Ethics Codes

Four current attempts at ethics reform show the incredible variety of
approaches and ideas of what government ethics is.<br>
<br>
<b>Prohibiting County Employees from Contracting with the County</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/articles/2010/10/12/local//local02.txt&q…; target="”_blank”">an

Three years ago, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/284&quot; target="”_blank”">I
featured Memphis in a blog post</a>, noting that, in the last six
years,
66 government officials, employees, and contractors had been found guilty of
various sorts of government-related crimes. Last year, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/816&quot; target="”_blank”">I noted that the city's

<p>Below are the opinions of two candidates running in a primary for a
seat on the Effingham County, GA commission, which perfectly present
two very different views of local government ethics, one
pseudo-religious (people are good or bad), the other professional
(people
need guidance):</p>

Honesty, although central to ethics, is not central to government
ethics. The reason for this is that honesty, or falsity, is so complex,
it is almost impossible to define or enforce. And first amendment
freedom of speech places so many limitations on government regulation
of expression short of libel (the intentional attempt to falsely
destroy another's reputation). Life is full of mistakes
and misreadings, half-truths and kernels of truth, and these do not
constitute falsity. Honesty comes in more shades of gray than a

A capable individual decides to run for city council against an
incumbent who has been on the council since long before the mayor got
involved in politics (in other words, the incumbent owes nothing to the
mayor and is in no way under the mayor's control). The mayor asks a
former mayor to try to convince the candidate to drop out of the race,
and allows the former mayor to offer the candidate an unpaid position
on a city commission.<br>
<br>

I am conducting a national research study on government ethics programs with a focus on training. This research is being done in connection with the Ethics Center of the University of North Florida. Cities across the U.S. are being studied as to their ethics program structure, training requirements and training methods.

New York State's new comptroller (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/excellent-description-unethical-envir…; target="”_blank”">an
earlier blog post</a> about the prior comptroller's ethical problems)
has recently produced a report based on an audit of 31 New York local

<br>
I don't usually use examples from Congress, but this one is too good,
and instructive. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/health/policy/13pharm.html&quot; target="”_blank”">yesterday's
New
York <i>Times<i></a>, Billy Tauzin, when he was a Louisiana congressional
representative, started two hunting clubs, whose memberships included

Should ethics commission members follow ethics laws to the letter, and
no further, or should they provide leadership and a role model by going
beyond legalism and instead acting ethically? State EC members in New York and
Georgia are telling the world by their actions and their words that only the letter of
the law matters in government ethics.<br>
<br>

What do clean water laws have to do with government ethics laws?
According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17water.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an article in
today's New York Times</a>, there are three connections. One, the water
in Scottsdale, AZ, where government ethics professionals just
congregated for a conference, has high amounts of arsenic in it.<br>
<br>