The Partisanship of Ethics
The first pleasant surprise involves a blogger (Advance Indiana) who is disgusted with his own party's unethical conduct in his city/county, Indianapolis/Marion County. A native of Illinois, he compares it to Chicago, and he notes that his party took office because of the other party's unethical conduct. In this era of partisan blogging, it is nice to see recognition by a blogger of his own party's ethical problems.

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An unpublished Connecticut Superior Court opinion takes an odd approach to a conflict of interest charge against a member of a zoning commission in the small town of Pomfret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.