I've written several blog posts about the criminal trials of a
Baltimore
council member and the former Baltimore mayor, focusing on their
successful legislative immunity defenses (<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/463">1</a&gt; <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/problematic-baltimore-legislative-imm…;

In the Indiana Secretary of State race, the headlines are all about
voter
fraud. But the bigger problem, I think, involves the failure of one of
the candidates to differentiate himself from his seat on the Fishers
city council.<br>
<br>

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

Many jurisdictions have a rule that disallows the filing of an ethics
complaint against an elected official within so many days before an
election. The purpose of such a rule is to prevent the abuse of the
ethics process for political purposes. But is this the best
solution to this problem?<br>
<br>

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/do-ethics-commissions-have-jurisdicti…; target="”_blank”">Two days ago, I wrote</a> about a Louisiana lawyer-legislator who is arguing
that disclosure rules should not apply to lawyers, because the practice
of law is regulated by the state supreme court. The story behind an
indictment in New Jersey this week makes a strong argument for applying

<b>Update:</b> October 15, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
Decision-makers are given too much credit. Most individuals who vote on
government matters are non-professionals who are paid little or
nothing, and who rarely focus on the matters before their body. They
are, therefore, very dependent on staff members who are professionally
trained and who are paid to focus on the matters before the body.<br>
<br>

Lawyer-legislators are extremely creative people. The latest use of
their creativity is to argue that ethics boards cannot require
disclosure of a conflict of interest that arises from legal
representation because they have no jurisdiction over the practice of
law. Only the state Supreme Court has that jurisdiction.<br>
<br>
The lawyer-legislator in this matter is state senator Rob Marionneaux
of Louisiana, a state whose ethics code applies to local governments.

<b>Update:</b> October 8, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
There's a fascinating ethics controversy going on in Stamford, CT which
raises a number of issues involving time limits, the enforcement of declarations of policy, intimidation, and the roles of ethics commissions and inspectors general.<br>
<br>

Two years ago, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/569&quot; target="”_blank”">a
blog post</a> about a book by Lewis Hyde entitled <i>The Gift</i>, which had a
lot to say, philosophically, about gift-giving and -receiving, an issue
of relevance to government ethics. I just

<b>An Active EC Is a Good Thing</b><br>
Local officials often say that because there are no
complaints to or advisory opinions by their ethics commissions, their town
or city government does not have ethics problems. Actually, it's the other way
around. Local governments with active ethics commissions, especially
dealing with advisory opinions, are more likely to have healthy ethical
environments. It shows that people trust the ethics commission, it
shows that people are thinking about ethics issues, and it supplies