Ethics Commissions/Administration

It appears that Jackson County (MO) legislators will allow the county ethics commission to have jurisdiction over them, after a very ugly series of incidents, including the resignation of the entire ethics commission and the false presentation of the jurisdiction issue at the meeting where the new ethics code was passed, just a couple of months ago.

One thing that keeps striking me about the recent decisions in the legislative immunity cases relating to government ethics is how little they attempt to distinguish cases outside the ethics field from these cases in the ethics field.

Is government ethics no different from criminal prosecution, no different from civil suits?

Recently, the Connecticut Task Force on Municipal Ethics discussed a draft report. Neither in the report, nor in the discussion, is there anything about ethics training, the independence of ethics commissions, or financial disclosure. Advisory opinions were not included in the draft, but...

How often should ethics commissions meet?

The usual answer to that question is, As often as they need to. But how often is that?

Local government officials often defend halfway ethics reforms by saying that they're just the beginning, and that something is better than nothing. But halfway reforms are often effectively little more than nothing, especially in the area of enforcement. "Window dressing" is one term for such reforms. "Paper tiger" is another.

Requiring supermajority votes by ethics commissions to find probable cause or a violation is probably the best obstacle elected officials can place in the way of effective ethics enforcement. This is especially true of the probable cause phase, if there is one.