Ethics Codes

Yesterday, Philadelphia's Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform released a 58-page report (plus ethics laws) requested by the city's mayor and council president in 2008.

The report recommends a large number of reforms, most of them stricter than what exists, some of them less strict and more realistic. Here are some of the most important recommendations:

I'm back from the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) conference, and I will be sharing some valuable information from the talks and panels I attended.

In a panel on gifts provisions in ethics codes, the panel consisted not only of the usual government ethics professionals, but also a lawyer who advises and defends lobbyists and those who do business with governments. One difference in their perspectives stood out.

It's been a year since the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL), the association of state and local government ethics professionals, met in Cook County, IL. But the day before COGEL meets in Scottdale, AZ, it's time to take another look at one of America's most unethical counties, which includes Chicago.

This time the focus is on the county's townships. The problem is summed up professionally in the abstract to a paper published last year. It's called...

Is it a conflict for a council member to be an officer of a neighborhood association? This issue arose recently in Tulsa, according to an article this week in the Tulsa World.

According to an article in the Times-Herald, a Montgomery County (PA) judge ruled that the county commissioners do not have authority to prohibit employees of the district attorney or sheriff's offices from participating in political activities or running for office.

I think it's safe to say that a local government ethics "first" has occurred in Montgomery County, Maryland. A transgendered council aide has filed a complaint against the county ethics commission on the grounds that the EC investigated her because of her gender identity, according to an article in...