Misuse of Office/Special

Update: December 2, 2009 (see below)

I have often complained about how local government officials and attorneys approach government ethics matters in an overly technical manner. Well, ethics commission attorneys can do this, too.

In terms of the language in ethics codes, I think the rule should be, If an ordinary person does not read language a certain way, an ethics commission should not read it that way. If the ethics commission feels certain language...

When I heard about the ACORN sting, when two people posing as pimp and prostitute asked for help in getting a loan to open a brothel, I thought: what would happen if a local government official and a prostitute visited a local government attorney to ask for help in giving the prostitute a contract, so that the local government, rather than the official, could pay for her services?

One big difference is that it is not legal to open a brothel, but it might be legal to use your...

A week ago I wrote a blog post about preferential treatment, emphasizing that the way to distinguish preferential treatment from ordinary decisions and transactions, where someone is commonly preferred over others, is by whether the treatment is fair and whether the regular process is followed.

Fairness is the principal issue in a preferential treatment question...

Update: 9/30/09
I was asked to do a short interview on Phoenix's NPR station KJZZ yesterday, to provide a government ethics view on issues relating to the latest battle in the uncivil war among elected officials in Maricopa County, the county that includes Phoenix. My research into what is going on raised all sorts of interesting issues. I'll deal with them in multiple blog posts.

First, what happened. County Sheriff Joe Arpaio arrested County Supervisor (effectively...

Preferential treatment is one of the most difficult ethics provisions to deal with, because it seems on its face so open-ended. Every time a decision is made, someone is preferred over someone else, whether it's a hiring decision, a contract award, or a zoning change. But if these decisions are made fairly and through the appropriate legal process, there is no preferential treatment.

Two former public works employees are in the news this week for misconduct.