Conflicts

The death of Robert Bork is a good time to learn from the biggest mistake in his life, one that may have cost him a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. It
involved his failure to deal responsibly with a superior's conflict of
interest, and his own, since his superior forced his conflict situation onto Bork himself.<br>
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<b>Update:</b> August 18, 2012 (see below)<br>
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There is a longstanding pattern of scandals in the cities that the
Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) chooses for its annual meeting. COGEL was in Chicago when Rod Blagojevich was
arrested, and in New Orleans when Rep. Jefferson was re-elected despite the bribery
charges against him (they held). COGEL stayed in the D.C. hotel where then
mayor Marion Barry had just been arrested.<br>
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According to <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/12/47352.htm&quot; target="”_blank”">Courthouse

A poor and disconcerting judicial decision on local legislative immunity came
down on May 24 from the U.S. District Court for the District of
Kansas, <a href="http://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dct-order-dismissing-indi…; target="”_blank”"><i>Kickapoo
Tribe</i> v. <i>Black</i></a>.<br>
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Here's an interesting conflict situation from San Mateo County, CA.
According to <a href="http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=11284&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's <i>Almanac</i></a>, prosecutors are investigating
the selection by two school boards of a project architect
for construction projects at the same time that the project

Proximity rules are common to local and state government ethics
codes nationwide (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/231&quot; target="”_blank”">my
blog post on them</a> from five years ago). They require officials
to withdraw from any matter dealing with property within a certain
distance of property they own or rent, no matter how many others have property within the same proximity. <br>
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Stephen Colbert has been doing a great job satirizing the current
federal campaign finance situation. He has especially made a mockery
of the Super PAC, a means of allowing individuals and entities to
make unlimited contributions to a candidate's campaign under the
guise of independent expenditures. Colbert has shown how weak the
rules on collaboration are, how the Super PAC is effectively, if not

“The concern with potential corruption does not stop just because
the relationship has entered the bedroom.’’<br>
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For those of you who think my blog needs a little spice, this is a
good ice breaker. These are the words of Kathay Feng, head of
California Common Cause, spoken at a meeting of the Fair Political
Practices Commission, California's state ethics commission, which

One thing jumped out at me from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/earth/04pipeline.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article on the front page of the New York <i>Times</i> today</a> that
deals with a common government ethics situation. The situation
involves a lobbyist hired because he had a close personal and
professional relationship with the head of a department that had to

Let's say you're a professional who wants to give something back to
your community by serving on a city board or commission. You open up
the newspaper and read that your mayor is saying, "It is not the
five of us commissioners who make the city great. It's the citizens
who are passionate about it, and now we're telling them, 'Sorry you
can't serve.'"<br>
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Or the mayor is saying, "On certain boards we require professional