New Ethics Journal Makes a Splashy Debut

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The measure of a state's public integrity laws -- campaign finance, lobbying, and ethics codes -- is not whether they restrict a cup of coffee, but how clearly and comprehensively they cover the variety of ethics decisions facing state officials and private interests in the course of daily life in state government. The inaugural edition of Public Integrity Annual (PIA), published in April by the Council of State Governments and the American Society of Public Administration, provides insight and information on such decisions.

PIA offers a timely look at the state of state ethics laws and includes a study by Marshall R. Goodman, Timothy J. Holp, and Karen M. Ludwig that ranks the relative strength of legislative ethics law. The rankings, which may surprise many observers of …