State Integrity Investigation from The Center for Public Integrity

Grading the nation: How accountable is your state?

North Carolina,United States — 2013-01-14T12:26:27-05:00

The tales are sadly familiar to even the most casual observer of state politics.

In Georgia, more than 650 government employees accepted gifts from vendors doing business with the state in 2007 and 2008, clearly violating state ethics law. The last time the state issued a penalty on a vendor was 1999.

A North Carolina legislator sponsored and voted on a bill to loosen regulations on billboard construction, even though he co-owned five billboards in the state. When the ethics commission reviewed the case, it found no conflict; after all, the panel reasoned, the legislation would benefit all billboard owners in the state — not just the lawmaker who pushed for the bill.

Tennessee established its ethics commission six years ago, but has yet to issue a single ethics penalty. It’s almost impossible to know whether the oversight is effectively working, because complaints are not made available to the public.

A West Virginia governor borrowed a car from his local dealership to take it for a “test drive.” He kept the car for four years, during which the dealership won millions in state contracts.

When representatives of a biotech company took Montana legislators out to dinner, they neither registered as lobbyists nor reported the fact that they picked up the bill. They didn’t have to — the law only requires registration upon spending $2,400 during a legislative session. And in Maine, one state senator did not disclose $98 million in state contracts that went to an organization for which he served as executive director. The lack of disclosure was not an oversight; due to a loophole in state law, he was under no obligation to do so.

The stories go on and on. Open records laws with hundreds of exemptions. Crucial budgeting decisions made behind closed doors by a handful of power brokers. “Citizen” lawmakers voting on bills that would benefit them directly. Scores of legislators turning into lobbyists seemingly overnight. Disclosure laws without much disclosure. Ethics panels that haven’t met in years.

State officials make lofty promises when it comes to ethics in government. They tout the transparency of legislative processes, accessibility of records, and the openness of public meetings. But these efforts often fall short of providing any real transparency or legitimate hope of rooting out corruption.

That’s the depressing bottom line that emerges from the State Integrity Investigation, a first-of-its-kind, data-driven assessment of transparency, accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms in all 50 states. Not a single state — not one — earned an A grade from the months-long probe. Only five states earned a B grade: New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, California and Nebraska. Nineteen states got C’s and 18 received D’s. Eight states earned failing grades of 59 or below from the project, which is a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.

The F’s went to Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia.

What’s behind the dismal grades? Across the board, state ethics, open records and disclosure laws lack one key feature: teeth.

“It’s a terrible problem,” said Tim Potts, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Democracy Rising PA, which works to inspire citizen trust in government. “A good law isn’t worth anything if it’s not enforced.”

Some of the results of the State Integrity Investigation seem more than a little counterintuitive. New Jersey emerges at the top of the pack, a seemingly stunning ranking for a state with a reputation for dirty politics. And there are other surprises: Illinois, hardly a beacon of clean governmental in recent years, comes in at a respectable number 10. Louisiana ranks 15th.

Many of the states at the bottom of the rankings, meanwhile, are sparsely-populated Western or Plains states like Idaho (40th), Wyoming (48th) and the Dakotas (North Dakota is number 43 and South Dakota comes in at 49). There, libertarianism roots, a small-town, neighborly approach to government and the honest belief that “everybody knows everybody” has overridden any perceived need for strong protections in law.

Peggy Kerns, director of the Center for Ethics in Government at the National Conference of State Legislatures, noted that ethics laws are shaped by the environment and culture of the state. “In smaller states, the culture is different,” she said. “It is harder to disobey the law and go against your own moral core if everyone knows you.”

And statehouses with a history of political corruption and scandal — like New Jersey, Illinois, and Louisiana — have been more likely in recent years to successfully implement reform.

“Legislators will react to a corruption scandal, and work to get political cover by enacting reform,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, vice president for state operations at the nonprofit advocacy group Common Cause.

That’s apparently the case in New Jersey, where a series of scandals helped bring about some of the strongest ethics laws in the country. According to the State Integrity Investigation, New Jersey’s strong points are clear: extensive financial disclosure requirements for the governor, a transparently-run pension fund, and an aggressive ethics enforcement agency. The state also boasts some of the nation’s toughest anti-pay-to-play laws for contractors.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, in an attempt to shed the state of its scandalous political history, enacted sweeping ethics reform legislation as one of his first acts in office back in 2008. Among the new laws: financial disclosure requirements for nearly every public official and caps on how much lobbyists can spend on meals and drinks.

States have taken the initiative on other fronts as well. Connecticut implemented a public financing system for elections. Alabama granted subpoena power to its state ethics commission. South Dakota unveiled an online database for campaign finance records. Florida bans all gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers. Citizens in Washington have easy online access to government records and data, including the final map on the state’s Redistricting Commission website (which also lists past meeting minutes, draft plans, and public commentary).

But advocates note that substantial reform efforts are more often the exception rather than the rule. And typically, even new laws often fall short of their goals. Hobert Flynn said she is often “disappointed by how far-reaching the reforms are, how the reforms are implemented, and how they are enforced.”

Measuring the states: The Integrity Index

There are many ways to gauge government integrity. By one recent measure, Chicago ranks as the most corrupt city in the nation. New York places first as the most corrupt state.

Those are the findings of a February report released by the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs, based on public corruption conviction data from the Department of Justice. New York had a grand total of 2,522 federal public corruption convictions from 1976 to 2010, followed closely by California (2,345 convictions) and Illinois (1,828).

But some argue that using convictions as an indicator of which states are “most corrupt” is misleading. A hefty number of prosecutions may actually suggest the system is working — corrupt behavior is rooted out and perpetrators are punished. States with relatively low numbers of convictions are not necessarily more accountable, but perhaps less equipped to sniff out malfeasance and go after the bad guys. So the State Integrity Investigation takes a different approach by measuring the risks of corruption, as reflected in the strength or weakness of laws, policies, and procedures designed to assure transparency and accountability in state government.

Using a combination of on-the-ground investigative reporting and original data collection and analysis, the State Integrity Index researched 330 “Integrity Indicators” across 14 categories of state government: public access to information, political financing, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, state budget processes, civil service management, procurement, internal auditing, lobbying disclosure, pension fund management, ethics enforcement, insurance commissions, and redistricting.

Indicators assess what laws, if any, are on the books (“in law” indicator) and whether the laws are effective in practice (“in practice” indicators). In many states, the disconnect between scores on a state’s law and scores in practice suggest a serious “enforcement gap.”

In other words, the laws are there, just not always followed.

