Most members of the state Task Force on Ethics Reform seem to agree that
For example, should it have oversight of judges, or leave that to the state’s Judicial Standards Commission? Should it have oversight of the Legislature or leave that to the Interim Legislative Ethics Committee? Should it oversee local governments? What power should it be granted?
The good news is that the members of the task force are honestly grappling with these issues and attempting to find solutions to the ethical problems that have plagued
The newest proposal being considered by the task force – which has not yet been endorsed by the group – is to create a commission whose jurisdiction includes all elected and appointed state officials and all employees of state government, as well as contractors and lobbyists who do business with state government.
Over the course of two meetings in August, the task force plans to finalize this and all other recommendations it will make to the governor.
The proposal begins with the ethics commission approved by the House during this year’s special session, but includes several changes. The commission would serve as a central reporting system. It could then decide whether to investigate complaints of violations by lawmakers and judges or hand those complaints to the legislative committee and the Judicial Standards Commission. It would be responsible for all investigations involving the executive branch.
The commission wouldn’t have disciplinary power over anyone except statewide elected officials. In the case of lawmakers or judges, it would make a recommendation to the oversight board in that branch of government if it found an ethical violation. For employees, appointed officials, lobbyists and contractors, it would make recommendations to the appropriate officials or bodies in the executive branch.
Statewide elected officials, however, report to no one but voters. For offenses that aren’t criminal, such a commission wouldn’t have anyone to whom it could refer ethics violations.
Norman Thayer, an attorney and the task force member chairing the subcommittee that is proposing this version of an ethics commission, said some agency or board has to be given such authority, so it might as well be the ethics commission. It wouldn’t have the power to remove statewide elected officials – such impeachment authority is given only the Legislature – but it would be given the authority to suspend or take other, less-serious action.
Task force member Bill McCamley, a
“There are a lot of opportunities – and I mean a lot of opportunities – for very serious violations on a local level,” he said, adding that “the relationships can sometimes be very incestuous.”
Thayer said having the commission oversee local governments would require a number of changes in state law because the statutes it uses as its base apply only to state officials. He’s not entirely right. Though most of the statutes specifically apply to state government, the procurement code applies to all governments in
Jim Noel, a task force member and director of the Judicial Standards Commission, said basing the commission’s oversight on statutes would be a fundamental flaw. It would exist to oversee ethics, not statutes, and Noel suggested its work should instead be based on a state code of ethics. The Judicial Standards Commission’s work is based on the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Thayer said one of the missions of the commission would be to develop such a code, but it would take years.
A massive undertaking
Listening to the back-and-forth on this issue helped me understand the massive undertaking of creating such a commission in a state with a historical hesitancy to police its own ethics.
The biggest problem, which I’ve written about before, is resistance in the Legislature. The legislative committee that’s supposed to police ethics among lawmakers is, and has been for years, neglecting that duty. On its Web page it has no posted meeting schedule and no information on past meetings. Simply put, it ain’t doing a thing.
That’s why an ethics commission shouldn’t be structured so that it simply hands off complaints to the legislative committee. It should be left to the Legislature to discipline its own, but the investigation and a finding of probable cause (or not) should be the responsibility of an independent body, and the finding of probable cause should be made public. Only such public disclosure would pressure the legislative committee to act.
But if lawmakers already aren’t policing their own, why would they approve creation of a commission that polices them? There’s the problem. The Senate is absolutely opposed to the commission. The House approved its creation earlier this year but didn’t provide any funding for it to operate, so there’s apparently resistance there, too, albeit a bit more discreet.
The only hope is that public pressure will force lawmakers to accept more oversight.
There are other problems, too: If you give the commission oversight of local governments, do you first write a code of ethics or do you rewrite a number of statutes? One would have to happen before the commission could oversee local governments.
With those major issues to tackle, it seems to me the commission proposal shouldn’t mess with the existing system for judicial oversight. The Judicial Standards Commission is already doing a good job. The judiciary is the one branch of government that has a strong mechanism in place to oversee ethics, remove or discipline violators and serve as a deterrent against future misdeeds.
Perhaps the task force should focus on the creation of a commission that oversees the executive and the legislative branches. That in itself will be tough enough to achieve. The task force could also recommend future goals of bringing local governments under its oversight and considering whether, eventually, the ethics commission should be combined with the Judicial Standards Commission.
There is too much here to tackle at once, given that there’s so much resistance to creating the commission. As was proven in this year’s legislative sessions, reform comes in steps. Creation of a commission that oversees the executive and Legislature would be a leap in the right direction.