The three major ethics-reform proposals of the 2008 legislative session are having a hard time moving toward approval.
I wrote more than a week ago that the reform bills weren’t picking up much momentum. That’s still true.
Here’s a rundown:
Campaign contribution limits
• The good news is that Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez’s apparently worthless campaign contribution limits bill, Senate Bill 387 (click here for an explanation of the problem with the bill), was amended and improved by the Senate Rules Committee. Now, instead of having a loophole that made the limits apply to almost no one, the bill would place real limits on contributions to individuals, political action committees and political parties.
The bill would place limits of $2,300 on contributions from individuals to candidates running in district races – such as senator, representative and district judge. It would place limits of $5,000 on contributions from individuals to candidates running in statewide races. Corporations, unions, political action committees and political parties would be limited to giving $5,000 to candidates in district races and $7,500 to candidates in statewide races.
Also under the bill, contributions from any individual or group to a political party or political action committee would be limited to $15,000.
One fact that should be pointed out: The limits, under the bill, can be maxed out in the primary and general elections in each election cycle. So for seats that have four-year terms, such as state senator, a candidate could accept the limit four times from the same person or group. He could take $2,300 from an individual during both the primary and general elections in the election cycle in which he wasn’t a candidate, and then take that amount from the same contributor again, two times, two years later in the election cycle in which he was a candidate, for a grand total of $9,200.
Now for the bad news: The bill is stuck, like many other pieces of legislation, in the Senate Judiciary Committee. That committee’s chair, Cisco McSorley, hasn’t been moving any legislation for a couple of days because he’s wrangling to get the governor’s domestic partner benefits bill through the committee. The contribution-limits bill would still require approval from the full Senate before it could even be considered in the House.
Expansion of public financing system
House Bill 564, sponsored by Rep. Gail Chasey, would expand the state’s voluntary public financing system to include candidates for statewide offices. It narrowly passed the Voters and Elections Committee but was tabled this week by the Appropriations and Finance Committee because of funding questions. Though there may be an attempt to resurrect this bill in the House, the Senate is unlikely to pass it or even give it serious consideration.
Ethics Commission
House Bill 309, sponsored by Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, is, in my opinion, the most important ethics bill of the session. It would create and fund an independent ethics commission to create ethical guidelines for public officials, educate elected officials on the guidelines and ensure they follow them.
It has yet to move out of its first committee, House Judiciary. There’s a lot of wrangling around this bill, including a failed attempt by the attorney general to get his whistleblower act included in it after the governor refused to allow debate on that as a separate proposal. Judiciary had a two-hour hearing on this bill earlier this week, and some committee members are working on rewriting portions of it. It could be approved as early as later today.
Then it will have to be considered by the House Appropriations and Finance Committee before it can head to the House floor. It would also need Senate approval, and the Senate isn’t too excited about an ethics commission. The Senate Rules Committee hasn’t touched a similar bill, Senate Bill 376, sponsored by Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas.
The bottom line: The session ends at noon on Thursday. In this election year, when all lawmakers have to return to their districts and face the judgment of their constituents, things aren’t looking positive for ethics reform.