This year, the Rhode Island ethics commission, which has jurisdiction over local governments, has been bouncing around the issue of conflicts of interest relating to local officials' involvement in  negotiations with a union, where they or their spouse is a member of a different local union that shares the same umbrella union and, often, the same negotiators and some of the same funds. The public statements on this issue, from representatives of unions and good government organizations, and the quandaries of EC members make valuable reading.

There are many right and wrong ways to select an ethics commission. The rightest ways take the selection process out of the hands of anyone who could possibly come before the EC, because that places a conflict of interest at the very center of a process intended to guide and enforce the responsible handling of conflicts. The rightest ways also prevent anyone who could possibly come before the EC, or their colleagues, from sitting on the EC. And the rightest ways seek an EC that can develop expertise, and which can not only enforce, but also train and advise.

I recently critiqued the new Michigan model local government ethics ordinance. Mark Liss, a council member in Michigan alerted me (and the world in his blog) to the new model's similarities with the Illinois model local government ethics ordinance, which was drafted in 2003. He even does a side-to-side comparison of the model ordinances' gift bans.

It's Election Day 2009, so what better topic than a particularly slimy instance of negative campaigning that attacks a candidate for seeking an advisory opinion from the local ethics board, and actually following it.

According to an article on kcrg.com this Sunday, a candidate's flier said that his incumbent Cedar Rapids city council opponent “had been accused of ethics violations and appeared before the city ethics board ... TWICE!" In fact, he had appeared to get an advisory opinion on one occasion, and on the other occasion it appears from an article in the Gazette that a  complaint had been filed, but that the council member had recused himself and this was deemed proper by the ethics board.

Distortion of facts is sadly a common feature of political races, but making it look like an opponent had ethics problems when he had acted responsibly is an especially ugly sort of distortion.

One problem in government ethics is that when conflict situations are dealt with responsibly, there is rarely a record of them. They pass quietly, failing to end up in the newspaper, at an ethics commission, or in court. So generally we're stuck learning from the times when conflict situations are dealt with irresponsibly. One of these situations, in Wausau, Wisconsin, made it to court, and a decision this week by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin sets the facts out clearly (the decision is attached; see below).

One of the most difficult things for a government official to do is to determine whether his or her conduct creates an appearance of impropriety. Partially blinded by ego, surrounding yes-people, and the government's ethical culture, an official often finds nothing wrong with conduct that many or even most outsiders -- that is, citizens -- find questionable or downright wrong. It is hard for them to put themselves in citizen shoes in order to see whether their conduct might appear improper.