Tennessee's Model Ethics Codes Fail to Create Local Ethics Programs
It's been six years since I last wrote about local government ethics in Tennessee. In a January 2007 comment to the forum on recusal, I focused on the fact that the University of Tennessee's Municipal...
View ArticleIndependent Non-Sitting Ethics Panels in Georgia
I'm a big supporter of making ethics commissions independent of those over whom they have jurisdiction. Milton, Georgia and, now, Forsyth County, Georgia have come up with an interesting approach to...
View ArticleA Contentious Conflict Situation in Kansas City, KS
Some very interesting issues arise out of a past (and present) conflict situation that has become an issue in this week's mayoral primary in the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City,...
View ArticleTotal Gift Bans and Legal Defense Funds
A February draft advisory opinion from the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (attached; see below) raises two different issues. One is the problematic nature of a total gift ban, that is, a ban on...
View ArticleWhen an EC Is Dependent
The Colorado ethics commission matter that I discussed in my last blog post points to yet another reason why ethics commissions must have their own counsel, and a sufficient budget to pay that counsel....
View ArticlePartial Withdrawal Taints a Proceeding in NJ, But Only If It's an Attorney
When it comes to conflicts of interest, is a local government attorney primarily an attorney or a local government official? I would answer this question, "Definitely an official." But recently the New...
View ArticleIndependent Agencies Without Ethics Oversight Can Mean Disaster
"It was like dandelions. You just accept them. They were there, something you've seen all your life." Dandelions are a perfect metaphor for institutional corruption. In this case, the dandelions were...
View ArticleThe Poor State of Local Government Ethics in the Albany Area
An investigative article in Sunday's Albany Times-Union looks at the local government ethics programs in 78 local governments in four New York counties. What it found is sadly typical in most states....
View ArticleCaught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
What can a local official do when he is required to withdraw from a matter that involves a close personal friend who's in hot water due to that official's feud with another official? What do you do...
View ArticleEC vs. Corp. Counsel in Honolulu
Many local ethics programs are caught up in an ongoing battle with the city or county attorney. Usually this battle goes on behind the scenes. But in Honolulu, due to an unusual grant of budget...
View ArticleA New Sort of Regional EC in Utah
In early 2009, I started out a blog post, "Type 'ethics' into the search line at utah.gov, and all that comes up is Archery Ethics Course Online." That is no longer true. In fact, the state legislature...
View ArticleAn Ethics Complaint Against a Lawyer on a Local EC
Many people think that lawyers make the best ethics commission members. In fact, many ethics codes require that at least some members of an ethics commission be lawyers. However, lawyers are the...
View ArticleColleges, Knowledge, Gifts to Officials' Relatives, and Advice Regarding Past...
A recent Miami Herald article describes a case that embodies a number of important government ethics issues, including the conflict issues that involve local schools of higher education, gifts to...
View ArticleThe Many Reasons Why a City or County Attorney Should Not Provide Ethics Advice
A month ago, I wrote about some problems Honolulu's ethics program was having with the corporation counsel. The problems have continued. The big issue this last week has been the corporation counsel's...
View ArticleWinter Reading: Lawyers As (Ethics) Leaders
In a blog post last week, I listed the many reasons why city and county attorneys should not be providing ethics advice. One of those reasons was that "legal advice and ethics advice require different...
View ArticleArguments Against Having City or County Attorney as Ethics Officer
The role of the city or county attorney in an ethics program continues to be a major bone of contention, despite the fact that government ethics professionals generally take the position that the city...
View ArticleProblems with the Perfectly Ordinary
According to an article yesterday in the Seguin (TX) Gazette, there will be a perfectly ordinary local government ethics occurrence next Monday in Seguin, a town of 25,000 outside San Antonio: the...
View ArticleA Miscellany
It's Not the Dead Bodies, It's the Living Ones"He knows where the bodies are buried at Metro." According to a local mayor as quoted in an article yesterday in the Surrey North Delta Leader, this is an...
View ArticlePrestige of Office Provisions
Some jurisdictions have an ethics provision entitled Prestige of Office that, among other things, limits work that officials can do outside of government. Here is the language that the Baltimore school...
View ArticleFlorida League of Cities' Ethics Reform Proposals II - Gifts, Ethics Advice,...
This is the second of four blog posts on Florida Senate Bill 606 (attached; see below), one of the worst ethics reform bills I have ever read (click here to read the first post, which focused on a...
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