‘Hiding in plain sight’

There have been nods toward transparency almost everywhere. In this era of online, immediately accessible information, some government records are easier to retrieve than ever. Bill language is posted on websites. Top officials disclose personal financial interests. State candidates reveal donors. States devote entire websites to budget expenditures, allowing taxpayers to track government spending

There remain a few holdouts. Idaho, Vermont, and Michigan still have no financial disclosure requirements for lawmakers and executive branch officials. Maryland is the only state in the country that requires an in-person visit to the state capitol to request and view financial disclosure information.

Ed Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, said that governments may seem transparent by making information available, but it is not always presented in a useable or digestible format. He said trying to compare data within a state — say, linking campaign donations to state contracts — can be nearly impossible, and is a huge barrier to transparency.

“It’s disingenuous, hiding in plain sight,” Bender said. “Governments say, ‘here it is,’ but they don’t tell the story.”

Maryland unveiled a series of data-centric government performance measurement and spending websites — like StateStat to track spending of stimulus funds — which Governor Martin O’Malley hailed as the “foundation for restoring accountability and for driving our progress.” But the state’s poor ranking on public access to information — it came in 46th — would suggest otherwise.

“They’re selective on what they share, how they share it, and who they share it with,” said Greg Smith of the nonprofit group Community Research, who said poring through the state’s spending databases can be a headache.

“You can only look at it particle by particle, atom by atom,” he said. When he requests entire databases from state agencies, they refuse, citing a lack of technological expertise to properly export the data.

In every state, citizens have the basic right to access government records. But nearly every law is riddled with holes. Vermont’s Public Records Act boasts more than 260 exemptions, one of which almost always seems to apply to a request for information. Virginia’s law excludes the State Corporation Commission, a regulatory agency that oversees all businesses, utilities, financial institutions, and railroads in the state. Louisiana includes an exemption for records that are part of the “deliberative process” in the governor’s office, which could mean anything from budget negotiations to communications between the governor and his staff. Wyoming lawmakers excluded themselves from the state’s open records policy to prevent citizens from having access to the early bill-writing process. In effect, draft legislation and all related documents are withheld from the public.

In Massachusetts, the barriers to access are especially daunting. Not only are the legislature, governor, and courts exempt from public records law, but legislative votes are not even recorded in committee.

Lax enforcement, zero oversight

Across the board, enforcement is weak. States rarely check the accuracy of campaign finance records or asset disclosures unless prompted by a complaint. Penalties are insignificant or never issued. Violators of the law suffer little more than a slap on the wrist.

Arizona legislators admitted to violating the state’s financial disclosure policy when they failed to report trips paid for by the Fiesta Bowl. Neither the Senate nor House Ethics committee followed with an investigation.

New York’s Board of Elections oversees campaign finance, but can only fine violators $500 for missing filing deadlines. At one point, Senator Pedro Espada owed the state about $13,000 in fines for misfiling records (while also sitting on about $60,000 in fines from the New York City Campaign Finance Board).

Earlier this year, a North Carolina judge ruled that the Secretary of State could not impose a $30,000 fine on a lobbyist who failed to register. The judge cited ambiguous language in the law and decided the Secretary did not have the proper authority.

Forty-one states have an agency tasked with overseeing ethics laws in the state. But many of these agencies are crippled by shortages: inadequate funding, tiny staffs, and limited powers. Delaware’s two-person Public Integrity Commission can hardly keep up with enforcing rules for about 48,000 government employees. In South Carolina, the State Ethics Commission’s budget has been slashed six times in the past three years. When legislators in Alaska leave required information off their financial disclosure forms, the Alaska Public Offices Commission simply does not have the capacity to track down the missing details.

“There’s an inability to enforce the laws on the books,” said Hobert Flynn of Common Cause. “It creates a real crisis and the illusion of strong laws in place.”

In Pennsylvania, said Potts of Democracy Rising PA, the amount of money allocated for enforcement of ethics rules is considered “budget dust.” Governor Tom Corbett cut funding to the state’s ethics commission by five percent in his most recent budget plan, even though the state sits on a surplus that Potts said could “fund all public integrity enforcement for a decade.”

And in states where the financial outlook is still grim, watchdog agencies are often among the first to get cut, consolidated or eliminated entirely. In Connecticut, nine independent agencies were moved under one umbrella organization, the Office of Governmental Accountability. Advocates claim the move saves money and improves efficiency, but critics point to a massive reduction in staff and loss of enforcement power — the agency will likely audit only 10 lobbyists this year, compared with 40 lobbyists the year before.

While there are many examples that highlight a lack of resources, others assert that political factors may also be at play.

Georgia’s legislature slashed the ethics commission’s budget, eliminating all investigative positions and eventually forcing out its two top staffers. The former executive director claimed the funding cuts came with ulterior motives; at the time, the agency was pursuing an investigation against Governor Nathan Deal for improper use of campaign funds and exceeding campaign finance limits. Deal said the cuts were in line with what happened to other agencies. The state’s inspector general followed with an investigation, but found no evidence to support the claim of the commission’s former executive director.

Political loyalties can be a potential problem, especially since many ethics agencies are staffed by gubernatorial or legislative appointments.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revamped the state’s ethics agency as part of a comprehensive overhaul of state ethics laws. But he stocked the newly-formed Joint Commission on Public Ethics with political allies, including a fundraiser for his reelection campaign and a former staffer. Most recently, he tapped Inspector General Ellen Biben to be the commission’s executive director. Biben, though widely respected in government circles, also served as Cuomo’s deputy in the attorney general’s office, prompting some New Yorkers to question her independence from the administration.

Members of the Alaska Personnel Board are appointed by the same entity they are charged with overseeing — the governor’s office. The Texas Ethics Commission is comprised of appointees by the governor and legislature, which not only presents an inherent conflict but often leads to gridlock. Commissioners are typically split along party lines, but in order to pursue an investigation, at least six of the eight commissioners must agree.

Conflict? What conflict?

Without effective oversight by an independent agency, states frequently rely on a system of self-reporting. The onus falls on public officials to decide for themselves whether their decision-making ability has been compromised. In some cases, the language of the law allows for exceptions; Montana requires legislators to disclose a conflict only if they stand to gain a “direct and personal impact” from the relationship. Often consequences are modest or nonexistent. In Illinois, a legislator should avoid a “substantial threat to his independence of judgment” — but if that line is crossed, there is no penalty.

Kerns of NCSL said it is difficult to implement strong conflict of interest laws, especially for citizen legislatures in which lawmakers almost always hold outside jobs. She doesn’t see anything inherently wrong with that — their background and expertise can be helpful for making policy decisions — unless the lawmaker stands to gain financially from the decision.

“That defies logic,” she said. “People should have better sense.”

Michigan’s conflict of interest laws are largely undefined, so recusal is rare. In 2011, Senate Democrats challenged the notion that lawmakers with a financial interest in limited liability corporations could vote on a tax reform plan. The lieutenant governor ruled that it was up to the lawmakers to decide for themselves if they had a conflict, and no one abstained.

A Hawaii representative, also working as a lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, was allowed to vote on a bill that would implement a 10-cent fee for plastic bags. The House Speaker defended the decision: "Just because he represents that company does not mean he cannot vote up or down on the measure.”

For state judges, it’s a similar situation. Nearly all states have rules, codes, or regulations outlining recusal requirements, but again they leave it up to the judges to decide their own impartiality.

“There’s a longstanding principal that no judge should be the judge in his or her own case,” said Charlie Hall, director of communications for Justice at Stake, a national organization that promotes a fair and impartial court system. “There’s a strong sense by many that if one party asks a judge to step aside, there’s something not satisfying by the judge saying, ‘I think I can be impartial. I can make the decision.’ ”

Nine states don’t require judges to disclose outside assets, making it almost impossible to determine if a judge has a conflict at all. And in states where judges run for election, the potential for conflicts to arise is even greater.

“Special interests have discovered judicial elections and the money is pouring in,” Hall said.

Spending on judicial elections more than doubled in the past 20 years. From 2000 to 2009, special interests funneled about $206 million into court elections, up from about $83 million in the previous decade.

Hall said many states are moving forward, albeit slowly, to develop more transparent processes for judicial recusal. But in at least one state — Wisconsin — the courts took what some believe to be a huge step backwards. In 2010, the state Supreme Court ruled that judges need not recuse themselves from cases involving their own campaign donors.

The devil’s in the details: Where the loopholes are

Even the strictest of rules has unforeseen consequences. And when it comes to money, influence, and power in state government, interest groups and big-money donors will find ways around just about any limit.

In South Carolina, corporations and individuals can donate only $1,000 to local House and Senate races or $3,500 to statewide seats. But multi-millionaire Howard Rich skirted the limits by funneling contributions through separate LLCs. He also made the contributions during a “blackout period” — two weeks right before the election when candidates can hold off making donations public until after the election.

Illinois, which passed campaign finance limits for the first time in 2009, places no restrictions on donations by a corporation’s affiliates. So although a corporation is restricted by a $10,000 limit on donations to individual candidates, it can easily multiply that amount through individually incorporated entities.

New York donors can also give freely to “housekeeping accounts,” ostensibly reserved for political party headquarters, staff, and events not affiliated with a particular candidate. Big-time donors, corporations, and trade organizations have donated $11 million to these accounts in the past two years.

Gift bans seek to prevent lobbyists from wining-and-dining legislators to influence policy. Some states, like Missouri, place no restrictions on dollar amounts of gifts, as long as all gifts are disclosed. Other states have much more stringent rules, like in Florida, where lobbyists are banned from buying lawmakers even a cup of coffee.

But even when the laws have been retooled and seem airtight, lobbyists find ways around them. In Oregon, where the gift laws were reformed in 2007 and again in 2009, the language of the law has become so specific in noting exemptions that it’s easy to skirt: entertainment excursions can technically be billed as “fact-finding” missions, for example, which is acceptable under the law. In 2006

North Carolina passed a ban on lobbyists buying meals for individual legislators. So instead, lobbyists bankroll receptions for groups of lawmakers. Florida has a strict ban on lobbyist gift giving, but the state’s definition of lobbyist allows for gaps — not everyone who lobbies is considered a lobbyist under the law — and much of the spending can go unreported.

The lobbyist-lawmaker relationship is a close one in many states, where part-time legislators who meet for short sessions often rely on outside expertise to guide their policy decisions. Those relationships become even stronger when ex-legislators move almost immediately into the private sector, exerting influence over their former colleagues. “Cooling off” periods — the length of time between when a legislator leaves office and when he can register as a lobbyist — aim to diffuse those relationships.

But in some states, there’s no such waiting time. In Idaho, a former legislator, after losing her reelection campaign, was quickly hired as the lobbyist for a property developer — a move not only accepted, but recommended by the House Speaker.

The same holds true in Nebraska, where at least 16 former lawmakers are now registered lobbyists. There, as in other states, term limits push lawmakers out into the private sector, so it is not unusual for former legislators to represent special interests like Big Tobacco and health insurance companies.

Closed to the public

California faced a $23 billion budget shortfall in 2011. The state opens up the budgeting process to the public — but only to a point. Citizens can participate in forums and meetings leading up to final budget negotiations, when the “Big Five” (the governor and four legislative leaders) take the discussion behind closed doors to finalize the bill.

Such is a common practice in many states, where open meetings and public testimony occur, but usually for the sake of appearance only. The real decisions are made when no one is looking.

According to the Index, California ranks near the bottom on budget transparency, losing points for citizen access to budget expenditures and public input at hearings.

New York, which faced a shortfall of $8.5 billion, falls a few places below California. Again, the public can view budget documents and comment at hearings on the front end, but the final bill is quickly pushed through, giving citizens little opportunity to react. The final budget often includes a few surprising compromises that were made behind closed doors.

Redistricting, a notoriously opaque and politically-tainted process in many states, is actually where California stood out. It received top marks for redistricting transparency, due largely to its new Citizens Redistricting Commission that gave power to a randomly-selected group of Californians instead of the legislature.

In other states, though, the redistricting process largely remains a mystery to constituents. Although the redrawing of district lines directly impacts voters and communities, the public is usually left out of the process. In a worst case scenario, maps are redrawn by the very legislators who are seeking reelection, allowing them to ensure the new district lines fall in their favor.

Many states are finding ways to include, or at least educate, the public on this process by holding meetings, making census data available online, or encouraging citizens to submit their own maps. But even if the state goes through those motions, it does not guarantee the public commentary will be taken into account in the final map.

Other states don’t even try. During the 2011 redistricting session in Wisconsin, Republican legislators unveiled map proposals, held one public hearing, and passed their plan in two weeks. In Oklahoma, meetings were held within days of census data being released, giving the public no real chance to provide strong input.

“The government belongs to the people,” said Common Cause’s Hobert Flynn. “They should have full access to the process and how decisions are made.”

It’s a noble goal, to be sure. But as the State Integrity Investigation reveals, it is one that’s rarely met.

Interactive: What is your state's risk of corruption?

2012-04-04T15:11:36-04:00

What is your states risk of corruption?

Find your state's grade

2012-04-03T11:25:47-04:00

Why did my state get this letter grade? Find it in the drop-down menu below, and click to see the full scorecard.

Controversy ensnaring governor raises new questions about Virginia laws

2013-05-08T10:36:52-04:00

A series of revelations and stinging media reports about Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell’s relationship with a corporate executive is bringing new attention to the state’s forgiving accountability laws — a subject highlighted last year by the State Integrity Investigation.

