Many municipal ethics codes have a provision similar to this one:

<b>Contingent Fees</b>
No official or employee may retain, or be retained by, anyone to solicit or secure a contract with the town upon an agreement or understanding that includes a commission, percentage, brokerage, or contingent fee, except with respect to attorneys hired to represent the town on a common contingency fee basis.

According to a May 24, 2007 New York <i>Times</i> editorial, the Commerce Department inspector general, charged with protecting whistle-blowers, took vengeance on two subordinates who questioned his expense accounts. He reassigned his top deputy and his counsel to peripheral jobs, when they refused to sign off on expensive trips and office renovations. This happened at the federal level, but it is important to show how fragile whistle-blowing is.

If you had no knowledge of government ethics, and you were asked what, on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, was the most frequent form of unethical behavior in municipal government, you might say 'passing rumors along.' That's the meat and the potatoes of every organization's conversations, and it's only the most self-controlled of us who don't partake in producing, consuming, and passing along rumors, at least occasionally.

Today's New York <i>Times</i> Week in Review section features <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/weekinreview/24liptak.html?ref=weekin… article</a> on local prosecutors and how their ethical misconduct is dealt with by the lawyer discipline system, the profession's disciplinary system.

At first glance, these two logical fallacies don't seem to have much to do with each other.

When you beg the question, you assume something has been established or proved, according to my trusty dictionary. The way a logician would define the begging the question fallacy is that the premises include the claim or assumption that the conclusion is true, without providing any evidence or actual argument. The result is a circular argument, taking for granted what it's supposed to prove. In other words, it's no argument at all.

One great advantage of handling local government ethics matters at the state level is that decisions and advisory opinions can be easily and widely disseminated to all local governments in the state.

<a href="http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-gilesmoving0617.artjun18,0,3279… Hartford <i>Courant</i></a> gives us an excellent picture of a very creative way of making the municipal government work for you, conflicts of interest be damned.

What happened recently in Colorado makes it clear that a state constitution is not the right place for ethics laws.

Last November, an amendment to the state constitution was approved by voters, prohibiting state and local officials from accepting any gift of over $50 from any 'person.' The state Attorney General ruled that this amendment would prevent the child of a government official from a receiving a scholarship, or a state university professor from accepting a Nobel Prize.

A Test of the Picasa EMBED option for a series of photos...

So What do you think ?

We can talk all we want about conflicts of interest problems in municipal government, but it really comes down to what Tom Brokaw, the former NBC anchor, said in his Skidmore College commencement address: