<br>
In memory of Albert O.Hirschman, an important economist and
political scientist who died last month, I want to apply some of the

<h4>“These are, as far as I’m concerned, the everyday things and
courtesies that are done in life.”</h4><br>

Is it enough for a local official to be "not guilty"? This is the
question that has been raised with respect to a Tamarac, FL city
commissioner who was found not guilty of bribery in December,
according to <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-01-02/news/fl-corruption-mayocol-…; target="”_blank”">a

<h4>“The remedy is he is no longer in our employ. So the next thing we
look at is: ‘Is there any harm to the city? Did the city lose money?
Did anybody steal anything?’ The answer to that is No.”</h4> <br>

The last Congress is known for doing very little, but a couple of
weeks ago it actually passed a bill that will have a serious effect on
local government ethics: <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s2170/text&quot; target="”_blank”">the

I'm a big supporter of making ethics commissions independent of
those over whom they have jurisdiction. Milton, Georgia and, now,
Forsyth County, Georgia have come up with an interesting approach to
ethics commission independence that has one good point and several
bad points.<br>
<br>
The <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/news/forsyth-county-reconstructs-ethics-board-t…; target="”_blank”">recent

It's been six years since I last wrote about local government ethics in Tennessee. In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/mc/ci/recusal&quot; target="”_blank”">a January 2007
comment to the forum on recusal</a>, I focused on the fact that
the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service
(MTAS) (which operates in cooperation with the Tennessee Municipal

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/excellent-report-recommending-ethics-…; target="”_blank”">a
blog post two weeks ago</a>, I welcomed an excellent, although
sketchy, set of recommendations by a national law firm that amounted

The death of Robert Bork is a good time to learn from the biggest mistake in his life, one that may have cost him a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. It
involved his failure to deal responsibly with a superior's conflict of
interest, and his own, since his superior forced his conflict situation onto Bork himself.<br>
<br>

<b>Update:</b> December 19, 2012 (see below)<br>
<br>
I am always amazed at what contraptions people are willing to set up
to justify the participation of a city attorney in the ethics
program of a large city or county that has sufficient resources to
hire an ethics commission staff member or independent ethics
officer. I raise this issue because controversial ethics reforms are
being voted on today by Fort Worth's council, and one of them
includes making a city attorney's ethics advice an "absolute