Enforcement/Penalties

Updates below
Anyone who doubts the need for truly independent ethics commissions need look no further than what has been happening in Philadelphia this week. Or should I say "this year"?

In a  recent blog post, I wrote about the fining of the executive director of Philadelphia's board of ethics for violating confidentiality rules. That blog post focused on dealing responsibly with a possible violation of an ethics code provision (although not actually an ethics provision, but instead a disciplinary rule). Now I would like to focus on confidentiality rules and penalties in the government ethics context, and the...

Here's an ethics story from Orlando with a good ending. It emphasizes what I wrote recently, that government ethics involves dealing responsibly with conflict situations.

One of the biggest problems people have with government ethics is acknowledging the difference between ethics enforcement and ethics practice. Ethics enforcement is legal. You cannot enforce rules that are not in the law. But when it comes to ethics practice, the law represents only the minimum requirement. The law is what you have to do, but an official can be more ethical, more open, more responsible than what is required. Officials have fiduciary duties that go far beyond the...

There are two interesting developments going on in Texas right now, and two bills that will be heard in committee today.

One involves a request to the state legislature by El Paso County to allow local governments to give their ethics commissions teeth (they now can only censure).

Two months ago, I wrote a blog entry about the en masse resignation of the Jackson County (MO) ethics commission, and said that this was a sign that things were seriously wrong in that county. Little did I know.