I recently wrote about the problem of having a toothless ethics commission in a Connecticut city.
According to <a href="http://www.newstimes.com/ci_11960785&quot; target="”_blank”">an article</a>
in yesterday's Danbury <span>News-Times,</span>
it's <i>good</i> that another Connecticut municipality's ethics commission
is toothless.<br>
<br>
But the story has less to do with teeth than it has to do with what

Last October, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/544&quot; target="”_blank”">a blog entry</a> about why parties should fight
elections, not referee them. <a href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2009/03/19/17/clayindict.source.prod_a…; target="”_blank”">An
indictment this month</a> in Kentucky emphasizes the need for the

The controversy surrounding the New York State pension fund returned to
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/nyregion/20morris.html&quot; target="”_blank”">the
front page of the New York <span>Times</span></a>
today. The players are former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, his
political adviser Hank Morris, and pension fund investment officer
David Loglisci.<br>
<br>

Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, <a href="http://www.campaignfinanceinstitute.org/states/pdf/CFI_to_IL_Jt-Legis-C…; target="”_blank”">testifying</a>
to the Illinois legislature's Joint Committee on Government Reform this
week (Illinois is one of five states with no limits on campaign
contributions; it requires only disclosure. It is also a leading state

In third world countries, corruption is said to grease the wheels of
commerce. We don't like to believe that this is true in the U.S., and
we certainly don't have to grease the palms of ordinary government
employees in order to get any service.<br>
<br>
But what would happen if pay-to-play were truly brought to its knees?<br>
<br>

There's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR20090…; target="”_blank”">a
great article</a> in Friday's Washington <span>Post</span> about Pres. Obama's ethics
guru, Norm Eisen. It provides an excellent picture of what it means to
be an ethics adviser, which is summed up in Eisen's nickname, Mr. No.<br>
<br>

Every time I check up on Jackson County, MO, I find something more
that's shameful, if that word can be used anymore. This time a blog
sent me to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU7v94chDeM&quot; target="”_blank”">a You
Tube video of the county legislature</a> passing the new ethics

Anonymous complaints are both important and problematic. Without
anonymous tips and hotlines, our justice system would not work nearly
as well as it does. With ethics programs, officials involved in
unethical conduct often have great power in the community, and the
people who know what they are doing are often the very people most
vulnerable to their retribution.<br>
<br>
And yet there is an air of cowardice around anonymous complaints,
possibly even moreso now that people make anonymous attacks on public

It's amazing how quickly a legislature can move when a bill is so
embarrassing, the state's major newspaper calls it "Great for unethical
public
officials. Lousy for taxpayers." How quickly? Same day service.<br>
<br>
This just happened in Alabama, according to <a href="http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/03/alabama_senate_panel_rewrites.html&…; target="”_blank”">an

In many states without state enforcement of local government ethics,
the compromise position pushed particularly by local government
officials is to have the state mandate local ethics codes, but let
local governments decide what's right for them. The motto of this
position is, "One size does not fit all."<br>
<br>
Size does matter, but not nearly as much as is often asserted. A strong
ethics code is right for every size town or county. Larger cities and