Faida Hamdy was a
municipal inspector in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. She was not a very
respectful municipal official. So when she found that a young fruit
vendor did not have a license, she slapped him. She humiliated him
in front of others. The fruit vendor set
himself on fire, and this set the Arab world on fire, because the
same sort of disrespect from government officials was felt throughout
the Arab world. Disrespect
is a very powerful thing. And so is respect.<br>
<br>

I talk a lot about poor ethics environments, probably the single most
important element in unethical conduct. But since loyalty is the
strongest force in such environments, a great deal of work is done to
hide the existence of poor ethics environments. After unethical conduct
is discovered, it is rare for anyone to set out just how bad things
were.<br>
<br>
But sometimes things are so bad, it becomes clear that there aren't

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/confidentiality-after-officials-resig…; target="”_blank”">My
last blog post</a> raised an interesting question. When an annual
financial disclosure form (or, in some jurisdictions a special

It is generally agreed that it is best to preserve an ethics
commission's jurisdiction over officials and employees after they quit
or leave office. There are two reasons for this. One, to prevent them
from escaping enforcement by quitting or leaving office. This is
especially important because it can take a long time for information to
come out that an ethics violation might have occurred, and for an
ethics proceeding to be completed. The second reason is to allow for
post-employment restrictions. But many ethics codes ignore this best

What politicians say about a government ethics issue is sometimes so devoid of a basic
understanding of government ethics that it's hard to believe that they
are not being willfully ignorant (i.e., not discussing ethics matters
with ethics professionals) or cynically disingenuous. If only there
could be some requirement that, before an official opens his or her
mouth to say something about government ethics, he or she actually
discussed the matter with someone who does understand it. Not any

<br>
According to <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/way-back-machine-rough-boy…; target="”_blank”">an
article in today's New York <i>Times</i></a>, this allegorical neoFlorentine

<h2>"It's a very powerful story of a public official who wanted to do
the right thing, who got appropriate advice, and then ended up being
punished. He was punished for doing his public duty and voting, just
because a political ally was involved. I don't
call that a conflict of interest. I call that democracy."</h2> —Joshua
Rosenkranz, a New York lawyer representing Sparks City (NV) council
member Mike Carrigan in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of a suit attempting to overturn a

This is a very serious blog post, but I want to start it with a game.
Here are the headlines of stories that are said to be "related" to <a href="http://www.wltx.com/news/article/125997/2/UPDATE-Politicians-Pay-Fines-…; target="”_blank”">an
article on the WLTX website yesterday</a> relating to local government
ethics in South Carolina:<br>
<br>
<ul class="">

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/stamford-antagonists-reach-settlement…; target="”_blank”">the
last
installment</a> of the ongoing Stamford (CT) ethics battle, the
major antagonist had reached a settlement with the ethics board, and
the principal cases, both ethics proceedings and a federal suit against
the ethics board and the ethics complainants, were withdrawn. But this

<b>A Clever Use of Government Employees for Political Purposes</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/01/2092632/role-of-transit-workers-i…; target="”_blank”">an
article
in the Miami <i>Herald</i></a>, it appears that the mayor of
Miami-Dade County, currently facing a recall election, is playing a
clever little game that involves the use of government employees for