Ethics Reform

<p>Huffington Post article on the 11/4 referendum...</p>

<p>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/04/tallahassee-anti-corruption_n_…;

I left out one big local ethics/election story from my blog post yesterday:  the
approval of an excellent ethics reform initiative in Oakland, with
an approval percentage of 72%, according to <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/11/04/california-election-watch-2014-bay-…; target="”_blank”">the
KQED News website</a>.<br>
<br>

<p>This was a project that was helped by Represent.US and supported by citizen groups from right to left. I worked on the drafting of the referendum language. Here is today's press release from Represent.US: On Nov. 4th, 2014, voters in Tallahassee, Florida, made history by approving the first city Anti-Corruption Act in the United States by an overwhelming 2 – 1 margin. A small but dedicated group of progressives, conservatives, and independents put aside their differences to wage a historic battle against corruption in their community, and they won.

I read something very exciting today in the April 1 newsletter of
the Ethics Section of the American Society for Public
Administration. In a short essay entitled "Living in Glass Houses:
Ethics Commissions in the United States," Stuart C. Gilman, who has
had an illustrious career both in academia and on the front lines of
ethics and anti-corruption efforts, wrote the following:<blockquote>

After ripping apart one Florida ethics "reform" bill, it's nice to
be able to say that Florida's legislative leaders are planning to
do some good things this year. According to <a href="http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Integrity-Florida-applauds-Gaetz--We…; target="”_blank”">an

Sendhil Mullainathan's new book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-ebook/dp/B00BMKOO6S&…; target="”_blank”"><i>Scarcity:
Why Having Too Little Means So Much</i></a> (Times Books) has been
getting a lot of attention lately. Although I haven't read it yet, I

Many major cities do not prohibit gifts from those seeking special benefits from the city government (restricted sources) to
family members of city officials. Such a prohibition may seem a stretch,
at least theoretically. How can a government interfere in the gifts given to an official's family members? Consider this situation, from 2011, which recently became
public.<br>
<br>

<h4>“In Albany, they’re really, really good at coming up with something
that looks like reform, and that they tout as reform, but really
falls short.”</h4><br>

In this, the third blog post on the Colorado ethics commission
situation, I would like to look at the problems that can arise from
placing an ethics code in a constitutional document, either a
charter or, as in the Colorado case, the state constitution.<br>
<br>
It is an unfortunate fact that, in many jurisdictions, legislators
are so opposed to the creation of an effective government ethics
program that the task of ethics reform can be accomplished only via
charter revision or a referendum. In other instances, ethics

<br>New Jersey has one of the oddest approaches to local government
ethics. Like several states,  including Massachusetts,
California, and Florida, a state ethics program has jurisdiction
over local officials. But unlike other states, the state ethics
program is not run by the state ethics commission. It is run by the
Department of Community Affairs.<br>
<br>