The root of the uproar is a $15,000 catering tab for the wedding of McDonnell’s daughter back in 2011, quietly paid by Jonnie Williams Sr., the CEO of Star Scientific, a Glen Allen, Va.-based dietary supplement company. Now the news, first reported in late March by the Washington Post, is dominating conversation in the state’s political circles and raising questions about Virginia’s liberal allowances for gifts to politicians: there is no limit.

Through a series of reports, the Post has detailed a close relationship between Williams and McDonnell’s family. Three days before the wedding, McDonnell’s wife, Maureen, flew to Florida to promote Star Scientific’s new product at a gathering of scientists and investors. Three months later, the company held its launch party for the product at the governor’s mansion. The McDonnells have also vacationed at Williams’ home, flown on his corporate jet and received more than a hundred thousand dollars to the governor’s campaign and PAC.

Published reports indicate that federal officials are interested, but the relationship may have stayed entirely within the bounds of Virginia’s ethics laws. The main question is whether McDonnell should have disclosed the $15,000 catering gift. He has said it was a present to his daughter (while Virginia officials must report any gift over $50, money given to family members is not subject to disclosure). The Post unearthed documents showing that the governor signed the catering contract and that an overpayment to the caterer was returned to Maureen McDonnell.

Whether or not the governor violated any rules or laws, the controversy says more about the laxity of Virginia’s ethics laws, according to John McGlennon, chairman of government department at the College of William & Mary.

“The ironic aspect of it is that because Virginia’s ethics regulations are so loose, relatively few people have actually run afoul of them,” McGlennon said. “They exempt so much, they don’t impose limits or really restrict the source of either contributions or gifts, that it’s pretty hard to run afoul of the law itself.”

As the State Integrity Investigation’s summary for Virginia points out, the allowance for unlimited gifts is just the beginning. The project is a state-by-state ranking of government transparency and accountability released last year by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International. Virginia is one of nine states without an ethics commission and one of four without limits on campaign contributions. In fact, Virginia’s ethics laws are among the least restrictive in the nation, a dubious distinction that helped place it 47^th out of 50 states with a grade of F.

Due to the paucity of oversight, McGlennon said it’s unlikely that any government body will investigate whether McDonnell violated state laws by failing to disclose the gift for the catering bill. “There’s very little other than self-policing,” he said. “Unless you see some smoking gun, you just take people’s word for it.”

Without an ethics commission or other oversight body, the task of investigating falls to law enforcement, which rarely results in much action, he said.

Last week, the Post and the Associated Press reported that the FBI is now looking into whether McDonnell gave any special dispensation to Star Scientific or to Williams. The inquiry is an outgrowth of an investigation into some of the company’s securities transactions.

McDonnell has denied doing any favors for the company in return for the gifts.

The scandal has reached into the governor’s cabinet as well. In April, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is running for governor on the Republican ticket this year, amended his own disclosure forms to include gifts from Williams dating back to 2009. Secretary of the Commonwealth Janet Vestal Kelly amended her disclosure reports to include travel gifts from Star Scientific and the South Carolina Republican Party.

McDonnell and Cuccinelli each said they would be open to tightening the state’s disclosure laws to require reporting of gifts to family members. In response to the scandal, Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor, has said he would propose limiting gifts to $100 per donor. The episode has led several local newspaper editorial boards, including the News Leader and The Daily Progress, to call for more robust gift rules. In an editorial last month, the Post said the lack of disclosure for gifts to family members is a “whopper” of a loophole that enables “secret cash payments” to public officials.

IMPACT: Georgia governor signs bills limiting gifts from lobbyists

Georgia,United States — 2013-05-07T06:06:01-04:00

Gov. Nathan Deal brought Georgia in line with nearly every other state in the nation Monday by signing into law the state’s first restrictions on lobbyists’ gifts to lawmakers. Deal’s action puts in place the first major piece of ethics reform Georgia has passed in decades.

Until now, lobbyists in the Peach State had been free to lavish legislators with gifts and junkets of any size. But starting next year, they’ll be forbidden from spending more than $75 per gift.

The previous lack of gift rules was one of many reasons why Georgia ranked dead last a year ago in the State Integrity Investigation, a data-driven ranking of state government accountability and transparency carried out by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International. In addition to its overall grade of F, Georgia received failing grades in the specific categories of lobbying disclosure and legislative accountability.

“Our success as leaders of Georgia depends heavily on the public’s ability to trust us,” Deal said in a statement after signing the gift ban along with a second bill that deals with campaign finance reporting, primarily at the local level. “Together, these bills constitute a major step in improving ethics, trust and transparency in our state.”

While advocates of tighter ethics laws hailed the legislation as a step in the right direction, the gift cap bill contains several exceptions they believe substantially weaken the provision.

“It’s like you’re starving for a meal and somebody gave you a saltine cracker,” said William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, an advocacy group.

The bill permits lobbyists to pool their gifts, allowing three colleagues to jointly buy a dinner worth $200, for example. Lobbyists can also continue to shower committees and other group events with gifts of any size, and they can open their wallets to spend freely on travel for lawmakers as long as it is within the country and related to legislators’ official duties. The measure also makes it easier for lawyers to advocate for specific issues without registering as lobbyists, Perry noted.

“It’s chock full of loopholes,” he said.

The bill was the culmination of three years of work by a coalition of liberal and conservative activists, including Common Cause Georgia and Tea Party groups, called the Georgia Alliance for Ethics Reform. State Sen. Josh McKoon, a Republican, had also pushed the slate of reforms. The campaign met with little success until last year, when local news coverage and the release of the State Integrity Investigation pushed ethics reform on to the public agenda.

Last summer, the alliance placed non-binding referenda on primary ballots asking voters whether they supported a limit on lobbyist gifts. The measure won approval from 87 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Democrats, and a gift cap quickly became a major issue in this year’s brief legislative session, which ended in March.

In January, on the first day of the session, the Senate passed a rule covering only the upper chamber that imposed a $100 gift cap. The leadership in the House then developed its own legislation, which initially included an outright ban on lobbyists’ gifts. But the bill contained several exceptions to the ban, and to the outrage of many Tea Party leaders, broadened the definition of who is a lobbyist in a way that would have required volunteer, citizen activists to register. The final bill is a compromise measure hashed out between the two chambers. The language was rewritten to address the concerns of citizen advocates about the definition of a lobbyist, but it still includes many exemptions to the cap.

Andre Jackson, editorial editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, criticized the legislature for waiting until the last minute to work on a compromise. “There was no justifiable reason why slapdash, last-second, basement-room dickering should have been employed,” he wrote in a blog post after the legislature passed the final measure in March. “As a result, what we ended up with, frankly, stinks.”

Debby Dooley, state coordinator for the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, said she’d like to see a limit to the gifts each legislator can receive each year. Advocates would also like to restrict spending on travel.

