Robert E. Goodin's book <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IuJRAQAAIAAJ&q&quot; target="_blank"><i>Manipulatory

David A. Marcello, the Executive Director of the Public Law Center
at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, has been keeping
close tabs on New Orleans' troubled ethics program. In 2011, <a href="http://www.law.tulane.edu/uploadedFiles/Institutes_and_Centers/Public_L…; target="_blank">he

<p>Long ago, experts in philosophy, physics, and psychology recognized that reality and perception are not as different as people used to think. And yet people continue to think it. One area where they continue to think it is government ethics.<br />
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<p>In <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/world/americas/dominican-plan-to-expe…; target="_blank">an article on the deportation of Haitians from the Dominican Republic in yesterday's New York <i>Times</i></a>, a police officer agonizes over the prospect of having to deport his best friend, a Haitian immigrant. “I have no choice,” he is quoted as saying.

<p>Last month, Jonathan Rauch published a sincere and well-written defense of political machines, entitled "Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy" (Brooking Institution Press; <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2015/political-realism">availab… free as a PDF or e-book</a>).

<p>I was fortunate today to see an American film focused almost entirely on local government ethics. Although it is an excellent film, it has not been included in City Ethics' (but not my) <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/Top10%20Ethics%20Films&quot; target="_blank">Top Ten Ethics Films</a> list or in any of the comments suggesting additions.

<p>Lee Drutman’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Business-America-Lobbying-Corporations-Politicize…; target="_blank">The Business of America is Lobbying: How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics Became More Corporate</a></i> (2015) is an excellent book about corporate lobbying at the federal level.

Last week, Edward B. Foley, who directs Election Law @ Moritz<em>, </em>Ohio
State's law school, put online <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2612001&quot; target="_blank">the
draft of a paper</a> entitled "Voters as Fiduciaries." The paper
makes the argument that voters should not be voting their personal
interests, but should instead be expressing their best judgment of

<p>Anyone who follows my blog knows that my favorite city to write about is Vernon, CA, the "Dream Machine," a city with lots of industry and no one other than city employees who might complain about what's in their backyard, or call for oversight.<br />
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<p>Philadelphia's Democratic mayoral primary this week brings the national focus on Super PACs to the local level. In that primary, which is the most important election in that Democratically-inclined city, most of the money that was spent was spent by Super PACs, not by candidates.<br />
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