It seriously undermines the public's understanding of government ethics
when highly visible decisions misrepresent basic government ethics
concepts. This occurred yesterday, when the Alaska State Personnel
Board found that Governor Sarah Palin did not violate the <a href="http://www.law.state.ak.us/pdf/ethics/Statutes-AlaskaExecutiveBranchEth…; target="”_blank”">Alaska

According to <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/03/dima…

<b>Update</b> (9/30/09)<br>
I tend to focus a lot on weaknesses of ethics codes, but sometimes
ethics codes go too far. One reason for this is that they are usually
responses to scandals that are criminal in nature, that is, scandals that do not
involve conflicts of interest. Another reason is that most people don't
understand that ethics codes are really conflict of interest codes, not
codes that deal with all of an official's behavior. It's appropriate to

A three-year FBI investigation of Cuyahoga County (which includes
Cleveland) appears to have begun with a sting operation involving
building inspectors, where an undercover agent offered bribes, and they
were accepted, according to <a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/05/cuyahoga_county_corruption_inv_…; target="”_blank”">an

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/756&quot; target="”_blank”">a  recent blog
post</a>, I wrote about the fining of the executive director of
Philadelphia's board of ethics for violating confidentiality rules.
That blog post focused on dealing responsibly with a possible violation of an ethics code provision (although not actually an ethics provision, but instead a disciplinary rule). Now I would like to focus on confidentiality rules and

Due to President Obama, the word "empathy" is getting tossed around a
lot lately. What interests me is that his definition of the word
"empathy" is central to what ethicists call "moral imagination." And
moral imagination is central to government ethics.<br>
<br>

Vernon, the "Dream Machine" I've written about in two previous blog
posts (<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/381&quot; target="”_blank”">1 </a>and <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/616&quot; target="”_blank”">2</a>), is back in the news.

Ottawa is currently in the grips of its mayor's influence-peddling
trial. The allegations are that the mayor tried to get another mayoral
candidate out of the race by offering him money and a federal position.
The Ottawa <span>Citizen</span> has <a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Larry+Brien+Trial+chronology/1555208/…; target="”_blank”">an

There is a bright side to the British Parliament expenses scandal. For
one thing, many M.P.'s had the fortitude to walk right by that enormous parliamentary
trough and eat at home instead.<br>
<br>
Second, Parliament showed the world how a failure to do the right thing
and do it transparently — seek larger incomes — and instead to take
public money clandestinely and then, when news started leaking out, to
deny and obfuscate, can completely undermine trust in a public
institution.<br>
<br>

<b>See update below</b><br>
What is a local government ethics commission's role when a government
official has done something illegal or unethical that has nothing to do
with the official's work in government? That's the question facing the
Knox County (TN) Ethics Committee, according to <a href="http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/may/27/ethics-panel-defers-action-loc…; target="”_blank”">an