The final law also restores rulemaking authority to the Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, which oversees ethics laws in the state. That authority had been stripped in 2009, hindering the body’s ability to collect fines and carry out other tasks.

Many of the issues that contributed to Georgia’s F grade from the State Integrity Investigation remain unchanged. Among advocates’ highest priorities are finding a stable source of funding for the ethics commission and creating an independent, grand jury-style body to investigate ethics complaints.

Still, many felt the measures signed Monday represented a step in the right direction.

“If you compare where we were March of last year, when we couldn’t have a hearing on an ethics bill, to this year where we got a bill passed, I think that’s tremendous step forward,” McKoon said. He said he plans to introduce legislation next session that would eliminate some of the exemptions in the gift cap, and would also like to improve financial disclosure for political appointees. “We have to make sure we don’t rest on our heels and say we’ve dealt with this issue.”

Florida enacts ethics and campaign finance package

Florida,United States — 2013-05-02T13:41:49-04:00

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a package of reform bills Wednesday night, bringing final approval for the first major overhaul of the state’s ethics laws in more than three decades. The two bills give significant new powers to the state’s ethics commission, extend a ban on lobbying for lawmakers after they leave office and rework the state’s campaign finance limits.

The new ethics legislation will address at least some of the weaknesses responsible for Florida’s overall grade of C- from the State Integrity Investigation, a state-by-state ranking of ethics and accountability released last year by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International. In the specific category of ethics enforcement, the Sunshine State had received an F.

The measures, which the legislature passed last week, had been top priorities for Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford, both Republicans. Watchdog groups followed the bills’ passage closely and largely praised the ethics bill.

“There’s been a 36 year drought of meaningful ethics reform legislation going anywhere in Florida,” said Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, a statewide watchdog group. “The fact that our state leaders prioritized ethics reform and dedicated time and resources to serious debate and policy improvements on the issues is historic.”

Some reform advocates and lawmakers criticized aspects of the bills, however, particularly the campaign finance provisions. Those provisions eliminate a type of committee—called committees of continuous existence— that candidates have used to raise unlimited funds before transferring the money elsewhere, obscuring the source of the cash. But the bill will allow another form of committee—so-called political committees—to raise unlimited funds instead. The only improvement, advocates say, is that the money will be spent by the same committee that raised it, making it easier to track who is paying for what. The measure will also require more frequent reporting from candidates.

But in exchange, the bill raises the limits on donations to candidates and leaves in place loose restrictions on campaign committees, allowing them to continue to raise and spend unlimited quantities of money and report their finances less frequently than candidates.

“They’ve kind of used a spigot to turn the gush of money to a new direction,” said Deirdre Macnab, president of the League of Women Voters Florida. Her group had urged Scott to veto the campaign finance bill. “At the end of the day, the Florida voter is no winner by any stretch.”

Candidates for statewide office will now be able to accept donations of up to $3,000 from individuals, with all other candidates able to accept up to $1,000. Previously, the limit for all candidates had been $500. Gov. Scott, who is up for reelection next year, had opposed raising the limits.

”No one has shown me a rational for raising these limits,” Scott told reporters after the legislature approved the bills last week. But when asked why he decided to sign the bill yesterday, Scott simply said that he’d listened to advice from across the state and determined the legislation was “in the best interests of the state.”

Proponents of the measure, including Krassner, have said that overall, the bill will improve campaign finance transparency.

The ethics bill, which passed both chambers of the legislature unanimously, reaches far and wide. It will prevent lawmakers from lobbying government for two years after leaving office. Previously, they were barred from lobbying the legislature but could petition the executive branch—an allowance the previous speaker of the house, Dean Cannon, is currently using. The measure gives additional powers to the ethics commission to collect unpaid fines and allows the body to initiate investigations based on referrals from law enforcement agencies or the governor’s office. Until now, the commission could investigate only after receiving a sworn complaint directly. It will also put into law a ban on voting on bills that could affect lawmakers’ finances.

But the measure contains a couple of provisions that watchdog groups say actually loosen oversight and transparency. Lawmakers who submit incomplete or inaccurate financial disclosures will now have 30 days to correct them before the ethics commission can issue a fine. “It’s what I would call a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” Macnab said.

The bill also allows legislators to put their investments in blind trusts. But Philip Claypool, who in 2011 retired as the executive director of the state’s ethics commission, said the provision fails to put in place standard safeguards that other states and the federal government use for such trusts. The result, he said, is that lawmakers will be able to drop investments such as real estate holdings in or out of the trusts in order to vote on a measure that may affect the investment, without having to disclose anything.

Despite the complaints, however, even the strongest critics of the reform package say the bill signed Wednesday will improve the laws on the books.

“These are some really good things,” Macnab said. “While it doesn’t go quite as far as we would have liked, we think it’s a good bill for Florida.”

Corruption case further sullies Albany's reputation

2013-04-03T16:14:20-04:00

A New York state senator and five other political officials have been named in a sweeping federal corruption case — the latest in a series of scandals that helped earn the Empire State a D grade from the State Integrity Investigation.

At the heart of the complaint unsealed Tuesday: federal prosecutors say Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat from Queens, used a series of contacts in an attempt to bribe New York City Republican Party officials to approve his bid for mayor on the GOP ticket.

The case, which allegedly involved tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and agreements to secure state and city funds for development projects, highlights some of the endemic corruption problems that have plagued New York’s legislature in Albany, where politicians are frequently accused of exchanging cash for securing state funds and candidates exchange donations for political support. The image was reinforced by the State Integrity Investigation, a state-by-state ranking of accountability and transparency carried out last year by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.

According to the complaint, Smith had ambitions to run for mayor of New York City, but wanted to run as a Republican. As a Democratic state senator, he needed support from the party to get on the ticket. The solution presented itself in the form of a New York real estate developer, who was cooperating with an undercover FBI agent in exchange for leniency on unspecified charges.

Over a series of meetings the developer and the FBI agent agreed to bribe two New York City GOP officials, Joseph Savino and Vincent Tabone, to garner their for support for Smith. In exchange, Smith would help secure state funds for a project of the developer’s. At one meeting, the developer told Smith it would cost, “a pretty penny,” to which Smith replied, “It’s worth it.” Savino allegedly asked for $25,000, Tabone for $50,000. On February 14, the agent met separately with Savino and Tabone in his car, handing Savino $15,000 in cash and Tabone $25,000.

The case also extends to several other local officials. Daniel Halloran, a New York City councilman, allegedly facilitated the meetings between the undercover agent and the GOP officials. Unrelated to the Smith dealings, however, he had also allegedly accepted tens of thousands of dollars in cash from the developer and the undercover agent in exchange for securing city funds to the developer. In one of their meetings where the developer handed over $7,500 in cash, Halloran said, “That’s politics, it’s all about how much,” adding, “that's our politicians in New York.”

