Misuse of Office/Special

Canadian mayors don't appear to be having a good time of it lately, ethicswise. Montreal's mayor resigned, Toronto's mayor was dismissed by a judge, and now it looks like the conflict situations of Winnipeg's mayor will be his downfall if he runs for a fourth term, according to...

Yesterday, at the annual conference of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL), the only association of state and local government ethics professionals, Judge Anthony Wilhoit was given the COGEL Award, which is given annually to someone who has "made a significant, demonstrable, and positive contribution to the fields of campaign finance, elections, ethics, freedom of information or lobbying for a significant period of time." As the executive director...

Between the American Thanksgiving holiday and throwing out my back so that I couldn't sit at my computer, I missed one of the most fascinating stories of the year:  a judicial dismissal of Toronto's mayor for a conflict of interest violation. The conflict situation was minor, but the way the mayor handled it and the way Toronto's ethics...

A situation that arose recently in Atlanta shows how important it is to require applicant disclosure of relationships with local government officials, and to hold applicants accountable. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta's ethics office dismissed allegations that a council member had sponsored and voted on a no-bid contract when...

It's been a few years since I wrote about the problems with the partisan, or "bipartisan," administration of local elections. One thing that arisen from this year's election is a strong feeling that it is high time that New York City's Board of Elections be reformed. Hopefully, this process will get a great deal of publicity, and become a guide for other communities.

The principal problem in New York City, as in...

Intimidation is, I believe, the worst kind of ethical misconduct in government, because (1) it limits or changes participation of people in the democratic process, (2) it is emotionally damaging, and (3) it enables all sorts of ethical misconduct. Intimidation is a fundamental form of misuse of power and position. (For more about intimidation, see the section of my book on this topic...