Complaints/ Investigations/Hearings

It is generally agreed that it is best to preserve an ethics commission's jurisdiction over officials and employees after they quit or leave office. There are two reasons for this. One, to prevent them from escaping enforcement by quitting or leaving office. This is especially important because it can take a long time for information to come out that an ethics violation might have occurred, and for an ethics proceeding to be completed. The second reason is to allow for post-employment...

"It's a very powerful story of a public official who wanted to do the right thing, who got appropriate advice, and then ended up being punished. He was punished for doing his public duty and voting, just because a political ally was involved. I don't call that a conflict of interest. I call that democracy."

—Joshua Rosenkranz, a New York lawyer representing Sparks City (NV) council member Mike Carrigan in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of a suit attempting to overturn a censure...

In the last installment of the ongoing Stamford (CT) ethics battle, the major antagonist had reached a settlement with the ethics board, and the principal cases, both ethics proceedings and a federal suit against the ethics board and the ethics complainants, were withdrawn. But this is a grudge match, and the major antagonist, who resigned from his position as chair of the board of finance,...

Let's Not Drink to It
Yes, it has happened. Local government ethics has been compared to Prohibition.

According to an article in the Metro West Daily News on Friday, the Ashland (MA) board of selectmen sent two reported allegations of possible acts of ethical misconduct to the state ethics commission. The request sought not enforcement, but clarification. I hope by "clarification" the board meant that it is seeking advice about continuing the...

Conflicting Employment Is Nothing to Rave About
Some forms of conflicting employment are wrong to the extent that the only way to handle the conflict responsibly is to resign from one of the jobs. If this is not done, even a minor conflict can be very damaging, especially when there are already other problems. This is the case with an administrator at the Los Angeles Coliseum who worked on the side as a consultant for a company that annually produced a rave at the Coliseum.