Contractors and Vendors

Applicant disclosure is an effective part of local government ethics that is usually ignored. Usually it is officials who are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest, either in the form of annual disclosure statements, revised when circumstances change, or in the form of announcements that they have a potential conflict and are withdrawing from involvement in a matter.

The principal burden should be on officials, but placing an additional burden on applicants -- such...

Republican candidates in Cumberland County, in southern New Jersey (pop. 150,000), are pushing for several ethics reforms, including some fresh ideas.

According to an article in the Press of Atlantic City and an article on nj.com,...

Jacksonville's ethics commission continues to explore interesting and valuable ideas, according to an article this week in the Jacksonville Financial News & Daily Record. At the first meeting of the commission's new procurement subcommittee, loopholes in the bidding process were discussed.

In May I wrote a blog post about a so-called ethics emergency in Corpus Christi, declared by a lame-duck council at its last meeting. This so-called emergency was the excuse for pushing through ethics reforms without running them by the city's ethics commission or allowing public discussion. The new council quickly suspended the reforms, pending review by the ethics commission.

At least that was the excuse the new council used...

"I have counseled many individuals and companies grappling with investigations, but this is the first time I've provided this type of advice to a municipality." When I saw this quotation in the National Law Journal, I thought, "Yeah, that's because municipalities aren't investigated, people are."

This quote is from David Laufman, former federal prosecutor and partner in the large law firm...

One of the principal reasons I have devoted myself to local government ethics is that the ethical habits of government officials and politicians are usually formed at the local level. Politicians who become accustomed to a poor local ethics environment bring their values to state and federal government.

The saddest side of this is that many politicians learn at the local level that running on an anti-corruption platform is a good way to get elected, but that once elected, ethics...