The first antitrust probe of the municipal bond market began in November, and except for one article from Bloomberg, it has been entirely ignored.

Local government attorneys have special conflict of interest problems. Should there be ethics rules particularly aimed toward them?

Gerald Ford's passing revives the memory of one of the least remembered parts of the story of the Watergate affair: the pardon of Richard Nixon.

Remembering the pardon is important because it shows two important things about government ethics enforcement. First, how ethics rules are enforced is more important than the rules themselves. If rules are enforced with vengeance or if rules are enforced mechanically, they will not be respected except by those who desire vengeance instead of justice and those who do not understand the need for flexibility in enforcement.

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<p>Robert Wechsler is the Director of Research-Retired for City Ethics.</p>

This is the place to discuss additional conflict of interest provisions. Below are some comments added at the end of 100, but there are several more such provisions that can be found in ethics codes. What are your thoughts about and experiences with other conflict provisions? How do you think it is best to deal with city attorney conflicts when those conflicts are not dealt with clearly in their rules of professional conduct?

False statements are a means of unfairly manipulating a situation in one's own favor. Please share your thoughts about this problem and your experiences with attempts to solve it through an ethics code or otherwise.

Many officials face a conflict every evening they have a meeting scheduled: between their obligation to attend a meeting of a board they sit on and their desire to do one of a number of different things. Many officials choose something else often enough that it has an effect on the board's effectiveness.

Please share your thoughts about this provision, and your experiences with problems involving meeting attendance and various attempts to deal with these problems.

There is a lot of talk about courtesy in politics, but most discourtesy involves lack of respect and uncontrolled emotions on the part of officials in their relations with each other. It becomes an ethical problem when citizens are attacked in order to intimidate them and others from being involved in local politics. The conflicting interest here is central to democracy: participation in government. False personal attacks are a favorite means of decreasing participation and citizen oversight.

Complicity with and knowledge of violations are two minefields it is worth crossing. They involve not only dotting the i's, but they also go right to a central element of responsibility: are you responsible for what others do, especially when you are involved or you let it happen. So much of what happens in any organization involves knowingly letting others -- especially subordinates -- do the dirty work.