<b>The Boss of the Ethics Director's Bosses</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.free-times.com/news/123013-government-watchdog-sues-state-et…; target="”_blank”">an

I am a proponent of ethics waivers. But only if they are provided by
an independent ethics commission. When they are provided by
high-level officials or their appointees, they appear to be
self-serving. Why self-serving? Because they create precedents that
will enable those who make the precedents to themselves get ethics
waivers.<br>
<br>
Westchester County, NY has an ethics waiver process that allows the

2013 was not a particularly good year for government ethics. This
blog started out by noting how little Tennessee's model code had
done for its municipalities' ethics programs. Early-year hopes for
improvement of New Jersey's terrible state local government ethics
program were dashed by the program's October request to renew its
rules without any changes whatsoever.<br>
<br>

According to <a href="http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/government/leopold-attorney-argues-f…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the Capital <i>Gazette</i></a>, a former Anne Arundel County
(MD) county executive, who was convicted early this year of a
misdemeanor for misconduct in office, wants to run for office again,

In 2008, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine established a special task
force to take a look at the state's local government ethics program.
In September 2010, the task force filed a report that recommended
substantial changes to the program (attached; see below). Nothing
was done.<br>
<br>
The state's local government ethics rules were set to expire in September of

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/many-reasons-why-city-or-county-attor…; target="”_blank”">a
blog post last week</a>, I listed the many reasons why city and
county attorneys should not be providing ethics advice. One of those
reasons was that "legal advice and ethics advice require different
skill sets." But I limited this part of my analysis to saying
that "A legal

Sometimes, conflict of interest matters come disguised as election
law matters. Most of the time, due to secrecy, laziness, or an
inability to draw lines between the dots, no one recognizes the
conflict of interest matter. But sometimes, someone gives the game
away, and it becomes clear how inextricable the two areas can be.<br>
<br>

Crowdfunding is a 21st-century way of funding projects that are not
being funded by the government, the stock market, venture
capitalists, or even angel investors. But it's really not as
21st-century as people think. For example, the Statue of Liberty's
pedestal was crowdfunded back in 1885 (without the Internet, the
crowdfunding was led by Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of New York
<i>World</i> newspaper).<br>
<br>
Very few local government ethics programs are funded at all, and

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/ec-vs-corp-counsel-honolulu&quot; target="”_blank”">A
month ago, I wrote</a> about some problems Honolulu's ethics
program was having with the corporation counsel. The problems have
continued. The big issue this last week has been the corporation
counsel's provision of ethics advice. So far, the argument has
primarily taken place in the form of memos.<br>
<br>

I've been writing a lot about government ethics and behavioral
psychology over the last few years. I consider some of the findings
of behavioral psychology, especially about blind spots, essential to
understanding what leads to ethical misconduct and, therefore,
essential to ethics training, ethics advice, and ethics enforcement.
But behavioral psychology has not yet been embraced by American
government ethics programs, at least as far as I have seen.<br>
<br>