Model Code

City Ethics' Model Code Project assumes that an ethics code is central to municipal ethics programs.

But this raises several issues. How important is an ethics code to an ethics program? Can an effective ethical environment be created without any sort of written ethics code? If an ethics code is necessary, should it be aspirational or in the form of a law (or, as in our Model Code, both), and if in the form of a law, should it be enforceable?