On Friday, the <a href="http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/14CED111-9ACE-4040-BDAF-7CF75F…; target="”_blank”">Louisville
ethics
commission found that a council member intentionally violated</a>

<a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-568.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">The
Supreme Court reached a decision today</a> in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/search/node/carrigan&quot; target="”_blank”">the <i>Carrigan</i> case</a>,
and it is nearly unanimous. However, it deals with only one part of the

Last week, Wisconsin taught us the lesson that even when you go to great lengths
to ensure a nonpartisan, independent ethics body, there will be
politicians who accuse it of being partisan when it makes decisions
against their interests. The good thing is that, when the body is truly
nonpartisan and independent, these politicians look ridiculous. But often there is a serious confusion among nonpartisanship, bipartisanship, and independence with respect to the selection of ethics body members. It is important to understand the distinctions among them.<br>

I don't write about Jacksonville much, because my colleague at City
Ethics, Carla Miller, is the city's ethics officer. She has been
working hard to ensure that the city's ethics commission is given more
authority and independence, and that the city's ethics laws are
improved. This week, the council will be moving closer to approving, or
undermining, reforms.<br>
<br>
Instead of giving my opinion of what she is seeking, which is basically

The dream of every ethics commission is to have a guaranteed budget.
But it is not really a dream for two reasons. One, there are ethics
commissions with guaranteed budgets. And two, it is a reasonable policy
that can be countered only by a local legislative body's need for
control. This blog post will look at the arguments for and against a
guaranteed budget, as well as several examples of and approaches to
guaranteeing budgets for ethics commissions and similar independent
bodies and agencies.<br>
<br>

It's important for ethics commissions to be prepared for the occasional
official who, along with his or her attorney, will do anything to stop
or at least delay its investigation, including attacks on the EC itself. A
good example of how relentless an official can be is John J. O'Connor,
now former head of the SUNY Research Foundation, whom I wrote about in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/classic-example-closed-fiefdom">a

With the "big news" this week being the sexting of Rep. Anthony Weiner, it
seems appropriate to write about a piece I came across on the
i-sight.com website entitled "<a href="http://i-sight.com/investigation/do-workplace-fraud-investigations-lead…; target="”_blank”">Do
All
Workplace
Fraud Investigations Lead to Porn?</a>" The piece

It's nice when something you write about in a blog shows up on the
front page of the New York <i>Times</i> the following day. Yesterday, in a
post called "<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/privatization-and-transparency&quot; target="”_blank”">Privatization
and Transparency</a>," I discussed new types of privatization involving
nonprofits, which raise new sorts of problems. One type of nonprofit

I've written a little about ethics issues involving quasi-governmental
entities and private entities doing government work (<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/jurisdiction-and-oversight-over-nonpr…; target="”_blank”">oversight</a>,

<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/57039333/Hogan-Report-on-RF&quot; target="”_blank”">A
report on the relationship between New York's state university system
(SUNY) and the SUNY Research Foundation (RF)</a> was published
yesterday. What makes it of interest to this blog is the way the report
emphasizes the personal nature of the management of the foundation,
which distributes nearly a billion dollars a year in research grants