Misuse of Office/Special

Mike DeBonis's article in the Washington Post last week describes an operatic ethics matter, with several twists and complications, with dramatic cries of innocence mixed with scathing accusations of guilt. The article is certainly more exciting than this blog post...

What role does humor play in a government ethics program? It looks like this is the principal issue in a Broome County, NY ethics case. According to an article put up yesterday afternoon on the Gannett Pressconnects website, the chair of the opposing party's county committee has written a letter to the county ethics board regarding the...

This is the last of four blog posts on Florida Senate Bill 606 (attached; see below), one of the worst ethics reform bills I have ever read.

The Florida League of Cities was deeply involved in drafting these supposed ethics reforms, which I criticize in my last three blog posts. The question needs to be asked:  Was the League acting for its members as officials representing the public interest or...

Some jurisdictions have an ethics provision entitled Prestige of Office that, among other things, limits work that officials can do outside of government. Here is the language that the Baltimore school district uses (this is essentially the same as the city government's Prestige of Office provision, but with the addition of the phrase "public position," which turns it into a basic misuse of office provision):

An official may not intentionally use the prestige of office or public...

According to an article in the New York Times this week, dozens of New York City, as well as Nassau and Suffolk County, police officers were arrested for grand larceny relating to a scheme to fraudulently get disability pensions through Social Security. It is somewhat like the Long Island Railroad disability scam I wrote about in...

It's Not the Dead Bodies, It's the Living Ones
"He knows where the bodies are buried at Metro." According to a local mayor as quoted in an article yesterday in the Surrey North Delta Leader, this is an important qualification for someone going from Metro Vancouver (BC) treasurer to lobbyist for the company that runs the local landfill. It just so happens that the mayor's town is working with...