Ethics

The state's ethics enforcement agency has found no wrongdoing in its review of a complaint made four years ago against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in connection with a consulting contract he reached with a muscle magazine publisher days before he took office in 2003. The Fair Political Practices Commission, in a letter earlier this month, told a lawyer for the Republican governor that the complaint filed by the California Democratic Party is now closed. The contract with American Media Inc. was estimated to be worth up to $8 million over five years.

A former congressman indicted on charges that he accepted stolen money from an Islamic aid group also has acted as a broker between U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Sudan's president on Darfur, according to diplomats and the onetime representative. "While my involvement is by no means secret, we have tried to make it private because of the sensitivities involved with the U.N. and Sudan," Mark D. Siljander wrote in an e-mail Friday.

Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped the name of Barack Obama's Chicago patron into the South Carolina debate Monday night, putting front and center a tangled relationship that has the potential to undermine Obama's image as a candidate whose ethical standards are distinctly higher than those of his main opponent.

After two middle-school boys in camouflage gear shot and killed four classmates and a teacher here, leaving 10 others wounded and a community shattered, it seemed inevitable that someone would see opportunity in the tragedy for a book deal. Indeed, within days a publisher agreed to pay $25,000 to an Arkansas writer to produce a book on youth violence. Victims' families were outraged. They called the payment blood money and said the author was cashing in on their pain.

The night Darrell Steinberg was chosen to be the next leader of the California Senate, his campaign consultant, Richie Ross, sent out a flurry of enthusiastic e-mails to people in his political network. "I am pleased that my 10-year client and friend" has been elected the next Senate president pro tem, Ross wrote, adding that Steinberg's ascension would "be good for the issues we care about."

A few weeks ago, the chairman of online auction site Bidz.com forecast good news ahead. The company was headed for another blowout quarter, David Zinberg said, with sales topping the already-rosy projections made in November. The announcement was designed partly to quell questions that had been swirling around the Culver City-based company for months.

Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy A. Simon solicited donations from companies he regulates to help pay for a nonprofit conference on green energy hosted last month by one of his political patrons, documents and interviews show. Two weeks after the conference, the three most generous corporate donors to the Willie L. Brown Jr.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's Public Integrity Unit is reviewing whether a high-level consultant for the Los Angeles Unified School District's building program engaged in a conflict of interest. David Demerjian, head of the unit, said Wednesday that his office has been looking at Bassam Raslan, a district regional director of construction and an owner of TBI Associates, which he co-founded to supply staff to the district's $20-billion school construction effort.

The state attorney general has concluded that acting Orange County Sheriff Jack Anderson broke the law last year when he appeared in uniform before the San Clemente City Council and tried to discourage it from endorsing a former lieutenant for sheriff.

The California Senate offers special interests that give money to its charity the opportunity to travel with state lawmakers to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, Tokyo and other foreign locales. The Senate uses its staff -- paid by taxpayers -- to help make travel plans for the contributors, some donors said. The donors are mostly corporate interests with business before the Legislature who get federal tax deductions for their contributions.