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One of the biggest differences between unethical conduct and criminal conduct by government officials is the matter of proving intent. For example, a bribe is nothing more than a gift to a government official where it has been proven that the official intentionally took a gift in return for certain conduct. In government ethics, taking a gift beyond a certain value is all that needs to be proven to show misconduct. The official's conduct, beyond accepting the gift, is irrelevant, as is the...

Georgia seems intent on providing an entire course on the ethical obligations of government attorneys. This time it's the obligations of the state's top government attorney, the attorney general. There's also an issue concerning special government attorneys.

Here's another blog post about a Georgian who wants out of EC jurisdiction.

Some ethics commissions, especially state ethics commissions, have no jurisdiction over officials once they leave office. Especially when ECs require confidentiality regarding complaints until probable cause is found, this lack of jurisdiction allows officials to resign before their unethical conduct becomes public. And it allows officials to evade enforcement.

Government lawyers enjoy exceptions to transparency laws. Should they also be excepted from government ethics laws? Atlanta senior assistant city attorney Robert N. Godfrey thinks so, according to an article in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

After all the problems San Diego pension boards have had with conflicts of interest (see my blog post from November 2009), one would think they would be extra-sensitive to further conflicts. But, alas, not in this case.

The tendency of local government ethics codes to limit conflicts to financial interests is one of my pet peeves. A current matter in Tacoma shows the downside of this limited definition of interests that can conflict.