Enforcement & Complaints

Several of the women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct toward them have filed defamation suits, based on his conduct and, especially, on the conduct of his attorneys, who not only stated Cosby's denial of sexual misconduct, but also went on the attack against the accusing women. This situ…

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez is to be indicted this week for bribery and failure to report gifts. Where there is an effective government ethics program, he would be easily found to have committed administrative government ethics violations. In a criminal case, the official has the edge (and he has alr…

Across the country, requests for citizen complaints provide not only for complaints, but also for commendations. I happened to notice one of these when I was in the nation's capital this weekend, and it got me wondering why this is not done with respect to government ethics complaints and hotline r…

Yesterday, two members of a New York City council member's election campaign were indicted on criminal charges brought by a special prosecutor, who was appointed in 2012. Read this December 2014 New York Law Journal op-ed piece by Brennan Center (NYU) Chief Counsel and longtime New York City Corpor…

In a an op-ed in the Daily Kos last Friday, Janos Marton — special counsel to New York state's recent Moreland Commission on state-level corruption — makes an excellent point about one of the problems involved in the criminal enforcement of government ethics : The Executive Order under which the Co…

There are several problems with the settlement the Massachusetts AG reached last week with a lobbying firm that the AG alleged had entered into an illegal contingency fee agreement with a hospital. According to the AG's press release, the lobbying firm would be paid a percentage of funds paid to th…

The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution protects activities within the "legislative sphere" from being heard outside the legislature, and prevents the introduction of evidence of legislative activity in any such hearing. A recent brief from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in S.…

A week ago, I wrote about a poorly written provision in Denver's ethics code, and the danger it poses not only to Denver, but also elsewhere, since local governments in Colorado and in other states are apt to look at the ethics code of such a large, well-respected city (although now that its highne…

Sometimes even a wrongheaded ethics complaint can do good, by showing how wrongheaded a town's government ethics program is. According to an editorial in The Day this week, the head of a local political party, Independence for Montville, filed an ethics complaint alleging that a former council memb…

Why is it so hard for officials, personally or in drafting ethics codes, to let an ethics commission do its work, dismissing complaints that lack validity (i.e., that do not state an ethics violation by someone under the ethics program's jurisdiction or for which there is insufficient evidence)? Wh…