The Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL), an association of
American and Canadian practitioners in the areas of conflicts of
interest, campaign finance, transparency, elections, and lobbying,
is looking into the possibility of offering certification programs
in these areas. I assume the courses would be both about the topics

Alysia Santo wrote <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Inside-Politics-No-revolving-do…; target="”_blank”">an excellent Insider Politics column in the Albany <i>Times-Union</i>
last week</a> on the need for a post-employment provision in the city that is the capital of New York state. But the
columnist went further than this, looking at some aspects of the city's

San Francisco's board of supervisors will soon vote on a number of amendments to
its lobbying code (attached; see below). According to <a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2014/05/27/chiu-lobbying-legislation…; target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i></a>, the amendments
are based on recommendations by local good government groups, which

Are those who draft local government ethics codes unusually
eccentric? Unusually clever? Or just lazy? Whichever it is, they don't
seem to consider best practices, or even the practices of better
ethics programs. Across the U.S.A., ethics code drafters seem to pull many of their provisions
out of a hat. And as with Rocky the flying squirrel, sometimes they
pull out a rabbit, sometimes a rhino, and sometimes Bullwinkle the
moose.<br>
<br>

It all started with a private meeting among three members of the
Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority board, according to <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2014-05-20/news/os-batterson-xway-d…; target="”_blank”">an
article last week in the Orlando <i>Sentinel</i></a>. The subject
of the informal meeting was the ouster of the executive director, which took

There are three interesting issues in this one minor matter,
involving a Louisiana sheriff's purchase of a house at a foreclosure
sale handled by the sheriff's office.<br>
<br>
<b>The Application of Ethics Laws to Foreclosure Purchases</b><br>
The first issue involves the transaction itself, the particular law
in Louisiana, and how more common conflict laws may be interpreted
in such a situation.<br>
<br>
Louisiana has an unusual law that deals with this sort of

Government ethics groups come in all shapes and sizes. City Ethics,
an ordinary nonprofit, has a website with huge amounts of
information about government ethics, and no financial resources. The
American Dream Initiative, a social welfare organization founded
last year, apparently has large financial resources, but no website
and no information about government ethics.<br>
<br>

Lax post-employment provisions can come back to haunt high-level
officials. They may have been thinking of their futures and those of
their close colleagues when they opposed laws that would require
them not to represent anyone before the government for a year or two
after leaving public service. But when one of their close colleagues
takes advantage of the resulting hole in the post-employment provision and becomes a lobbyist, it
reflects poorly on the high-level official in two ways. The official

A local lobbying law is only as good as its enforcement, especially
when local government leaders provide no leadership.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20140521/GPG0101/305210355/…; target="”_blank”">a
column by Scott Cooper Williams in the Green Bay (WI) <i>Press

I just finished reading a masterpiece of a novel about Nuoro, a town
in Sardinia:  Salvatore Satta's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Day-Judgment-Salvatore-Satta/dp/0374526605&quot; target="”_blank”">The
Day of Judgment</a>, </i>translated from the Italian by Patrick
Creagh. It's a very wise, witty, and sad novel. Here are a few
pearls of wisdom that shed light on local government ethics.<br>
<br>