Complaints/ Investigations/Hearings

Conflicts of Interest October 31, 2010

Indirect Conflicts Involving Appointments

Election time makes public many ethics situations that make valuable case studies. One involves Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott. According to an article in the Naples (FL) News, there is reason to believe that Scott's company is being or will soon be investigated by the Florida Departmen…

Enforcement & Complaints October 14, 2010

Basing Ethics Decisions on Unenforceable Code Provisions Undermines Trust in the Ethics Process

I recently wrote about a situation in Stamford, CT in which probable cause was found based on a policy declaration rather than an enforceable ethics provision. That situation appeared to involve a misunderstanding, with a unanimous ethics commission finding probable cause. According to an article i…

Enforcement & Complaints October 1, 2010

Rules Disallowing Complaints Before Elections

Many jurisdictions have a rule that disallows the filing of an ethics complaint against an elected official within so many days before an election. The purpose of such a rule is to prevent the abuse of the ethics process for political purposes. But is this the best solution to this problem? This qu…

Enforcement & Complaints September 14, 2010

Opposition to Independent Ethics Enforcement in Washington Will Echo Locally

Forget the fascinating range of ethics programs at the local level. It is congressional ethics programs that get the national attention. And with all this attention, what Congress does, and fails to do, has a great effect not only on what happens at the local level, but also on the rhetoric employe…

Conflicts of Interest September 8, 2010

Using Local Government Employees for Private Purposes

Using government employees for private purposes is one of the most common ethics code violations. This violation is especially bad because it involves coercion of individuals, in this case subordinates who are not in a position to say no. Coercion and intimidation rarely occur outside of a poor eth…

Ethics Commissions & Administration August 21, 2010

Should an Ethics Commission Member Be Affiliated with a Firm That Represents Clients Before It?

Last Saturday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a long article, "Connections Count at Law Firm," on the Washington/Atlanta-based law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge. This firm was known to me primarily as the firm behind the Pay to Pay Law Blog, a good, although too infrequent blog that looks at gove…

July 30, 2010

The New, Leaky Utah Legislative Ethics Complaint Process

In a recent blog post, I wrote about a federal third circuit decision that a law prohibiting an ethics complainant from announcing the filing of the complaint violates the complainant's first amendment rights. This decision contradicts a second circuit decision that upheld a law prohibiting the ann…

July 27, 2010

Some Questionable Missouri Ethics Reform Provisions

According to an article in the News-Tribune, the governor of Missouri recently signed an ethics bill (SB 844) that made many changes in the state's ethics and campaign finance programs, and failed to make others, such as a campaign contribution limit, which the legislature had eliminated in 2006. M…

Enforcement & Complaints July 23, 2010

There Is a Meaningful Difference Between Making Accusations and Saying You've Filed an Ethics Complaint

Update: October 22, 2010 (see below) Recently, I wrote a blog post on the political use of ethics complaints and the manipulation of the press. Yesterday, the third circuit court of appeals effectively, and I think wrongly, disagreed with one of my principal arguments in that post, and therefore ca…

June 7, 2010

The Office of Congressional Ethics Leaves Its Barn and the Congressional Black Caucus Tries to Rein It In

While I was away on vacation, the new, quasi-independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) was in the news a lot. Going Outside of Congress First, it did something that made it appear more than the paper tiger I called it a year ago. According to a New York Times editorial last week, when the OC…

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