He sounded like the quintessential political reformer, passionately espousing the virtues of public campaign financing and the stronger ethics provisions proposed by commissions on city charter revision and government integrity.

It is the board's job to interpret the Charter's ethics provisions; the public was entitled to a better definition from this new, important panel.

Mayor Amicone said he agreed with Mr. Zisman's conclusion that the board and city should adopt "unified ethics provisions" and create an operating board of ethics.

Existing legal and ethics provisions properly restrict judges from accepting benefits from parties to litigation before them and provide for disqualification in any instance where a judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

An independent investigator released a subsequent report, finding Gonzales to have misled the public and violated the city charter's ethics provisions.

When the City Charter was revised in 1989, new ethics provisions were added.

The ethics provisions found in Treasury Department's Circular 230 were extended to all paid tax return preparers.

Later in the week he will appoint a commission to review strengthening ethics provisions for senior Government officials.

With respect to the code of ethics provisions, a number of commenters stated that the benefits of filing copies of the code of ethics do not justify the anticipated costs.

"There is a reason you have the ethics provision; that is so people don't violate them," Mr. Pataki said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.