Misuse of Office/Special

A recent action by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the city of Harvey, IL, a poor city of 30,000 just south of Chicago, deals with a different sort of fiduciary duty than the usual government ethics case. In a complaint dated June 24, 2014 (attached; see below), the SEC alleges that the city's comptroller acted as financial adviser in three bond issues for a hotel development, diverted some of the funds to himself, and also diverted funds to the city's general fund. The...

The Washington state Legislative Ethics Board has been discussing how many meals a state legislator should be able to accept from lobbyists and lobbyist-employers under the "infrequent" meals exception in the state ethics code. The exception allows legislators to accept food and beverage when their attendance is "related to the performance of official duties" on "infrequent occasions." The board has apparently never defined "infrequent."

It's About Perceptions
This...

An individual who was asking me government ethics questions recently became angry when I said that codes of conduct that go beyond conflicts of interest are outside of my field. He said that those who engage in bad conduct will probably also engage in bad ethics. He referred to my exclusive focus on conflicts of interest as "compartmentalization."

This reminded me how important it is to make it clear why government ethics programs deal exclusively with conflicts of interests and...

Thinking in terms of risk is a great way not to take responsibility for your actions, including your inactions. As soon as you start thinking about the chances that, overall, you might win or lose from a transaction, you have begun thinking in terms of your personal interest. This makes it very difficult to think in terms of the public interest.

You have also begun thinking in terms of consequences rather than in terms of rules. And it is rules, not consequences, that underlie the...

It's been six years since I last wrote about how asset forfeiture is a serious temptation to engage in ethical misconduct. I was planning to write about it again in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the subject, Kaley v. United States, when I read that, according to...

It all started with a private meeting among three members of the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority board, according to an article last week in the Orlando Sentinel. The subject of the informal meeting was the ouster of the executive director, which took place at the next formal meeting.

But after an...