States and Municipal Ethics

It's amazing how powerless powerful politicians can be. Take New Jersey state senate president Stephen M. Sweeney. According to an article in the Courier-Post, Sweeney is not only senate president, but also director of his county's council (called the board of freeholders), as well as regional director of a union.

Why is he both senate president and freeholders director...

Image by Joe Wu

Following up on the previous blog post, here is the first of two examples of local government ethics matters involving anonymity outside of an internet context.

An article in Thursday's Bangor Daily News discusses a state ethics commission investigation into anonymous...

In my recent blog post on Maricopa County, I referred to the problem of harassment and intimidation by government officials against other government officials and employees. I have also referred in the past to the even more serious problem of harassment, intimidation, and ad hominem attacks by government officials against citizens. There is a new sort of fear...

Most local governments leave open meeting and public records matters to the state. But often the slowness and expense of the state enforcement process, as well as weaknesses in state law (e.g., too short a period for noticing agendas, vague guidelines on filling FOI requests), can mean that open meeting and public records laws are insufficiently effective or are ignored.

Historically, enforcement depends largely on the news media, but with their cuts in budget and staff, they are...

A government official's relationships -- to family, employer, business -- are very important to determining whether conflicts exist. Both the type and the directness of each relationship are also important.

Here again are the basic facts of the situation in Cincinnati that I will be using to touch on a variety of issues (see the previous blog post for a list...

There was a fascinating editorial in the Waterbury (CT) Republican-American yesterday. The editorial turns anti-government anger against the idea of a local government ethics program, and yet it has some valuable things to say about government ethics. Here's an edited version of it: