Last December I wrote a
long blog post about the pay-to-play culture of Prince George's
County, Maryland. The new county executive and the county's state
representatives appear to have been working hard to make changes to end
this pay-to-play culture, although you wouldn't know it from...
You know you're doing a pretty poor job with government ethics when a
grand jury recommends that you be all but abolished. This is the case
with the Broward County School Board, according to a
report
published on Frday. It concludes, on p. 48:
Unfortunately based on the history of this Board as an institution, we
have no confIdence in their ability to...
More Costs of Not Having an Ethics Program
Local officials are always complaining about the cost of an ethics
program, but not having an ethics program can be expensive and
extremely disruptive, and seem downright unfair.
Trenton's city attorney and mayor have been going through an elaborate
dance in the last week, since the city attorney decided to void a
contract between the city and a law firm that made a large contribution
to a PAC that supported the new mayor's candidacy. The city attorney's decision was made pursuant to a
2006 Trenton pay-to-...
According to an
op-ed
piece by a county commissioner from Collier County, Florida (in the
Naples Daily News), two interesting twists on the gift to an
official's favorite charity gambit occurred recently. Gifts to officials'
favorite charities are a common way to get around pay-to-play laws.
Here is what...
In a Pay to Play Law Blog response to my
recent blog post on a discussion that had appeared in the Pay to
Play Law Blog, the argument is made that pay-to-play laws that go
beyond disclosure, such as prohibiting campaign contributions from
government contractors, set up a slippery slope toward the undermining
of constitutional rights and toward higher compliance costs...