In the news

Last week, the Kansas City, MO city council ordered an investigation into possibly unethical conduct by the city's mayor, according to an article in the Kansas City Star. The principal conduct is the use of the mayor's former communications director to work on a political campaign (not the mayor's re-election campaign)...

I just obtained the Rhode Island Ethics Commission's memorandum in support of its jurisdiction over legislators, which was contested by the former state senate president William V. Irons, as discussed in an earlier blog entry. The argument of the EC's brief is not typical, because the ethics commission and code were created pursuant to a 1986...

Sports and other event tickets are a constant issue in local government ethics. Yes, mayors are often expected to attend major events, but who else is? Why should city ownership of a facility matter in handing out tickets? The ownership is not the officials' or employees', but the citizens'.

According to an article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, the California Fair...

I was in Chicago for the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws annual conference for a week, which is why I haven't been blogging lately. I was there when Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested, so the arrest and the tales of selling a Senate seat and blackmailing the Chicago Tribune are old news now. But there are a couple of interesting facts about the situation which have been largely ignored.

Type the word "ethics" into the Birmingham, AL website search box and nothing comes up. Nor can you find the city's ordinances. Mayor Larry Langford bills himself as a great reformer, but he certainly hasn't done anything to reform the city's ethics laws, or at least to let anyone know about them. In fact, according to the City Ethics site, the ethics ordinance and board used to be on the city website, but the links no longer work...

In Saybrook, IL, two members of both a sportman's club and a village board of trustees resigned their sportman's club membership so they would have no conflict voting on annexation of the club by the village. According to a letter to the editor of the Bloomington Pantagraph, the two members reserved their right to rejoin the club after the annexation issue was dealt with. Does resigning like...