Yet another court decision discussed at the COGEL conference placed
First Amendment free speech rights far above the obligations of a
government official, employing a strict scrutiny approach where a simple due process (for statutory vagueness) approach would have been sufficient. This time the official is a member of the Sparks
(NV) city council, in fact, the same council member who successfully
sued to overturn an advisory opinion of the state ethics commission in

<h4>I have abstained because some unnamed person tried to question my
integrity and silence my voice on this issue. So I was forced to ask
the Ethics Officer for an opinion, and she gave me one. She told me I
could participate in the debate and that I could actually vote on this
issue. But because we're dealing with politics, and, as Jim Maddox
always said, you can never take the p out of politics, I've got to
think and calculate down the road to see if someone would try to use my

"You say that [we are] corrupt and I'll jump over this table and punch
you out." Those are the words of Philadelphia city commissioner
Margaret Tartaglione, according to <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20101209_Tartaglione_defends_in…; target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's Philadelphia <i>Inquirer</i></a>. She was upset by a

<b>A Municipal Bid Rigging Scheme Comes to Light</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/business/08muni.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article in the New York <i>Times</i></a> this week, Banc of America Securities
(which recently merged with Merrill Lynch) agreed to pay the SEC and others $137 million to settle charges related to
a municipal bond bid-rigging scheme. For those who think competitive

This week the <a href="http://cogel.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">Council on Governmental Ethics Laws</a> (COGEL) met in Washington,
D.C. and, as usual, I learned about a lot of cases and matters I didn't
know about. I will be sharing some of the more
important of my new revelations in blog posts over the next couple of
weeks.<br>
<br>

The editorial today in the Jacksonville Times-Union is all about the recent legislation designed to improve the structure of the ethics and anti-corruption program for the city of Jacksonville.

Title: <b>City ethics: The right direction</b>
Source URL: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2010-12-03/story/city-ethics…

Many people take a character approach to government ethics. That is,
they see government ethics as a matter of integrity, and ethics training as a
matter of improving an individual's character.<br>
<br>
But the aspect of character most important to ethics is not goodness,
honesty, or integrity. It is empathy, as defined by President Obama and
discussed in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/761&quot; target="”_blank”">a 2009 blog

According to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/AP5e51ce7f65184273a8b61f3e3ad7732e.html&q…; target="”_blank”">an
Associated
Press article yesterday</a>, a New York City school principal
"didn't think there was a conflict of interest because there was no
exchange of money."<br>
<br>

Sensational local government ethics news, such as scandals, is online in minutes. Ordinary local government ethics
news, such as the appointment of a new executive director or general counsel, is covered
more slowly, if at all.<br>
<br>
For example, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission announced via <a href="http://ethics.lacity.org/pdf/pressrelease/press_111010_Ethics_Commissio…; target="”_blank”">press

<br>After being convicted of money laundering for the purpose of illegally
giving corporate money to Texas legislative candidates last week, Tom
Delay said,
"This is an abuse of power. It’s a miscarriage of justice. I still
maintain my innocence. The criminalization of politics undermines our
very system and I’m very disappointed in the outcome."<br>
<br>
I too have, on several occasions, criticized the criminalization of
government ethics. But are Delay and I talking about the same thing?<br>