This year, the Rhode Island ethics commission, which has jurisdiction
over local governments, has been bouncing around the issue of conflicts
of interest relating to local officials' involvement in 
negotiations with a union, where they or their spouse is a member of a
different local union that shares the same umbrella union and, often,
the same negotiators and some of the same funds. The public statements
on this issue, from representatives of unions and good government

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/location-cogel-meets-midst-serious-un…; target="”_blank”">a
recent
blog post</a>, I listed the suits filed by Maricopa County's
sheriff Joe Arpaio and county attorney Andrew Thomas against other
county officials during the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws conference
right in the heart of Maricopa County.<br>
<br>

The ethics commission for the largest American city, and the only one
with a truly appropriate title — New York City's <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/conflicts/html/home/home.shtml&quot; target="”_blank”">Conflicts
of Interest Board</a> — is appointed by the city's extremely strong
mayor, with council approval.<br>
<br>
If this old and highly respected EC were to be made independent of the

Here's a tough call. It's a few weeks before a primary election, and
you (a local ethics commission member or staff member) learn that a
candidate has violated an ethics code provision, and hidden it
via a false disclosure. Do you act or do you sit on your hands until
after the election?<br>
<br>
Often this sort of problem arises when a complaint is filed by an opposing
candidate or party member, that is, when the filing is politically
motivated. But what should an EC do when there is no outside

I talk a lot about the importance of independent ethics commissions.
But independence is not always a good thing for local government boards
and commissions. Independence without oversight, transparency, and independent
ethics enforcement easily turns into someone's fiefdom.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://m.freep.com/news.jsp?key=555951&rc=ne&p=1&quot; target="”_blank”">an

End runs around ethics and campaign finance laws are one of my favorite
topics to write about. A sizeable percentage of the creative energies of
government officials and their attorneys seems to go into coming up
with ways of getting around these laws. And then arguing that such laws are
of little value since you can't plug loopholes as fast as they can invent
them.<br>
<br>
The <a href="http://www.cgs.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">Center for Governmental

<br>
Standard of proof is a big issue in ethics enforcement, as it is in
any enforcement. A year and a half ago, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/452&quot; target="”_blank”">a blog post</a> on the
mishmash of standards of proof in local ethics codes and in the codes of states that have jurisdiction over local government ethics.
In many codes there is no stated standard or a worthlessly

<br>
While we're in North Carolina, it's worth a look at a new poll of North
Carolina citizens on their views of public corruption. The poll is from
Elon University, and was conducted a month ago.<br>
<br>

I'd like to call your attention to a new local government law
blog that, among other issues, covers government ethics. It's called <a href="http://sogweb.sog.unc.edu/blogs/localgovt/&quot; target="”_blank”">Coates' Canons: NC
Local Government Law Blog</a>, and it's a joint effort of  local
government law faculty members at the School of Government at the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Albert Coates, after whom the

There are a lot of stupid reasons for opposing ethics reform
initiatives, but an organization in Utah has <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pull%20a%20Plaxico&quot; target="”_blank”">pulled a Plaxico Burress</a>
with the stupidest of all.<br>
<br>