in Houston, Texas

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Emmett's crusade for ethics reform began last fall when he saw that the county ethics policy had not been updated since 1994. He began to lobby his colleagues for some changes.

County officials wrangled with some form of an ethics mandate for a while. A citizens’ ethics reform task force was formed, featuring a number of local residents with some background in community service and standards. What was arrived at fell short of what members of the panel wanted.

“There were some questions as to what would apply (to the new ethics mandate) and it became apparent that implementation was going to be one step at a time,” said E. William Barnett, one of the five members on the task force. “We never got to a point where we had one particular issue in the county before us. The basic point we wanted was disclosure.”

Another task force member, Rice University political scientist Robert Stein, said bluntly: “I got a sense that no one wanted to really have this conversation. When you look at the minutes of the commissioners court meetings when this was discussed, you would have thought we had brought something distasteful and publicly offensive to the court," adding that there was a discernible “lack of commitment” to getting anything done.

But, after several months of discussions, the Commissioners Court did take up a proposed ethics policy and passed it in June, including a measure the commissioners inserted addressing outside work by county employees:

Among the standards was the standard of treating all resident equitably and the requirement that county employees “disclose relationships that may lead to a conflict of interest ... [and] we will not represent others before any county courts or decision-making bodies except in the regular discharge of our regular duties.”

That provision came after Emmett heard from some judges in the county civil courts, he said.

"A couple of the judges expressed concern over this practice of assistant county attorneys representing other clients in their courts," Emmett said. "They also thought maybe the new ethics policy could deal with it. The judges didn't want to say anything about it, because they have to deal with these attorneys in their courts. But it also struck me as odd, where we have a case against a Houston police officer with a county attorney involved."

He refers to still another case in which Hill is involved, a lawsuit against the city of Houston and two Houston Police officers filed on behalf of the estate of Marnell Robertson Villarreal, who was killed in a fracas with police in 2007. Hill is the estate's lawyer. The case was being heard in Harris County Civil Court-at-Law Number 1, but was moved to federal court in June.

"That is a case that I began handling over two years ago with (County) Court (At-Law) Number One," Hill said. "I've had those clients for over two years now, and yes, I am still handling that."

Continued on ...
Page 3: County attorney's office says ethics policy doesn't apply to them

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