Conflicts of Interest

Last week, the New York Times reported that for six months the White House refused to open an e-mail from the Environmental Protection Agency, a report stating that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled. The White House considered the EPA report to be in some sort of "e-mail limbo…

An article on the front page of today's New York Times presents us with an opportunity to focus on the special ethical responsibilities of prosecutors, and other local government attorneys. An assistant district attorney in Manhattan, Daniel Bibb, was asked to reinvestigate a murder where the convi…

If you were going to set up a local election system devoted to fairness and to voters, how would you have registrars of voters selected? Would you have them appointed or elected? Would you have them be party members or nonpartisan? Click here to read the rest of this blog entry. Let's start with el…

Who should be on a local government pension board? Should conflicts of interest be taken into account? These two questions are closely interrelated, because the common answer seems to be that those with the greatest conflict are also the most appropriate members. There are two values at odds here: …

One of the most frustrating problems many cities and counties face is all that untaxable land owned by nonprofit organizations. Some states, such as my state, Connecticut, pay local governments part of what they lose out in property taxes, but when things are hard, as now, and the taxes are most so…

A quote from a lawyer in an article in today's New York Times brought me back to what I recently promised to discuss at the end of a blog entry about Elizabeth Wolgast's book, Ethics of an Artificial Person: Lost Responsibility in Professions and Organizations. Daniel K. Webb, the head of Detroit M…

Back to New York City, where more information is coming out about the special “slush” funds given out to city council members. According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times and an editorial in today’s, one member has, in recent years, given more than $400,000 in city funds to a nonprofit ag…

Today’s New York Times has an article that focuses on John McCain’s dealings with a big Arizona developer, Donald Diamond. There are two issues here that I would like to bring up. First, the ultimate defense, which McCain’s campaign employs: helping a constituent. McCain “had done nothing for Mr. D…

Earmarks are usually dealt with as a spending and democracy problem. All that money being thrown away on projects no one actually votes to fund. But earmarks are also a conflict of interest issue, as can be seen in what has come out regarding the New York City Council. I recently wrote about the tr…

Many municipal codes of ethics, including the City Ethics Model Code (Section 100(15)), contain a provision prohibiting the acceptance of fees and honoraria for articles, appearances, or speeches. Today’s New York Times Science section contains an article about research scientists starting to refus…