Officials and lawyers tend to act as if they were Platonists. That
is, they talk about conflicts of interest as if they existed in a
ideal form, divorced from reality.<br>
<br>
Many government ethicists, including me, see conflicts of interest
as things that exist in the real world, a world where the public
is concerned that officials seek to use their office to help
themselves and those with whom they have special relationships, such
as family members and business associates. What is odd about the

The FBI had to work hard for years to get a grand jury indictment of
former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin yesterday (a searchable PDF of
the indictment is attached; see below).<br>
<br>
A lot of what occurred could have been stopped a long time ago if
the city and state had better ethics laws and the city's ethics
board was able to initiate complaints and hold public hearings on
ethics issues that came to its attention. It appears that every time
I read the indictment of a mayor or council member, the misconduct

I learned this week that the board I administered until last July,
the New Haven Democracy Fund board (the Fund is a public campaign
financing program for the city's mayoral election), no longer has
enough members to hold an official meeting. The seven-member board
has three members, and it needs four members to have a quorum.<br>
<br>
This is an especially serious problem because there is a mayoral
election this year, and the mayor, whose responsibility it is to

<br>
It's rare to find a newspaper article that truly appreciates the
work a city ethics officer does. So I'm including the entire article
below. It's <a href="http://members.jacksonville.com/news/premium-news/2012-12-26/story/jack…
the Jacksonville <i>Times-Union</i></a>, and Jacksonville's ethics officer happens

Here's an odd ethics program rule. According to <a href="http://www.centralkynews.com/amnews/news/amn-junction-city-will-take-is…; target="”_blank”">an

One government ethics question that does not have a general answer
is whether boards of education or school systems are under the
jurisdiction of city or county ethics programs. The answer is
sometimes, but generally not.<br>
<br>
There are several reasons for this. One is that many, probably most
school systems have different boundaries than cities and counties.
Generally, these are regional, including all or parts of multiple
cities, towns, and counties.<br>
<br>

It would be really helpful if people could find recommendations for
ethics reform all in one place, but this rarely happens. Ethics task
forces and ethics commissions that ask for such recommendations from
good government groups, officials, and academics rarely make them
available to the public online. Collections of such recommendations
would be a useful resource both for those interested in government
ethics in the particular city or county, and for those elsewhere who
are considering ethics reform and looking for good ideas.<br>

It can never be said too often that the quality of a government ethics
code is meaningless. What matters is how the ethics
program actually works.<br>
<br>
Take Bridgeport, CT for example. It is the largest city in
Connecticut, with a population of 150,000. It is a poor city in a rich county, and it
has had a history of corruption, including the mayor's conviction on
federal corruption charges a decade ago.<br>
<br>

Government ethics proceedings are usually not very satisfying for
those involved. Individuals rarely get to tell the entire story from
their point of view. Nor do they profit from hearing how others saw the situation or experienced the events. The format for ethics proceedings is
similar to the criminal justice system, with charges, a prosecution,
witnesses, documents, and the ethics commission as jury. Or a
settlement is reached, the equivalent of a plea bargain, and no
story is told at all. Or no probable cause is found, and what

The musical <i>Fiorello</i>, about Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New
York City from 1934 to 1945 known for cleaning up corruption, is
being revived later this month for the Encore! series at Lincoln
Center in New York.<br>
<br>
So it's a good occasion to share the lyrics of one of the
musical's most famous songs, "Little Tin Box" (see below). The song is the
imaginings of crooked politicians about how they would explain
their high-spending ways to a judge. The lyrics are by Sheldon