The suit also includes charges of mail fraud against the mayor, Noramie Jasmine, and deputy mayor, Joseph Desmaret of Spring Valley, where the development was to be located, for their involvement.

The State Integrity Investigation, released in March 2012, detailed a long history of scandal in New York, including pay-to-play deals and political cronyism. The report gave New York a D- specifically in the category of political financing, with particularly weak grades for the financing of political parties.

'State Integrity Investigation' has blockbuster first year

2013-03-21T12:12:45-04:00

It’s been exactly one year since publication of the State Integrity Investigation, an unprecedented, data-driven analysis of transparency and accountability in all 50 states — and a lot has happened since. The project — a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International, with cooperation from the Investigative News Network — has been quoted, praised, assailed or otherwise cited by hundreds of news outlets, good-government groups and legislators. The project was also a finalist for the prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting awarded by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Clearly, the idea of measuring accountability and transparency in state government has touched a reformist nerve — and our package is continuing to resonate across the country.

Since the State Integrity Investigation was launched, reform efforts have been initiated in 16 states. Four of those states — Delaware, Iowa, Maine and Rhode Island — have passed laws or issued executive orders improving disclosure and access to public information. Lawmakers in seven other states have proposed a broad slate of measures that would strengthen ethics oversight, tighten campaign finance reporting and more.

The ongoing 2013 legislative sessions have seen a flurry of activity. The Florida Senate and Georgia House have each passed major ethics reform bills that would strengthen ethics enforcement and reign in spending by lobbyists and independent campaign committees. While watchdogs say the bills contain serious flaws, the measures nonetheless could represent the first major reform efforts in those states in decades. Significant legislation has also been introduced in South Carolina, Maine and North Dakota.

Where legislators have been slow to act, in some cases the executive branch has stepped in. Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee created a new online portal in January 2013 to display audits, contracts and other financial documents in searchable format. Chafee's office has been working with Global Integrity, a partner in the State Integrity Investigation, to bolster open government practices. In Oklahoma, Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger said his agency had improved online access and added thousands of records to public websites over the previous 12 months.

Since release of the State Integrity Investigation, the Center has published a series of pieces highlighting systemic transparency issues that continue to plague state governments nationwide. You can read some of those, below. Visit the main project site for a wealth of data on transparency and accountability in each of the 50 states.

Conflicts of interest run rampant in state legislatures

New Mexico,United States — 2013-03-18T06:00:01-04:00

SANTA FE — On February 20, New Mexico’s House Energy and Natural Resources Committee gathered for one of its regular meetings in a drab room here at the capitol, a circular building known as the Roundhouse. On the agenda: a bill that would hike fees and penalties for energy companies drilling wells in the state.

The votes fell along party lines, with five Republicans lining up against the bill and the committee's Democratic majority voting to send the legislation to the House floor. The Republicans argued the bill would stifle business and cost jobs, and for one lawmaker, the issue hit particularly close to home. Rep. James Strickler spends most of the year running his own small oil and gas production company, JMJ Land & Minerals Co. The bill would directly affect his profits.

Strickler, a 58-year-old from the sparsely populated, gas-rich northwest corner of the state, speaks with a gentle western drawl. In an interview after the committee vote, he said the bill would put New Mexico’s regulations out of line with those in other states. Ultimately the bill was voted down on the House floor, and Strickler was among those voting ‘no.’ Over seven years in office, Strickler has been a staunch advocate for his own industry and has twice introduced legislation to reduce the amount of renewable energy that utilities must purchase. He has never recused himself from a vote on energy issues, he said, even when it directly affects his bottom line.

“I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest,” Strickler said. “I think it’s a blessing that a few of us have some understanding of that industry.”

New Mexico’s legislature meets for just 60 days each odd year and 30 days in even years. Lawmakers earn a $154 per diem payment while in session, but they receive no salary. These men and women are true citizen legislators, and unless they are retired or wealthy, they must find another way to earn a living. While all other states pay legislators at least a small salary, only ten state legislatures approach full-time status. The rest are part-time, and most lawmakers hold regular jobs the rest of the year.

As a result, situations like Strickler’s are the norm; insurance agents vote on insurance bills, doctors vote on health care bills and school administrators vote on education funding bills. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is also a partner at a prominent property tax law firm and has used his office to shape legislation and push state contracts that have sent millions of dollars to clients of the firm. Utah state Rep. Johnny Anderson, who runs for-profit day care centers, has pushed to change the state’s child care laws to benefit businesses like his; he told local reporters that all part-time legislators have conflicts. A 2010 review by the Deseret Morning News found that two out of three Utah legislators had introduced a bill that created a potential conflict with their private employment. In extreme cases, some lawmakers head groups that lobby the legislature, or even work as lobbyists themselves.

“It’s an absolute problem,” said Ben Bycel, a lawyer who used to run the ethics commissions in Los Angeles, and later, Connecticut. Bycel said many states do not pay legislators enough to discourage them from using their office for personal gain. In Connecticut, where Bycel worked from 2006-2007, he said many legislators’ outside employment was clearly a benefit of their public office. “Many of them were involved in situations [in which] they would not have had the job, they would not have kept the position, unless they were legislators. The reason why they were given the position was because someone up there thought they could do a good job for whatever industry it was.”

Advocates of part-time legislatures say they bring real-world experience to government and discourage the type of corrupt politics that can plague career politicians. But the system raises obvious conflicts of interest. States try to juggle these roles by requiring that lawmakers disclose their sources of income—which all but three states do—and by limiting what lawmakers can vote on—which 40 states do to at least some extent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Generally, lawmakers are supposed to recuse themselves from votes on bills that would give them a direct financial benefit, but it is often up to the legislators themselves to make that determination.

Many states, however, lack the combination of clear rules and strong enforcement that might ensure conflicts do not become real problems. While 41 states have some form of ethics oversight body, a review last year found many of those bodies to be weak and ineffective. The review, a state-by-state ranking of ethics and accountability carried out by the State Integrity Investigation, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International, gave grades of D or F to 28 of the state ethics agencies.

In New Mexico, there is no independent body for legislators to turn to for advice or to enforce the state’s ethics laws. While legislators are instructed not to use their office for private gain, lawmakers and government watchdogs say it is essentially up to individual legislators to decide whether a conflict exists, and whether they ought to recuse themselves from a vote.

Dede Feldman served as a Democrat in the legislature for 16 years before deciding not to run for re-election last year. She was a long-time advocate for creating an independent ethics commission, but she grew tired of legislative gridlock, and particularly frustrated with the lack of progress on ethics. She said lawmakers rarely recuse themselves, and that conflicts of interest have become so ingrained in the legislature that they rarely draw attention. “People have come to accept conflict of interest from legislators as the way we do business here,” she said.

