Lawrence Lessig, who heads the Safra Center and hosted the event,
started by defining institutional corruption as:
<blockquote>A situation where influences within an economy of influence tend to
weaken the effectiveness of an institution, especially by weakening
public trust of the institution.</blockquote>

Proximity rules are common to local and state government ethics
codes nationwide (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/231&quot; target="”_blank”">my
blog post on them</a> from five years ago). They require officials
to withdraw from any matter dealing with property within a certain
distance of property they own or rent, no matter how many others have property within the same proximity. <br>
<br>

On Saturday, I attended a one-day conference on Institutional
Corruption sponsored by the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard
University (<a href="http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid59085832001&quot; target="”_blank”">videos
of it will eventually appear here</a>). Although local government
was scarcely mentioned (there was one image of a painting that
portrayed the 1930s machine in Kansas City, MO), many ideas that

In November 2010, Broward County, FL voters approved an ethics code
for officials of the cities in the county (the code also applies to
the county commissioners). The code finally became effective January
2, 2012.<br>
<br>
Three cities in Broward County (home to Ft. Lauderdale) have put referendum questions on
the January 31 ballot seeking to strike the applicability of

Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote an excellent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/sunday-review/hard-truths-about-discl…; target="”_blank”">op-ed
piece for the New York <i>Times</i></a> last Sunday. It was about
disclosure, more specifically about the way disclosure sometimes
neither leads to more transparency, nor prevents what it is intended
to prevent. In the government ethics situation, that would mean

It's not every day that a neighboring town makes <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/connecticut-police-officers-…; target="”_blank”">the
front page of the New York <i>Times</i></a>. It's especially surprising when
the reason is, at heart, a local government ethics problem.<br>
<br>

The <i>Blind Men and the Elephant</i> is an ancient Hindu fable that illustrates the tendency for a person to think that he has grasped the whole of a situation when, in fact, only a part of it is understood. This will be shown to be the case with government ethics programs based on a study of twelve municipalities of varying populations in the United States. It is a global concern that, as a result of inefficient, wasteful and corrupt dissipation of limited resources, services are diminished and the public trust lowered.

Stephen Colbert has been doing a great job satirizing the current
federal campaign finance situation. He has especially made a mockery
of the Super PAC, a means of allowing individuals and entities to
make unlimited contributions to a candidate's campaign under the
guise of independent expenditures. Colbert has shown how weak the
rules on collaboration are, how the Super PAC is effectively, if not

As I near the end of writing my local government ethics book, I am going
over local government ethics codes looking for unusual, but valuable
provisions to include in a special section that follows my discussion of the
run-of-the-mill provisions.<br>
<br>
I would like to share one of these provisions that is truly worth thinking about. It appears in the <a href="http://www.colocode.com/windsor/windsor_00b.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">Windsor, CO

<h1>What’s missing from new Jacksonville ethics office? Money</h1>

<div>
<h2>No budget or staff yet, despite being adopted by City Council last summer.</h2>
</div>

<div><strong>Posted:</strong> January 17, 2012