I just obtained <a href="http://www.northhaveninfo.org/resources/RI+Memo.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">the Rhode
Island Ethics Commission's memorandum</a> in support of its
jurisdiction over legislators, which was contested by the former state

Sports and other event tickets are a constant issue in local government
ethics. Yes, mayors are often expected to attend major events, but who
else is? Why should city ownership of a facility matter in handing out
tickets? The ownership is not the officials' or employees', but the
citizens'.<br>
<br>

I was in Chicago for the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws annual
conference for a week, which
is why I haven't been blogging lately. I was there when Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested, so the arrest and the tales of
selling a Senate seat and blackmailing the Chicago <span>Tribune</span> are old news now. But there are
a couple of interesting facts about the situation which have been
largely ignored.<br>

<p>Cities across the United States are creating and expanding Ethics Commissions, Ethics Offices and Inspector Generals in order to fight corruption and establish higher ethical standards for their governments. I will be posting some of the best ideas from these programs on this site. If you have comments on what is written, good, bad or just a stray idea, please comment! Carla Miller, president, City Ethics.</p>

<cite>It is useful to establish some working definitions for the key words that we need to be using in addressing ethical issues. Here are some workable definitions for these terms:</cite>
<h2>TRUST</h2>

Type the word "ethics" into the<a href="http://www.birminghamal.gov/&quot; target="”_blank”">
Birmingham, AL website</a> search box and nothing comes up. Nor can you
find the city's ordinances. Mayor Larry Langford bills himself as a
great reformer, but he certainly hasn't done anything to reform the
city's ethics laws, or at least to let anyone know about them. In fact,
according to the City Ethics site, the ethics ordinance and board used

There are two principal ways of dealing with gifts to government
officials and employees, and both of them are unsatisfactory, although
certainly better than ignoring them completely. One approach is prohibition, the other disclosure.<br>

In Saybrook, IL, two members of both a sportman's club and a village
board of trustees resigned their sportman's club membership so they
would have no conflict voting on annexation of the club by the village.
According to <a href="http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/11/29/opinion/letters/134290.tx…; target="”_blank”">a
letter to the editor</a> of the Bloomington Pantagraph, the two members reserved

According to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/23/AR20081…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the Washington Post</a> this week, a politics professor,
David E. Lewis, looked at the Bush administration, comparing agencies
run by political appointees and those run by career bureaucrats.
Although the appointees tended to be better educated and very

A Nevada court found yesterday that the state ethics commission did not
have jurisdiction over a state senator on grounds of legislative immunity,
even though the state constitution has no Speech or Debate Clause. The
judge gave the senator a preliminary injuction to prevent his having to
appear before the ethics commission next week. No decision is available
yet, but the judge did say that the state constitution would have to be
amended for the ethics commission to have jurisdiction over a state
legislator.<br>