Inside Stories

The Roundhouse consists of four circular hallways stacked on top of each other like doughnuts, with an open rotunda where the hole would be and offices lining the outside of the ring. The fourth floor hosts the governor’s office, which this winter featured an exhibit of the state’s prominent chile pepper industry that posed New Mexico’s basic existential question: Red or Green? The legislative chambers sit on the lowest level, underneath the floor of the rotunda. Lawmakers’ dress ranges from casual suits and blouses with New Mexico flare like the bolo tie, to the power-broker business suits common in Washington, D.C.

John Ryan sticks to the formal end of the scale. The Republican senator matches well-tailored suits with neatly parted chestnut hair. He’s represented parts of Albuquerque and its suburbs since 2005, and spends the rest of the year working as a federal lobbyist. His clients last year included a town in eastern New Mexico, a public water utility and two electric transmission and generation companies that operate in the state. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, they paid Ryan $240,000 last year to represent their interests in Washington.

Ryan is not registered to lobby in New Mexico, but he has voted on bills involving some of the same issues he lobbies for in Washington. Last year, he voted on a tax bond measure that funded dozens of projects across the state. One of items in the measure sent $278,000 to build a wastewater pipeline in Clovis, NM, which paid Ryan $40,000 last year. Ryan’s contract with Clovis cites a similar project on his to-do list. The same bond measure contained $210,000 for the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority, which paid Ryan $80,000 last year, according to federal records. Over the past few years, Ryan voted on several other bills that either helped finance or otherwise affected his clients.

Ryan has recused himself from some votes, including a committee vote in February on a bill that would affect electric transmission projects, and he does not generally sponsor bills that would benefit his clients. But the various relationships have led some veteran statehouse-watchers to say Ryan has gone too far. Leanne Leith, the political and programs director for Conservation Voters New Mexico, said she thinks Ryan should not have voted on the tax bond measures, even though other projects were included in the bills. “Where is that line?” she said. “If you’re passing a bill where three of the four clauses affect your clients, but the fourth doesn’t, do you say you were voting on that fourth piece?”

Ethics experts outside the state have reacted more strongly. “That’s outrageous,” Bycel said, after having Ryan’s situation described to him. “Legislators should not also be lobbyists.”

Ryan declined repeated requests for an interview. His arrangement raised few concerns in New Mexico until recently, when the Santa Fe Reporter profiled a complaint against Ryan with the Secretary of State brought by Joe Carraro, who lost to Ryan in the 2012 general election. Carraro served in the legislature as a Republican for two decades until 2009. Five years ago, he was accused of conflicts himself after he requested appropriations for school field improvements that eventually led to contracts for an artificial turf company that had hired him as a consultant. Carraro denied knowing that the appropriations would eventually lead to work for the company.

The essence of Carraro’s complaint was that Ryan had run afoul of the state’s conflict of interest laws with his votes and that he was lobbying within the state without registering. In December, the Secretary of State’s office sent Carraro a letter saying that based on his allegations and a response from Ryan, it did not find “sufficient evidence” of a violation of ethics laws. Even after the report, some people in the Capitol do not seem surprised by the details of the case and point to several similar examples.

Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, a Democrat, is executive director of the New Mexico County Clerks group, and for years lobbied the legislature on the group’s behalf until he was elected last year. While he no longer lobbies, he still runs the group and has even sponsored a bill, which updates marriage license procedures, that he helped draft as a lobbyist.

“I am the most knowledgeable person in the building on this issue. I’ve been dealing with this for three years,” he said. “What sense does it make to say, oh, let me give this to somebody who doesn’t know a thing about it.”

Sitting in a meticulously organized office, with a map of the 15th Senate district on the wall, Ivey-Soto said his work as executive director is not evaluated on the basis of legislative success. He also said he would recuse himself from any bill that could affect his compensation.

Mark Moores, a hulking, former college football player now serving his first term in the Senate as a Republican, is also the head of the New Mexico Dental Association, which has its own legislative agenda. The group has lobbied against a bill this year that would expand the work of dental therapists, and Moores said he will vote on the measure and sees no conflict.

“I don’t have a financial interest in if that bill passes or not,” Moores said. Because he is not a dentist and has no practice, Moores said the bill poses no direct financial concern for him. “But I have more expertise in that area than anyone else in this legislature because I’ve studied it, I know the issue. And if people ask me questions about it, I’m willing to share.”

Viki Harrison, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, said Moores should recuse himself from voting on the dental bill. But she pointed out that the vote is only a small part of the problem. “I’m going to tell you what happens in a citizen legislature. Other senators are going to look to him for direction because they just got slammed with a thousand bills in 30 days,” she said. “It’s not like every legislator has their own bill analyst to help them out.”

State by state

The situation is hardly exclusive to New Mexico. Ben Kieckhefer, a Republican state Senator in Nevada, is also the director of corporate communications for a Las Vegas law firm. In 2011, he told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he talks with the lobbyists at his firm so he knows what they are working on. "We need to make sure I have a clear understanding of what they're testifying on so I don't have a conflict of interest I don't know about,” he said.

Last year, the government watchdog group Integrity Florida examined lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms in that state and discovered that at least 11 legislators earned money from firms that lobby the legislature. Only two of the 11 reported potential conflicts of interest on votes, and only five listed their clients. Dan Krassner, the group’s executive director, said there were large inconsistencies in financial disclosure reports and that many were filed late or were not filed at all.

“Certainly, there’s an appearance that legislators and other officials that have clients are in a position to help their clients with little oversight,” Krassner said. He said the state’s conflict of interest rules are weak, and that financial disclosure is insufficient. “Too many officials are using their office for private gain.”

David Freel, who used to run Ohio’s Ethics Commission and now teaches ethics at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, said that working for a lobbying firm, while not banned in many states, lies at the edge of what is appropriate in a part-time legislature. “I think it creates an exceptional caution and risk signal to have a legislator be both a legislator and a lobbyist simultaneously,” he said. “Because then the question is, what is the separation?”

A fine line

The general rule of thumb in New Mexico and most states is that lawmakers ought not to vote on bills that affect them in particular, but that they are free to work on bills that affect an industry of which they’re a part. Most ethics experts say it’s difficult to write rules that are any more restrictive without having problematic side effects, such as precluding anyone except the independently wealthy from serving.

Alan Rosenthal, an expert in state government and legislative ethics at Rutgers University, said he’s in favor of banning dual office holding—when legislators hold a second public job such as sitting on an administrative board—and also supports preventing lawmakers from working as lobbyists or in other political fields. But he said overly restrictive rules would have unintended consequences. “The alternative there is to start trying to restrict the ability of legislators to participate because of where they earn their income,” he said. “The problem there is that you're limiting the representation that your constituency gets.”

