Booms and busts are common not only in a financial system. They are
also common in government ethics.<br>
<br>
Booms are when things are good, when local politicians seem worthy of
our trust. Busts are when we find out that things aren't what they
seemed. In other words, when there's a scandal.<br>
<br>

Who is covered by an ethics code can be very important. In Baltimore,
for instance, as I wrote in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/706&quot; target="”_blank”">a recent blog entry</a>, the
city solicitor has interpreted the ethics code to require disclosure of
gifts only from companies doing business with the city, not from their
owners, officers, or employees.<br>
<br>

Government officials should, I think, focus more on what their actions
teach Americans. In effect, each of them is teaching an ongoing civics
course.<br>
<br>
For many years, Congress have been giving us a course on how
self-regulation in the ethics sphere simply doesn't work.<br>
<br>

It had to happen soon:  a legislative immunity defense has been
used in a local government ethics matter, albeit in a city where violations
are criminally prosecuted. I happened upon it in my research on my last
blog entry, about the Baltimore mayor's defenses of her taking gifts
from a city developer when she was president of the city council.<br>
<br>

<b>Update below</b>:<br>
The controversy in Baltimore over the mayor's acceptance of gifts from
a developer whose companies have received a great deal of funding from
the city appears now to be focused on whether or not the mayor was required to disclose these gifts, since the developer did not personally do business with the city.<br>
<br>

One of the principal reasons I have focused my energies on local
government ethics is that most people learn their government ethics at
the local level. What they see people doing on councils and zoning
boards, they do on state legislatures and commissions, and then again
at the federal level.<br>
<br>
But things go the other way, as well. Disdain for government ethics at
the state level can affect the ethics environments of that state's local
governments. This appears to be happening in Missouri.<br>

According to <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=2009…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the Tulsa <span>World</span></a>,
last week the city's Ethics Advisory Committee (EAC) ruled in favor of
one of its members, Michael Slankard, with respect to an advisory
opinion request by the city attorney. This situation raises several

Last month, the Georgia Senate unanimously passed <a href="http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/fulltext/sb96.htm&quot; target="”_blank”">a
bill</a> requiring every local governing body (including school boards) to create an ethics panel to
hear complaints regarding at least members of the local governing body and, in counties, elected constitutional
officers.<br>
<br>

The word is out:  if local government officials don't want to file
financial disclosure statements, all they have to do is <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/447&quot; target="”_blank”">resign en masse</a>
and whoever wrote the ethics code will not only rewrite it, but will
say all sorts of warm, wonderful things about them.<br>
<br>

Broward County (FL), home of Ft. Lauderdale, is working on ethics
reform, something Ft. Lauderdale itself did in 2007. Today, according
to <a href="http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/04/john…; target="”_blank”">a
piece</a> on the <span>Sun-Sentinel</span>
Broward Politics website, a county commissioner will be introducing a