Ethics Commissions/Administration

Outside Ethics Commission Members
According to an article in yesterday's Salisbury (MD) Daily Times, the mayor of Snow Hill (pop. 2400) has decided to look outside his town for members of an ad hoc ethics commission to deal with an ethics complaint arising from a zoning appeals board decision.

When people support ethics programs that feature toothless enforcement, reel off the names of the countries that support toothless enforcement of the UN Convention against Corruption (according to an article in this week's Economist):

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...

I recently critiqued the new Michigan model local government ethics ordinance. Mark Liss, a council member in Michigan alerted me (and the world in his blog) to the new model's similarities with the...

Update: November 16, 2009 (see below)

On Sunday, the Lexington Herald-Leader took an unflattering look at Kentucky's legislative ethics commission. As in New York State, a central problem appears to be the commission's lack of independence.

“Unless you out-and-out stick it in your pocket and walk away, everything’s legal.”
--Spokesman for the New York State Board of Elections