States and Municipal Ethics

There's an interesting issue at the heart of a judicial inquiry into possible misconduct by the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario. The council sought the inquiry to “investigate any supposed breach of trust or other misconduct of a Member of Council, an employee of the municipality or person having a contract with the municipality” and to inquire into “any matter connected with the good government of the municipality or the conduct of any part of its public business." In short, it is an open-ended...

Note: I completely rewrote this post after Mark Davies set me straight about the state law on which disclosure forms an official must file.

Poor draftsmanship of ethics codes can cause serious ethical problems. This is certainly true of New York Municipal Law §811(1)(b), which put Suffolk...

"Ceremonial function" is one of those terms that is found in many local government ethics codes (but not the City Ethics Model Code). However, it is rarely defined except, occasionally, in advisory opinions. The term is generally used to exclude certain gifts from being either disclosed or considered gifts at all. The result is lots of free, undisclosed tickets to sporting events, especially for mayors...

On Independence Day weekend, it's worth remembering that independence does not come cheap, and that there are some things that are more important than independence.

One of those things is the public trust. There is a serious cost to our society when government officials place their independence from ethics enforcement above the public trust, that is, when government officials insist on legislative immunity. And there is a cost to officials, too:  their trial not by a neutral body...

Honesty, although central to ethics, is not central to government ethics. The reason for this is that honesty, or falsity, is so complex, it is almost impossible to define or enforce. And first amendment freedom of speech places so many limitations on government regulation of expression short of libel (the intentional attempt to falsely destroy another's reputation). Life is full of mistakes and misreadings, half-truths and kernels of truth, and these do not constitute falsity. Honesty comes in...

Time Limitations on Ethics Proceedings in Louisiana, and Why They're Bad
The Louisiana ethics board handles ethics, disclosure, campaign finance, and lobbying for the state and for the state's local governments. It is, like all ethics agencies, understaffed, underfunded, and overstretched. So according to an article in Monday's Baton Rouge ...