Blogs

According to a press release from the American League of Lobbyists, the association that lobbies for lobbyists, the membership has voted to change its name and "brand" to the Association of Government Relations Professionals.

It's good that lobbyists do not run election campaigns, because their branding is pretty blind. The acronym for their new name is going to be, whatever they may say,...

In early 2009, I started out a blog post, "Type 'ethics' into the search line at utah.gov, and all that comes up is Archery Ethics Course Online." That is no longer true. In fact, the state legislature not only has an ethics commission, it even passed a local ethics commission act. And in response to that act, some Utah municipalities have set up ethics commissions or hearing officers, and one group in Davis County is even at...

A front page article in today's New York Times involves allegations of self-censorship by Bloomberg News. But in addition, it tells a very important story about government ethics.

The article says that the Chinese government has retaliated against news organizations, including the Times, for writing about one subject:  the private wealth and interest of Chinese government officials. Violence against minority groups, the poisoning of exported food products,...

Ethics commissions are often stuck with one or more ethics provisions that they are know are, in some ways, irresponsible. They can recommend amendments to the provisions, but the legislative body is free to ignore such recommendations.

If this happens, an EC is not always powerless. It can often promulgate a regulation that can interpret the language in a provision, or provide exemptions, so that the provision is more responsible. The Massachusetts EC, which has jurisdiction over...

Many local ethics programs are caught up in an ongoing battle with the city or county attorney. Usually this battle goes on behind the scenes. But in Honolulu, due to an unusual grant of budget oversight to the corporation counsel, this battle has gone public.

Toward the end of a video of the November 4 meeting of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the committee vice-chair says that the testimony he heard was very "troubling." I felt the same way about the meeting as a whole, but for completely different reasons. What occurred at this meeting is as troubling as anything I have seen in seven years of following local...