New York City has had more problems with council earmarks than
Washington, D.C. (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/new-robert-s-bennett-report-dc-counci…; target="”_blank”">recent
blog post on D.C.</a>), and now the city's ombudsman has come up with a
different approach, an approach from outside the council, in fact, from
someone with no actual jurisdiction over the council. His plan shows that ethics

This month, in Portland, CT, home of the stone used to build New York City's
brownstones, the new ethics commission found that it was a violation of
the town's ethics code for the board of selectmen (the town's management board) to hire attorneys who had given campaign
contributions to the board of selectmen majority's party town committee,

Let me take a logical approach to the topic of government ethics proceeding
confidentiality before I look at what has been happening in Utah this last week.<br>

There's a lot of ethics news from San Diego today. First, the judge in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/important-local-campaign-finance-deci…; target="”_blank”">the
San Diego campaign finance case</a> has <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/archives/clarification%20order.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">clarified

<br>
<b>Update:</b> March 1, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
The political activity of ethics commission members, staff, and ethics
officers is an important topic. The issue has arisen this week with
respect to Connecticut's <a href="http://www.ct.gov/ethics/site/default.asp&quot; target="”_blank”">Office of State Ethics</a>,

Disclosure is almost always about what the public should know. But
there is another side to disclosure: what the official should know.
This is especially important in pay-to-play.<br>
<br>
The idea for this blog post came from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/magazine/21FOB-ethicist-t.html&quot; target="”_blank”">Randy
Cohen's

<b>"Really they are just trying to exercise their First Amendment rights."</b><br>
John LaRue, counsel to individuals and entities contending that San
Diego's campaign finance laws restrict their free speech rights under
the First Amendment (see my <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/important-local-campaign-finance-deci…; target="”_blank”">recent
blog post</a> on the case)<br>

Especially in small towns, bankers often have business relationships
with many people and, therefore, do not make the best board and
commission members on account of the many conflicts they have or, more
frequently, the appearance of impropriety.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20101280355&quot; target="”_blank”">an

(In a debate about a revolving door provision, also known as a "cooling
off period")<br>
<br>
<b>"You do not take pizza from the oven and put it straight in your
mouth. I believe that we should not take our
legislative service and put it right in our own mouth."</b><br>
<br>

It's worth noting two <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR20100…; target="”_blank”">Washington
Post-ABC News poll</a> questions concerning the Citizens United decision
on corporate-funded independent expenditures. Most notable is the fact
that the reaction was roughly the same across the political spectrum.
The ruling was opposed by 85% of Democrats polled, 76% of Republicans,