Robert Wechsler's blog

In the last few years, one of the biggest topics in the general area of government ethics, including campaign finance, lobbying, and transparency, has been the effect of huge campaign contributions by corporations and billionaires, which has become increasingly doable pursuant to a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

These decisions do not appear to have had as much effect at the local level as at the national and state levels. I did do...

An article today in the New York Times describes a situation that sheds light on pay to play. It involves the Westchester County (NY) county executive, who is getting special scrutiny because he is running for governor and has, throughout his career, as well as in this election, been openly critical of pay to play. He is being accused of hypocrisy, but it may just be that he does...

The former chair of the Venice in Peril Fund wrote a disturbing piece for the September 25 issue of the New York Review of Books about corruption in Venice. This corruption derived largely from a major project:  the building of flood protection barriers, known as MOSE. Although this project was larger than those in most cities, the misuse of funds, the failure to competitively...

An essay of mine has appeared in the new issue of the journal Public Integrity, a special issue entitled "Changing of the Guard: The 75th American Society for Public Administration Anniversary Symposium: Visions and Voices of Ethics in the Profession" (Fall 2014, Vol. 16, No. 4). Since the journal is published commercially, I am not permitted to share my essay with you. So I will do the next best thing: ...

This week, California governor Jerry Brown had to go back fifty years to find someone who agreed with his view of government ethics reform. According to an article in the San Diego Mercury-News, in vetoing ethics reforms that "sought to limit the types of gifts politicians can accept and force lawmakers to disclose the names of groups that...

Ethics commissions appointed by local legislative bodies, mayors, or county executives are often referred to as "independent commissions." I don't believe that these commissions should be considered "independent," because those who select the EC members are under the members' jurisdiction and, in fact, are the people most likely to come before them. These EC members are perceived as biased toward their appointing party, which is far from "independence."

According to...