In the news

I recently wrote about the problem of having a toothless ethics commission in a Connecticut city. According to an article in yesterday's Danbury News-Times, it's good that another Connecticut municipality's ethics commission is toothless.

But the story has less to do with teeth than it has to do with what government ethics is all about. It's that word "ethics" again. Ethics is about good...

Last October, I wrote a blog entry about why parties should fight elections, not referee them. An indictment this month in Kentucky emphasizes the need for the election process to be taken out of the hands of those contending for the results of that process.

The controversy surrounding the New York State pension fund returned to the front page of the New York Times today. The players are former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, his political adviser Hank Morris, and pension fund investment officer David Loglisci.

The occasion is the indictment by the state attorney general of Morris and Loglisci, along with charges brought by the SEC. The...

In third world countries, corruption is said to grease the wheels of commerce. We don't like to believe that this is true in the U.S., and we certainly don't have to grease the palms of ordinary government employees in order to get any service.

But what would happen if pay-to-play were truly brought to its knees?

There's a great article in Friday's Washington Post about Pres. Obama's ethics guru, Norm Eisen. It provides an excellent picture of what it means to be an ethics adviser, which is summed up in Eisen's nickname, Mr. No.

Government ethics appears to move slowly, but Eisen's working life is so far primarily a series of emergencies. That means the ethics...

Every time I check up on Jackson County, MO, I find something more that's shameful, if that word can be used anymore. This time a blog sent me to a You Tube video of the county legislature passing the new ethics ordinance, which I discussed in a blog entry earlier this week. Eight minutes of parliamentary procedure and slapping each other on the back...