According to <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20090526_Ethics_board_fines_…; target="”_blank”">an
article on yesterday's Philly.com website</a>, the Philadelphia Board
of Ethics fined its executive director $500 for violating the
confidentiality rules of the city's ethics code. The story is
instructive in how to handle such difficult matters. (Disclosure: I

One of the big stories in government ethics this week involves an attempt in
Tennessee to consolidate the state ethics and campaign finance
commissions, which on its face sounds like a good way to save money
during these tough times. But when politicians deal with ethics laws
and bodies, things are rarely that simple, especially when the state's ethics director is fired in the midst of the debate.<br>
<br>

There are many perils of an inadequate local government ethics code, as can be seen in Colorado Springs, which passed an ethics
code in 2007. Last week, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/747&quot; target="”_blank”">a blog entry</a> about the
new ethics commission's first complaint. Even before the ethics

<big>"As far as I'm concerned I never
connect anything I do in government with fundraising. I never have."</big><br>
<br>
—Illinois Governor Pat Quinn after it was learned that, in the midst of
his seeking serious ethics reform, including campaign finance reform, his

To those who read <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/713&quot; target="”_blank”">my
recent blog entry</a>, it will come as no surprise that, yesterday, the
Nevada Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the District Court's ruling
in the Nevada legislative immunity case (the Order of Affirmation, in
searchable form, is attached to this blog entry below).<br>
<br>

<span></span>Loyalty is a virtue that is out
of place in government, because loyalty is a personal virtue, a virtue
that involves one's own personal interest and that of the person one is
loyal to.<br>
<br>
Loyalty is a particularly difficult issue for local government
attorneys, because loyalty is essentially the principal virtue
for attorneys. Attorneys' conflicts of interest involve interests that
get in the way of complete loyalty to a client.<br>
<br>

The two best defenses against dealing responsibly with a conflict are
that the local government attorney told me it was okay, and I didn't
know there was a conflict. The first can be dealt with by getting the local government
attorney out of the government ethics picture. But the second requires
something few local government ethics codes require: applicant
disclosure.<br>
<br>

It's not easy to make ethics training enjoyable, so it's good to see how other people have tried. According to <a href="http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=209480118&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article in </a><span><a href="http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=209480118&quot; target="”_blank”">Human

<b>Updates below</b> (latest on August 11, 2009)<br>
There's an interesting situation in Colorado Springs. According to <a href="http://www.gazette.com/articles/city-53971-mayor-marshall.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an

Yesterday, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held oral arguments on the
appeal of the RI legislative immunity decision. I want to focus on two
important issues that arose in the oral arguments, according to <a href="http://www.projo.com/news/content/SUPREME_COURT_ETHICS_05-14-09_BLEC7F3…; target="”_blank”">an