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.

One of the best descriptions of an unethical environment in a government agency can be found in the two-page statement that followed the guilty plea of David Loglisci, the former chief investment officer for the New York state pension fund.

It's been four months since my latest update on San Bernardino County's failure to follow grand jury ethics reform recommendations with any action. An op-ed piece by Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, in this week's San Bernardino Sun calls for campaign contribution limits (there are currently none at all), a prohibition on off-year fundraising, disclosure requirements, and an ethics commission to enforce the law.

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.

Do Chinese walls (that is, mechanisms that separate someone from information or involvement in a matter) work in conflict situations in government? And what considerations determine whether they work or not?

One consideration is whether, even with the Chinese wall, there is still an appearance of a conflict. Another consideration is whether the individual will still have access to the information or still be involved in the matter despite the Chinese wall; that is, whether the Chinese wall is really a Chinese screen.

There are two important Chinese walls in the news the last couple of days. One involves congressional representatives in the position of choosing defense-related earmarks and their access to information about which recipients of those earmarks made campaign contributions to them, at what amounts and at what times. The other involves what was apparently a sweetheart deal between Florida and the United States Sugar Company, where the governor's chief of staff's law firm represented U.S. Sugar in the negotiations.