In Ethics Enforcement, the Criminal Process Can Be Even Less Effective Than the Ballot Box
There are three basic approaches to enforcing ethics laws:
through ethics commissions, through the criminal process, and through
the ballot box. I strongly oppose using the criminal process for ethics
violations (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/497" target="”_blank”">an
earlier blog post</a>), and feel that the ballot box is far too crude a
way to enforce ethics laws, especially considering that voters do not