Ethics Commissions/Administration

One of the most powerful lobbyists in the United States has come out strongly in favor of independent, effective local government ethics programs. The lobbyist is AARP. Here is a quote from p. 1-13 of the Government Integrity and Civic Engagement chapter (notably, Chapter 1) of AARP's latest Policy…

I wrote about it in a June 2011 blog post, and then again in a June 2012 post, but it hasn't gone away. In fact, it became a big issue again this week when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided new evidence that things might have been far worse than was suspected. The new evidence suggests that…

One kind of revolving door that is often ignored is the move from elected or appointed board or commission membership and a paid position that is approved by and under the direction of the same board or commission. It makes it look as if the board member were using her position to get herself a nic…

A "placeholder" is someone who agrees to run on a ticket with a mayoral candidate or be appointed by him, but has no interest or intention in actually doing the work required by the position. Such a candidate does not attend many meetings of the body to which she was elected (often she is not even …

Does a former ethics commission member have a special obligation not to make misstatements with respect to government ethics matters? This question arose from a 2010 case in Florida I just came across, where the state senate president hired a former chair of the state ethics commission as his attor…

I learned this week that the board I administered until last July, the New Haven Democracy Fund board (the Fund is a public campaign financing program for the city's mayoral election), no longer has enough members to hold an official meeting. The seven-member board has three members, and it needs f…

One government ethics question that does not have a general answer is whether boards of education or school systems are under the jurisdiction of city or county ethics programs. The answer is sometimes, but generally not. There are several reasons for this. One is that many, probably most school sy…