Did you know that the District of Columbia has its own Speech or
Debate Clause? I learned this from reading the <a href="http://www.legaltimes.typepad.com/files/motion-for-protective-order-1.p…; target="”_blank”">Motion
for a Protective Order on Behalf of Mayor Vincent C. Gray</a>

Let's say you're a professional who wants to give something back to
your community by serving on a city board or commission. You open up
the newspaper and read that your mayor is saying, "It is not the
five of us commissioners who make the city great. It's the citizens
who are passionate about it, and now we're telling them, 'Sorry you
can't serve.'"<br>
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Or the mayor is saying, "On certain boards we require professional

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The participation of professionals in local government has become

Trust in government is a requirement for participation in

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I recently read an important social science classic, <b><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=XsUojihVZQcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=ha…; target="”_blank”">Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life</a></b> by

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How you present an ethics provision can make all the difference.
Take a pay-to-play ordinance proposed in Fort Wayne, which would
limit the amount of contributions and gifts that can be given to
city officials by an individual or entity if it wants to have a
no-bid contract with the city.<br>
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<br>My last post about Dennis F. Thompson's book <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Congress-Individual-Institutional-Corrupti…; target="”_blank”">Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption</a></b> is a
miscellany of interesting quotes and valuable ideas.<br>
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Study on the Effect of Allegations on Voting:  "Campaign and

Constituent service is a basic legislative role that I have pretty
much ignored in my blog (<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/425&quot; target="”_blank”">click here to read the
principal exception</a>). Government ethics focuses too much on
votes and self-serving conduct, and too little on the ways in which
council members and other government officials help their
constituents in special or inappropriate ways. Constituent service

In his book <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Congress-Individual-Institutional-Corrupti…; target="”_blank”">Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption</a></b>,
Dennis Thompson discusses two tendencies that lead to the
overlooking or obscuring of institutional corruption’s significance.
Those who bring or judge charges tend to individualize misconduct.

The <i>American Bar Association Journal</i> does a list of the best law-related
blogs each year, and I thought I'd ask my readers to help get this list to work for a good cause: getting more lawyers to learn about local government ethics. City Ethics will get nothing out of being named to the list. To
see last year's list (it's broken up into categories; City Ethics