In the news

Brief Bio:

<p>Carla Miller was interviewed by Gregg Fields for a labcast recently. Here's the description from the Ethics Lab website:</p>

<blockquote>Can independent and local government ethics commissions reduce political corruption? Journalist Gregg Fields interviews Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Network Fellow Carla Miller about putting the heart back into government ethics training, and how a shift towards local government ethics initiatives may create an avenue for citizens to have an impact at the state level and beyond.</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.cityethics.org">City Ethics</a> president,
Carla Miller, worked with <a href="http://www.integrityfl.org/">Integrity

<cite>This Editorial ran in June after the passing of a comprehensive
package of ethics reform bills in the Jacksonville City Coucil.</cite>
<h1>Ethics: This progress was historic</h1>
<b>Posted:</strong>June 19, 2011</b><br>
<p>Jacksonville residents have this self-image that we have a
progressive government. But consolidation was more than 40 years ago.</p>
<p>In creating a strong culture of ethics in city government,
Jacksonville has been left behind - until now.</p>

Update: The bill (2010-616) was passed unanimously by the Finance Committee on Tuesday, leaving it on the consent agenda for next Tuesday's full City of Jacksonville Council meeting: 11/23/2010 @ 5pm<br>

There is a situation involving a Cincinnati council member that touches
on many important government ethics issues, which I will deal with it
in multiple blog posts over the next couple of days. In this post, I
will set out the basic facts and the issues.<br>
<br>
The council member works for a development company owned by his father
and his uncle, but has no ownership interest in the firm. The firm owns
or has development rights to nine properties within three blocks of a proposed

When the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives says, "the
American people don’t care about process" in <a href="http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/transcript-of-pelosi-presser/">a
news
conference</a> (the context was the process surrounding the health
care bill), this topic, which is central not only to government ethics,
but to our legal and political system, is worth focusing on.<br>
<br>

Today's NY Times has an interesting article on the "<i>honest-services fraud</i>" statute:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/us/07honest.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=joun%2… (URL may require subscription)

Ethics is a funny thing. So is character. If you violate a law, you're
unethical beyond redeem, and your character is worthless. It's so
worthless, that you have no right to talk about ethics or character,
even though you've been through the ethics grinder and have thought
about it far more than the average person.<br>
<br>
This is the situation that faces Eliot Spitzer. Nearly every article
about a lecture he gave on Friday at Harvard's Safra Foundation Center