Philadelphia, Baltimore, and now Louisville have come up with ethics reforms in the past week or so. Baltimore's reforms were disappointing, while Philadelphia's were a big surprise to everyone, and came with a few serious question marks. Louisville's reforms are hardly a surprise, and they stand somewhere between disappointing and true reform.

In my previous blog post, the issue arose of voiding a planning and zoning commission's approval of a permit because one of the commission members had a conflict of interest. Connecticut law automatically invalidates the commission action, without any individual or body having to act. But this is unusual. In fact, most jurisdictions do not expressly provide for the avoidance of permits, contracts, or other transactions.

An unpublished Connecticut Superior Court opinion takes an odd approach to a conflict of interest charge against a member of a zoning commission in the small town of Pomfret (pop. 4,000). Not only is it odd, but it could very well be unconstitutional, as it partly bases its decision on whether individuals have spoken out for or against a matter before the zoning commission. My thanks go to Patricia Salkin, who wrote about the decision in her excellent Law of the Land blog and sent me a copy of the decision.

When a major newspaper's editorial on a city council's handling of an important ethics issue begins with "Sneaky. Real sneaky." it's something worth sharing with those interested in local government ethics.

Just down the road from Philadelphia, Baltimore too is considering ethics reforms, but it's in response to a scandal involving its past mayor rather than in response to the work of a task force.

There are two bills before the Baltimore council, both of them introduced while the new mayor was council president. One makes changes to the city's ethics board composition and ethics training, the other to the city's ethics code. Neither is much to get excited about.

One of the biggest little problems in government ethics is the inability to filter out very minor violations, which can be dealt with either by dismissing the complaint or by requiring, say, an additional training course. It is a waste of limited time and resources to investigate and hold hearings on minor violations. An EC needs to be able to use its judgment to decide when a violation is not worth investigating.

Although it is hard to define what is a minor, or de minimis, violation, it is important to provide for EC discretion where they exist, either in an ordinance provision or an ethics commission regulation. This discretion should not be left to advisory opinions; if it does originate there, it should quickly be added to the EC's regulations or to the ordinance).