ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ethicality of public officials in the United States with particular interest in probing for reasons, motivations, and circumstances that have led some to stray from and others to stay on the ethical pathway. Governing America is a complex enterprise that involves nearly 90,000 governmental units. This chapter deal with two subjects seldom joined in the literature, corruption and ethics. Ethics may be defined as values and principles that guide right and wrong behaviour. Local elected officials are certainly not immune to unethical behaviour or corrupt misdeeds. The motives for wrongdoing are often recounted as money, power, greed, and, as John Dean of the famous Watergate scandal reminds us, unbridled blind ambition. Of course, some errant behaviour occurs because of plain stupidity or ignorance. The classic role of the "representative" official who mediates and ameliorates the clash of interests may slip into the shadows.
