<h2>"Every lie is an exception we carve out for ourselves."</h2>

--Bill Curry, columnist for the Hartford <i>Courant</i>, former councillor to President Clinton and gubernatorial candidate in Connecticut. From his March 11 column on the Libby trial and lying among politicians.

According to <a href="http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070331/NEWS0201/7033… article in the <i>Tennessean</i></a>, the Tennessee House passed a bill that would allow lawmakers ten days to correct 'errors' in their campaign finance disclosure forms once the Registry of Election Finance warned them of problems.

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/254">an earlier blog entry, </a> I took the side of the Louisiana Board of Ethics in its dispute with the state legislature over whether it has jurisdiction over legislators who participate in debate when they have a conflict of interest. In another case, which the Board of Ethics lost on appeal, I feel the Board of Ethics was wrong, and I feel it is instructive to say why.

It is not enough to reform a city's ethics program. One must also let the world know about it. Most municipalities reform their ethics in a vacuum. They might look at a nearby town or city, or two, but the people in charge rarely know what is happening elsewhere, what are the norms and what are the latest reforms. This is one of the reasons we have put this website together.

With apologies to Louisiana, since this week I've already focused on its legislators' dispute with its Board of Ethics, I'm going to return to the state to discuss a situation where local government ethics can make a great difference.

Who should and who should not sit on elections commissions? Other than land-use commissions (and, sadly, ethics commissions), elections commissions are probably the most abused in terms of membership.

Those who have been closely following the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration may know that one of them involves a U.S. Attorney who did not move fast enough with an investigation into possible kickbacks relating to the building of a county courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Laws are highly over-rated. This is one reason why the City Ethics Model Code Project is not just about codes, but the centerpiece of a wide-ranging discussion of all the issues involved in creating, improving, and maintaining local government ethics programs.

We have been doing a lot of research into the scene in Iraq, and in doing so, I have formed an opinion regarding what single form of corruption has been the most significant in creating the situation there...
It is the selection of people for roles there based on political persuasion, rather than demonstrated competence in the required field. Of course other things have occurred that warrant mention, but in all cases, the <b>sheer stupidity</b> of some of those actions stems in most cases from the complete incompetence of the people assigned to the tasks.

A former chancellor of Maricopa Community College in Phoenix, Arizona continued to work for the college on contract, while also having a business on the side that did business with the college on a no-bid basis. The business was set up by the college when he was chancellor and was given to him a few months after he retired.