There's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR20090…; target="”_blank”">a
great article</a> in Friday's Washington <span>Post</span> about Pres. Obama's ethics
guru, Norm Eisen. It provides an excellent picture of what it means to
be an ethics adviser, which is summed up in Eisen's nickname, Mr. No.<br>
<br>

Every time I check up on Jackson County, MO, I find something more
that's shameful, if that word can be used anymore. This time a blog
sent me to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU7v94chDeM&quot; target="”_blank”">a You
Tube video of the county legislature</a> passing the new ethics

Anonymous complaints are both important and problematic. Without
anonymous tips and hotlines, our justice system would not work nearly
as well as it does. With ethics programs, officials involved in
unethical conduct often have great power in the community, and the
people who know what they are doing are often the very people most
vulnerable to their retribution.<br>
<br>
And yet there is an air of cowardice around anonymous complaints,
possibly even moreso now that people make anonymous attacks on public

It's amazing how quickly a legislature can move when a bill is so
embarrassing, the state's major newspaper calls it "Great for unethical
public
officials. Lousy for taxpayers." How quickly? Same day service.<br>
<br>
This just happened in Alabama, according to <a href="http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/03/alabama_senate_panel_rewrites.html&…; target="”_blank”">an

In many states without state enforcement of local government ethics,
the compromise position pushed particularly by local government
officials is to have the state mandate local ethics codes, but let
local governments decide what's right for them. The motto of this
position is, "One size does not fit all."<br>
<br>
Size does matter, but not nearly as much as is often asserted. A strong
ethics code is right for every size town or county. Larger cities and

<big><big>BY SUSAN COOPER EASTMAN</big><br>
<span>February 3, 2009</span><br>
</big>This cover story is reproduced with permission from Folioweekly
magazine<br>
See: <a href="http://www.folioweekly.com">www.folioweekly.com</a><br&gt;

<b>Update below</b> (August 19, 2009)<br>
Here's a recipe for conflicts of interest. Create a new kind of county
commission to hand out grant money. Require that commission members
include <span class="vitstorybody"><span class="vitstorybody">representatives
from public and private agencies that handle the very services the
grants are intended for. Stir until frothy.<br>
<br>

One of the biggest obstacles to ethics reform in some U.S. states and
Canadian provinces is the possibility of state enforcement of local
ethics. For example, in Connecticut, there has been talk for years at
the state level about either having state enforcement or state
requirements. Even though it has all been talk, and the towns and
cities have successfully talked it down, the same town and city CEOs
have said that it's silly to talk about local ethics reform when

Two months ago, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/608&quot; target="”_blank”">a
blog entry </a>about the en masse resignation of the Jackson County
(MO) ethics commission, and said that this was a sign that things were
seriously wrong in that county. Little did I know.<br>
<br>

Lawyers are supposed to zealously represent their clients. After all,
Canon 7 of the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility says, "A lawyer should represent a
client zealously within the bounds of the law." This requirement applies as much to government lawyers as it
does to private lawyers, right?<br>
<br>
Actually, zealousness does not really have a place in the practice of government law. The limits on zealousness by government
lawyers was just confirmed by a New York lawyer