Conflicts

It would be easy to say that politics is a team sport, like football,
while ethics is an individual sport, like tennis. But this simply isn't
true. Both ethical behavior and unethical behavior can be done as a
team.<br>
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Today I came across the <a href="http://www.mrsc.org/index.aspx&quot; target="”_blank”">Municipal
Research and Services Center of Washington</a> (State) website. MRSC is
"private, non-profit organization based in Seattle," whose mission is
"to promote excellence in Washington local government through
professional consultation, research and information services."<br>
<br>

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? In English: Who will guard the guardians? This
is a question many people ask about ethics commissions. But the
question I would like to raise is, Is this the right question to ask?<br>
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Unions are paid for by union members, business associations are paid
for by businesses, but local government associations are paid for by
taxpayers, not by local governments. And yet while unions represent
members, and business associations represent businesses, local government
associations represent local governments. This setup is asking for trouble.<br>
<br>

One thing I have scarcely mentioned in my blog are ethical rules
related to a local board or commission when it is acting in a
quasi-judicial manner. I mentioned the common-law conflicts in such
circumstances in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/court-decision-focuses-reasons-behind…; target="”_blank”">a
recent
blog post</a>, as well as the absolute immunity given to the

Some lawyers abuse or misrepresent the lawyer-client privilege and
client confidentiality to protect their own unethical conduct. But no
one does it better than elected government
officials who also happen to be lawyers, and have the ability to draft ethics laws.<br>
<br>

One way of describing government ethics is that it involves the use and
abuse of the power that goes with government officials' positions. Not
all such abuses are covered by ethics laws, of course. This blog post looks at an
instance of abuse that is not covered. It involves a state
legislature and, especially, one state representative, in a state where local ethics is handled at the state level.<br>
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Since my <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/787&quot; target="”_blank”">exchange</a>
with an attorney for the Michigan Townships Association in June, I've
been wondering about the inherent conflicts involved in local
government associations. The bottom line is, Is there any relationship
between who sits on the boards of such associations and laws such as

One thing I've failed to do in this blog is sufficiently emphasize that
making
ethical decisions in government is not primarily about being a good,
ethical person, as most people seem to think. Essentially, it is the
same as making other
decisions. As <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/character-and-government-ethics&quot; target="_blank">I 
recently wrote</a>, "with effective training, in an

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20brooks.html">David
Brooks' column</a> in the New York <i>Times</i> today is about two views of
character, the philosophers' and psychologists' views. He too simply portrays
the philosophers' view as involving ingrained character traits, which is sadly
how most people seem to view character. I would call this the
mythological view of character.<br>