Transparency & Disclosure

This summer, several New Jersey local government officials were arrested in a big FBI sting operation (see my blog post). Yesterday, an ethics audit focused on development practices was released. Requested by the Jersey City council, it was written by three members of a New Jersey law firm. Accordi…

Update: November 20, 2009 (see below) The latest news from the federal trial of former New York state senate majority leader Joseph Bruno's is sadly not surprising. According to an Associated Press article yesterday, former senate legal counsel told Bruno to hand-deliver his financial disclosure fo…

An article on the Texas Watchdog website focuses on a serious loophole in the Texas gift disclosure policy, which applies to local government officials. Section 176.003(a-1) of the Local Government Code (Title 5, Subchapter C) states: A local government officer is not required to file a conflicts d…

It's always nice to see politicians provide evidence for the argument that ethics self-regulation doesn't work, but it's rare for it to happen in so public a way as occurred yesterday. According to an article in Roll Call, Rep. John Carter (R-TX), "the point man for Republicans seeking to strip Way…

A central dispute in the first group of charges brought against Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley involved whether he was required to disclose properties held by a company he owned, as long as he listed the company among his assets. Stapley felt this was not required. It is important to list a…

Government ethics policies sometimes clash. The most common clash involving ethics commissions is with transparency laws. Like any government body, ethics commissions would prefer not to discuss many sorts of matters in public, both to protect the parties involved and because it is uncomfortable to…

Who should pay for a lack of government transparency, the officials keeping the secrets or the citizens who lack access to information? As it is now, in most jurisdictions, when a complaint is made under a freedom of information/sunshine (FOI) act or ordinance, either local government attorneys rep…

Applicant disclosure is an effective part of local government ethics that is usually ignored. Usually it is officials who are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest, either in the form of annual disclosure statements, revised when circumstances change, or in the form of announcements …

Thanks to Texas Watchdog, "an independent, nonpartisan entity [that] serves as a government watchdog and training center where reporters, bloggers and activists of any stripe learn how to uncover waste, fraud and corruption in state and local governments," the financial disclosure forms of Houston'…

A report worth reading was recently published by the OECD: Self-Regulation and Regulation of the Lobbying Profession. Its focus on European countries provides a valuable complement to American lobbying regulation. Below is a condensed version of the report's executive summary: "This report examines…