Ethics Commissions & Administration

There's a lot of talk among government ethics practitioners about how important it is for ethics commissions to have teeth, that is, the ability to at least reprimand and fine government officials for ethics violations. Requiring council approval of ethics recommendations brings elected officials i…

I've always felt torn with respect to whether citizens should be allowed to ask for advisory opinions that have to do with local government officials, as can be seen in the advisory opinion provision and comments in the City Ethics Model Code Project. On the one hand, advisory opinions are generall…

Update below: The Internet has been around for some time now, and yet local government officials still get away with saying things like, “If you have a better process or procedure [than having the city council enforce the ethics code], I would like to hear about it.” According to an article yesterd…

Move over, presidents, movie stars, and models. Welcome a local government ethics officer to your ranks. Yes, at last a local government ethics officer's picture is on the cover of a magazine. The ethics officer is City Ethics' own Carla Miller, and the magazine is Northeast Florida's Folio Weekly.…

When it really comes down to it (and it usually does), what is the greatest enemy of trust in government, or anywhere else for that matter? Greed, power, ego, loyalty? I'd put my money on (or against) rationalization, the ability of people to justify what they do and fail to do. Here's what got me …

I recently discovered that, in May, the Austin's Office of the City Auditor did an extensive report on the city's ethics program, and compared it with 16 comparable American cities (Arlington (TX), Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Kansas City (MO or KS?), Me…

While we're in Nevada, there's another interesting case before the state's ethics commission that has ramifications for local government ethics. According to an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a probable cause hearing was to be conducted by one Democratic and one Republican commission memb…

Money is not only the root of much of the evil in government ethics, it is also the lifeblood of government ethics. Without money, ethics commissions, at least in cities and states, as opposed to towns, cannot do their job. Do something the legislative body doesn't like and it has a good way to get…

Confidentiality is a sticky issue in ethics investigations. It appears to be the norm, but many people do not seem to understand why it exists, or what duties it creates. An interesting confidentiality issue arose recently in Beaufort, South Carolina, according to an article in today’s Beaufort Gaz…

Do ethics board members have a duty to follow more than the letter of their ethics code? This issue has arisen with respect to the Detroit Board of Ethics. The Board’s chair, attorney Reginald Turner, joined the membership (that is, fundraising) committee of a defense fund for Mayor Kwame Kilpatric…