Ellyn, IL

You can learn something from every local government ethics code there is, and especially from codes that have only been proposed. Today I'm going to look at a proposed ethics code for Glen Ellyn, IL, a western suburb of Chicago (pop. 27,000). The proposed code and resolution are attached; see below…

January 10, 2011

The Carrigan Free Speech Case Goes to the Supreme Court - The Parties' Briefs

This second blog post on the briefs filed concerning whether the Carrigan case should be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court glances at arguments in the briefs filed by the two parties and then makes a different argument for why the First Amendment has no place in this sort of government ethics matt…

Local Government Practice January 6, 2011

Putting a Stop to Going Along

It not only takes a number of officials to allow unethical conduct to occur, it also takes a number of officials to undermine the effect of a good ethics program. An ugly example occurred recently in North Providence, Rhode Island, a city where three former council members are awaiting trial for ch…

Local Government Practice January 3, 2011

Bullheadedness in the Face of Ethics Advice

Bullheadedness is unprofessional, at least in most professions. By "bullheadedness," I mean doing what you want no matter whether a professional tells you not to do it or whether your boss tells you not to do it, even if they tell you why and they are clearly right. One of the professions where bul…

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