There's <a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/07/13/2333236/embry-texas-gop-dems-us…; target="”_blank”">a
good
opinion piece</a> by Austin <i>American-Statesman</i> columnist Jason
Embry this week on the political use of ethics complaints. The
instances of abuse of the ethics process is what has led many
jurisdictions to prohibit any mention of filing an ethics complaint and

Here's an interesting modern spin on an old-fashioned nepotism/conflict
of interest matter. According to <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/98382569.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an article
in Tuesday's Milwaukee <i>Journal-Sentinel</i></a>, the husband of a member of
a charter school's board was hired to teach at the charter school, and
there is disagreement over whether there is a conflict or not.<br>

A failure to deal responsibly with one's conflicts of interest has
ramifications beyond the loss of public trust, and all the serious
problems that arise from this loss. This failure can also lead to
litigation and the overturning of actions by local government officials.<br>
<br>
A good example of this can be seen in the case of <a href="http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca/docs/Spring10/35274.htm&quot; target="”_blank”">Rissler v.

<b>A Poor Approach to Being Ethical</b><br>
It's great when candidates talk up acting ethically. But it's going too
far, and setting a bad precedent, when a candidate takes a lie-detector
test in which he says that he never engaged in unethical activities in
private- or public-sector work, <a href="http://moultrieobserver.com/local/x1671040400/Candidate-takes-lie-detec…; target="”_blank”">as

I recently wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/false-statements-elections&quot; target="”_blank”">a
blog post about a false statements in elections law</a> in Ohio, and
the problems with enforcing such laws. I have often written about the
problems with self-enforcement of ethics laws. In the Wisconsin case of
a state supreme court justice's misrepresentations in an election ad, the two

There's an interesting issue at the heart of a judicial inquiry into
possible misconduct by the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario. The council
sought the inquiry to “investigate any supposed breach of trust or
other misconduct of a Member of Council, an employee of the
municipality or person having a contract with the municipality” and to
inquire into “any matter connected with the good government of the
municipality or the conduct of any part of its public business." In

<b>Note:</b> I completely rewrote this post after Mark Davies set me straight about the state law on which disclosure forms an official must file.<br>
<br>

There is nothing more important in local government ethics than timely,
independent, professional ethics advice. And there is no bigger problem
in local
government ethics than poor ethics advice, especially that given by
local government attorneys who (1) do not have a full understanding of
government ethics, especially the fact that its rules are minimum
requirements, which means that a strict interpretation of the language is inappropriate in providing ethics advice, (2) are

How many wrongs does it take to make a right?<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-wasserman-rubin-resigns-cha…; target="”_blank”">a
<i>Sun-Sentinel</i>
article</a>, a county commissioner in Broward County, home
of Ft. Lauderdale, resigned on Tuesday after being arrested on seven

A situation in the city of Alameda, CA once again points out that government officials dealing with the possibly unethical conduct of other government officials is
not a good thing.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/07/MNT31EAP1D…; target="”_blank”">an
article today in the San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i></a>, the city of Alameda