When does an interest become an interest? When an official starts
thinking about entering into a contract? When she starts negotiating
the contract? When she agrees on the details? When she actually signs
the contract? Or is this not really the question to focus on?<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/129576&quot; target="”_blank”">an article in

Sometimes a conflict of interest can help a community save money. An
official with a relationship to a company might be able to negotiate a
better deal for his town, as long as his company gets the business and
the credit. But is this legitimate, and even if it is, how should it be
handled?<br>

Sometimes it's very difficult for a government official to deal with a
conflict of interest involving a member of his or her immediate family.
The common approach to ethics is to assume that an official will favor
a family member, but sometimes an ethics law can take an official out
of the uncomfortable position of having to reject a family member. And
sometimes the situation with a family member can have elements of both.<br>
<br>

A troubling <a href="http://www.kmov.com/video/index.html?nvid=285793&shu=1&quot; target="”_blank”">KMOV
television news report</a> from Missouri (yes, another story from
Missouri) has caught fire on right-leaning blogs. A self-styled Obama
Truth Squad has been formed in Missouri, consisting of city and county
prosecutors and sheriffs, who intend to set the record straight in

A year and a half ago, I <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/234&quot; target="”_blank”">started
a series of blog entries</a> on logical fallacies and their use in
municipal politics. Logical fallacies are pseudo-arguments that
consciously or unconsciously attempt to falsely persuade or manipulate
people. They treat people as means rather than as ends, manipulating
their thoughts, their feelings, their prejudices, their loyalties for

A difficult aspect of government ethics is the percentage of a company
that must be owned by a government official in order for there to be a
conflict of interest. The figure chosen for ethics codes is usually 5%.<br>

The most serious obstacle to the acceptance of conflict of interest
programs in government is the clash between government ethics' use of a
rules-based (deontological) ethical approach, and government officials'
use of an ends-based (teleological) ethical approach.<br>
<br>
It's not that these two approaches necessarily require different values
or decisions, it's that they don't speak the same language, and they
judge each other by different standards. In addition, the ends-based

We have something more than a credit crisis. We have a governance crisis.

According to the new <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/110458/Trust-Government-Remains-Low.aspx">Ga… Governance poll</a>, only 26% of Americans are satisfied with the way this nation is being governed.

In 2002, the number was 59%. As recently as early 2007, the number was 42%. This is a bigger drop than the stockmarket. Perhaps our nation belongs in moral bankruptcy court.

Here is an editorial from today's Salt Lake City <i>Tribune </i>about the state of the
state's ethics laws</i>. I've read
editorials like this before, but this one sounds unusually hopeless. After the editorial, I will throw out an idea about how to go about getting politicians to make the right sort of ethics pledges.<br>
<br>

The current economic crisis provides an important opportunity for government
ethics professionals. It takes our eyes out of the trees -- individual government
officials' conflicts of interest -- and lets us see the forest. <br>