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I am always fascinated at the ways in which even the most reform-minded politicians can kill ethics reform proposals that might cause them some embarrassment. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has done a great deal for ethics reform, but at least one reform bill, which on its face seems pretty minor, has apparently gotten in his craw.

It seriously undermines the public's understanding of government ethics when highly visible decisions misrepresent basic government ethics concepts. This occurred yesterday, when the Alaska State Personnel Board found that Governor Sarah Palin did not violate the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act when she wore a jacket with the logo of her husband's sponsor as the starter...

According to an article in today's Boston Globe, former Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi was indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of...

Update (9/30/09)
I tend to focus a lot on weaknesses of ethics codes, but sometimes ethics codes go too far. One reason for this is that they are usually responses to scandals that are criminal in nature, that is, scandals that do not involve conflicts of interest. Another reason is that most people don't understand that ethics codes are really conflict of interest codes, not codes that deal with all of an official's behavior. It's appropriate to have aspirational provisions that...

A three-year FBI investigation of Cuyahoga County (which includes Cleveland) appears to have begun with a sting operation involving building inspectors, where an undercover agent offered bribes, and they were accepted, according to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer...

In a  recent blog post, I wrote about the fining of the executive director of Philadelphia's board of ethics for violating confidentiality rules. That blog post focused on dealing responsibly with a possible violation of an ethics code provision (although not actually an ethics provision, but instead a disciplinary rule). Now I would like to focus on confidentiality rules and penalties in the government ethics context, and the...