Take this short survey on public financing of elections

Public Campaign Action Fund is running this short survey about public financing of elections and the Presidential race and would appreciate your filling it out. Information about the survey is here.

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2007 National Government Ethics Survey released by the Ethics Resource Center

On January 29th, the Ethics Resource Center released the National Government Ethics Survey (NGES). 774 federal, state and local government employees were interviewed by telephone for NGES from June 25- August 15, 2007. From its press release:

" Slightly less than one-third (30%) of federal workers surveyed believe their organizations have well-implemented ethics and compliance programs, which ERC has found greatly reduce the incidence of misconduct. Only one in 10 said there is, indeed, a strong ethical culture in their federal workplace. But the results were considerably less impressive at the state level (where only 14% saw strong ethics programs and a mere 7% perceive a truly ethical culture) and in local government (where the figures were 14% and 9%, respectively).

Almost two thirds of local government employees (63%) said they observed at least one type of misconduct in the previous year. At the state level, the rate of reported misconduct was 57%, while 52% of federal workers had witnessed ethics breeches. In the aggregate, 57% of public servants surveyed had observed misconduct in the past year. There has been no improvement since ERC's last survey of government employees in 2005, and the rate is worse than that of the biennial survey in 2003.

Local government had the highest level of workers who witnessed misconduct but did not report it – 34%. That compares with 29% at the state level and 25% within federal agencies. "

This free downloadable report requires registration with ERC. Also, related webcasts, articles and other information is available at http://www.ethics.org/.

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Ask the presidential candidates where they stand on reform issues

Common Cause is forwarding a Midwest Democracy Network survey to all of our major presidential candidates, asking them where they stand on some political reform issues. If you would like to participate, please go here. Common Cause says in its email action alert:

" The presidential candidates have gone on the record with their plans for health care, their ideas to improve the economy and their strategies for dealing with Iraq.

But, despite repeated requests, only one of the remaining candidates has answered the Midwest Democracy Network's questionnaire about democracy and government reform. "

Thanks for taking action!

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Transparency International Surveys/ Indices

Transparency International reports annually on government corruption on a country-by-country basis. I have distilled their rather byzantine presentation of their latest reports from their website onto All Things Reform's Google Notebook, entitled "Feb. 24, 2008 All Things Reform blog post: Transparency International Surveys/ Indices". I focused on the United States results.

Transparency International, the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption, brings people together in a powerful worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world. TI’s mission is to create change towards a world free of corruption.

Transparency International challenges the inevitability of corruption, and offers hope to its victims. Since its founding in 1993, TI has played a lead role in improving the lives of millions around the world by building momentum for the anti-corruption movement. TI raises awareness and diminishes apathy and tolerance of corruption, and devises and implements practical actions to address it.

Transparency International is a global network including more than 90 locally established national chapters and chapters-in-formation. These bodies fight corruption in the national arena in a number of ways. They bring together relevant players from government, civil society, business and the media to promote transparency in elections, in public administration, in procurement and in business. TI’s global network of chapters and contacts also use advocacy campaigns to lobby governments to implement anti-corruption reforms.

Politically non-partisan, TI does not undertake investigations of alleged corruption or expose individual cases, but at times will work in coalition with organisations that do.

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