In the news

Long Island (NY) Railroad (LIRR) retirees are many times more likely to be on disability than other rail workers, and the New York Times has been focusing on this story (click here for a page of articles and information). Needless to say, according to an article in...

"As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it? --William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, 1871

see update below

Another of Boss Tweed's famous quotations is, "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." His and other city bosses' way of controlling politics through parties led to the reform movements of the progressive era, first to the idea of a strong mayor, and then to the idea of nonpartisan town managers.
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Back in January, I wrote a blog entry focusing on the lack of transparency in the credit rating business so central to the subprime mortgage mess that has brought the world economy to its knees. Transparency, it has become clear, is all important.

The same goes for conflicts of interest. The New York Times' article on...

It's not quite civil disobedience by county officials, but Michigan's senate majority leader has asked the Attorney General to block what those officials are doing, according to an article yesterday on mlive.com (Booth Newspapers). The officials are county clerks, and what they've done is to cross-deputize each other so that college students who want to register for the first...

I've already written about the conflict of interest problems involved in the New York City term limits dispute. But now the dispute is over, according to an article on today's New York Times website: the NYC Council chose to allow current elected officials to run beyond the term limit rules approved by citizens twice...

See update and second update below
People in the government ethics field can be very arrogant. I know I can. But it's horrible to see it in action, especially when it's turned against what we commonly think of as good government.

Fred Voigt is the deputy city election commissioner for Philadelphia, and former executive director of Philadelphia's Committee of Seventy, which describes itself as "a...