Complaints/ Investigations/Hearings

While I was away on vacation, the new, quasi-independent Office of
Congressional Ethics (OCE) was in the news a lot.<br>
<br>
<b>Going Outside of Congress</b><br>
First, it did
something that made it appear more than the paper tiger <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/721">I called it a year ago</a>.

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/comparison-two-county-ethics-initiati…; target="”_blank”">A
week ago, I wrote</a> about the weaknesses of an ethics initiative in

<b>A Good Discussion of a Possible Conflict</b><br>
It's good to see ethics discussions where both sides have good
arguments to make. According to <a href="http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100513/PUB0…; target="”_blank">an

Here's another blog post about a Georgian who wants out of EC jurisdiction.<br>
<br>
Some ethics commissions, especially state ethics commissions, have no
jurisdiction over officials once they leave office. Especially when ECs
require confidentiality regarding complaints until probable cause is
found, this lack of jurisdiction allows officials to resign before
their unethical conduct becomes public. And it allows officials to
evade enforcement.<br>
<br>

One of the biggest little problems in government ethics is the
inability to filter out very minor violations, which can be dealt with
either by dismissing the complaint or by requiring, say, an additional training
course. It is a waste of limited time and resources to investigate and hold hearings on minor
violations. An EC needs to be able to use its judgment to decide when a
violation is not worth investigating.<br>
<br>
Although it is hard to define what is a minor, or de minimis,

Let me take a logical approach to the topic of government ethics proceeding
confidentiality before I look at what has been happening in Utah this last week.<br>

Can the government ethics enforcement community learn anything from a
successful experiment in the crime enforcement field? With tongue only
partly in cheek, I will try to show ways in which the government ethics
enforcement community could learn a thing or two.<br>
<br>

Many of the most difficult situations in government ethics involve
relationships that are not direct. For example, situations where the
company that provides a benefit does not do business with the local
government, but is owned by someone who owns another company that does
do business with or have an interest in legislation before the local
government (click <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/two-case-studies&quot; target="_blank">here </a>for

Government ethics policies sometimes clash. The most common clash
involving ethics commissions is with transparency laws.<br>
<br>
Like any government body, ethics commissions would prefer not to
discuss
many sorts of matters in public, both to protect the parties involved
and
because it is uncomfortable to discuss many ethics matters in public.
Because counsel is present during most such discussions, ECs (and their
lawyers) often feel that such discussions are privileged. There are

<b>Update:</b> June 29, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
I thought I would never write about anything concerning Gov. Sarah
Palin again, but the report on an ethics complaint against her, regarding the fund created to pay the legal expenses from
her defense against prior ethics complaints, is too interesting and valuable to ignore.<br>
<br>
The report (attached;
see below) deals with two provisions that appear in most local
government ethics codes:  misuse of office and gifts. The report's