Advisory Opinions

Conflicts of interest are not always positive, any more than
relationships are always positive. And conflicts are based on
relationships.<br>
<br>
We tend to think of an official using his position to help a family
member or business associate. But sometimes officials use their
position to harm someone with whom they have a negative
relationship, anyone from a former in-law (the bum who dumped my
sister) or current in-law (that woman who's driving my brother

Six years ago, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/257&quot; target="”_blank”">a
blog post</a> on apology (including full disclosure) in the
medical context. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/opinion/invitation-to-a-dialogue-when…; target="”_blank”">Today's

Court decisions, especially when combined with criminal enforcement
of ethics violations, can be very harmful to local government ethics. The court in a Monterey County case involving a serious <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/californias-contract-oriented-conflic…; target="”_blank”">§1090</a>
conflict of interest matter that officials were not only aware of,

<b>Who Should Oversee Nepotism Rules?</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Stamford-Reps-revamp-anti-…; target="”_blank”">an article in the Stamford (CT) <i>Advocate</i> last week</a>, Stamford's Board
of Representatives voted to amend an anti-nepotism bill to instead
require the city's human resources director to draft a nepotism

Some good news from California, which takes an odd, hybrid approach
to local government ethics. It has a state ethics commission (the
Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)) that has limited
authority over local officials in the areas of conflicts of interest
and campaign finance. And the state has many local government ethics
programs, which are all over the place in terms of quality and areas
over which they have authority.<br>
<br>
The first piece of good news is that the FPPC has been given the

Is it too much to ask that an ethics commission member lead the way,
set an example, with respect to the single most important aspect of
a government ethics program:  ethics advice?<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.journalnow.com/news/state_region/article_7a2ae790-27e0-11e3-…; target="”_blank”">an

When I put in the DVD yesterday evening, I did not expect the movie
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1814621/&quot; target="”_blank”"><i>Admission</i></a> (2013; written by Karen Croner, based on a novel by Jean
Hanff Korelitz, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd) to be a revelatory
movie about the mishandling of conflicts of interest situations. But it is. Not in government (it's about a university admissions employee), but

This is the second of three posts on how Richard W. Painter's recommendations for federal ethics reform in his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Government-America-Deserves-Difference/dp…; target="”_blank”"><i>Getting
the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a
Difference</i></a> (Oxford U.P., 2009), may be applied to local government ethics programs.<br>
<br>

Richard W. Painter's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Government-America-Deserves-Difference/dp…; target="”_blank”"><i>Getting
the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a
Difference</i></a> (Oxford U.P., 2009) may be about the federal
executive branch ethics program, but this excellent book also has a lot
to offer to local government ethics. This is the first of three blog

Within Election Law Center blogger <a href="http://www.electionlawcenter.com/2013/08/16/robert-wechsler-speech-regu…; target="”_blank”">Christian Adams' recent ad hominem attack on me</a> is an idea that is worth
discussing. He said that, in requiring candidate committees to come
to me for permission (what is commonly referred to as "ethics