The problem becomes complicated when a lawmaker, as is often the case, works in a field in which he has clients who deal with government contracts and regulation. “If he’s an insurance salesman, if he’s a lawyer, if he’s in any of these kinds of fields,” Bycel said, “you bet he’s going to have clients and customers who want something from him as legislator.”

Illinois’ House Speaker Michael Madigan is an extreme example. In a series of articles over the past few years, the Chicago Tribune reported on several cases in which Madigan, a Democrat known for his tight control of the legislature, pushed bills and contracts that reportedly steered millions of dollars to clients of his firm, Madigan & Getzendanner. In 2009, for example, Madigan helped secure $18 million in state funds for a highway interchange that a coalition of businesses had been promoting for years. Two of those businesses had hired his firm. In 2005, months after his firm was hired by a company that owns nursing homes, Madigan and the House made permanent a program that funded assisted living homes for the poor. The Tribune reported that the move unlocked millions of dollars in investment money for the company, Pathway Senior Living LLC, and allowed it to nearly double its number of facilities and collect tens of millions of dollars in additional federal and state funds.

One Tribune columnist called Madigan a “walking conflict of interest.” An editorial said that he had weakened bills affecting banks, nursing homes and pharmacies that had hired his firm, but noted there was no “smoking gun” indicating that Madigan had violated any ethics rules. “You don't need an ethics expert to deduce that something is very wrong in Illinois.”

Steve Brown, a Madigan spokesman, said none of the companies in question had hired Madigan’s firm in order to secure contracts or funds. He said that Madigan has not violated any laws, and that he complies with a personal code of conduct that says nothing he does in his public work will benefit him or his firm privately. “The most important thing is the end conclusion, that at no point did they demonstrate that Mr. Madigan used his pubic office for private gain,” Brown said.

Illinois’ Gov. Pat Quinn this year proposed explicitly prohibiting legislators from voting on issues where a conflict might exist. It’s unclear what exactly Quinn would qualify as a conflict, however, and a spokesman from his office did not answer specific questions on the proposal.

Maryland has a long history of similar dealings, said James Browning, regional director for state operations at Common Cause. In 2004, the organization reviewed votes and financial disclosures in Maryland and found that 50 legislators had sponsored 127 bills that affected their employers.

More recently, the state Senate censured Sen. Ulysses Currie last year for failing to disclose nearly $250,000 in consulting fees he earned from a grocery store chain, even as he helped the company win concessions with the state. Months earlier, a federal jury had acquitted Currie on charges stemming from the scandal; members of the jury said they felt Currie’s indiscretions fell short of criminal behavior. In the wake of the Currie scandal, Maryland lawmakers passed a bill requiring themselves to post some conflict of interest disclosure forms online, but they did not require that full financial disclosures be posted.

“The practice of pushing these bills to help your employer or yourself is pretty widespread,” Browning said, “and for the most part allowed under the rules.”

Broader perspectives

In many states, the concept of a full-time, professional legislature is a non-starter. In North Dakota and Texas, for example, lawmakers meet every other year. Many lawmakers in New Mexico say a citizen legislature brings a diverse group to the capitol with “real-world” experience.

“The writers of our constitution did not want a professional legislature,” said Moores, the first-term senator in New Mexico. “They wanted people coming in from the four corners of our state with different backgrounds.”

Robert Stern, who helped write California’s conflict of interest laws in 1974 and went on to work for the state’s ethics commission, said part-time legislatures bring a broader perspective to government and can actually reduce lawmakers’ reliance on campaign contributions. If legislators rely on other jobs for their incomes, he said, they may be more willing to alienate donors because serving in office is just one part of their professional life. Attempts to make legislatures full-time have gathered little support in Florida and Texas, and some people have pushed to shorten sessions in California, Michigan and Wisconsin.

But some experts and lawmakers say part-time legislatures harbor systemic flaws. Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, an Albuquerque Democrat and retired social worker, supports giving New Mexico’s legislators a salary. He said the brief legislative sessions mean lawmakers do not have enough time to wade through a wave of more than a thousand bills introduced each session. The problem is compounded by the fact that they do not have staff to help analyze legislation. The situation creates reliance on lobbyists—and their gifts—to help lawmakers sort out the details of legislation, he said. Ortiz y Pino and others also argue that rather than broadening its scope, a part-time legislature actually limits who can serve, because most people cannot afford to take two months away from full-time jobs.

“Having a citizen legislature sounds good on the surface,” Ortiz y Pino said, but the problems associated with it are “enormous.”

Browning of Common Cause said the problem has grown worse as Congress has given greater discretion to the states over how to spend federal money through block grants. The move has shifted more work from Washington to state capitols, he said, but states have not kept pace by devoting more resources to their legislators. “If you consider how much is at stake, how much money is being carved up by budgets and in these committees and how little is being invested in these people in salaries and in resources,” Browning said, “it’s hard to argue that we’ve set up a system to get the best and the brightest and have them fight for their constituents.”

Conflicts of interest have simply become part of the system in many states, experts say, where legislators earn little pay and have no effective oversight. In New Mexico, disclosures are inconsistent and are not audited. And without an independent ethics commission, oversight and enforcement simply does not work, said Harrison of Common Cause New Mexico. People can submit complaints to the Secretary of State, which rarely pursues ethics investigations, or to a number of legislative committees. Those committees have received about half a dozen ethics complaints since 2005, but have not found probable cause in any of them. “From our perspective, there’s really very, very little ethics oversight, and there are very few rules,” Harrison said.

The same could be said for many other states, where ethics agencies remain weak and under-funded, if they exist at all. Experts agree that independent oversight and strong disclosure rules are critical to preventing conflicts, as is paying legislators an adequate salary. But even under the best laws, conflicts are an inherent part of the system —and that issue can’t be squared, certainly not at the Roundhouse. “In some ways it’s an indictment of part-time legislatures,” Browning said. “This will always be a problem.”

Florida Senate passes sweeping ethics reform package

2013-03-06T12:02:09-05:00

The Republican-controlled Florida Senate unanimously passed a landmark ethics reform package on Tuesday, the first day of the legislative session, setting the stage for what could be the first major changes to the state’s ethics laws in decades.

The bills would strengthen provisions that prevent lawmakers from immediately becoming lobbyists, expand the powers of the state’s ethics commission and require that financial disclosure reports be posted online.

"Public office is a public trust," Senate President Don Gaetz said in hailing the 40-0 vote. "This legislation means the Florida Senate is serious about ethics reform. Higher ethical standards is just one more difference between Florida senators and Washington senators."

But the measures also contain several changes that critics say would actually weaken existing laws.

“I think it would be a step forward in some ways but several steps backward in others,” said Philip Claypool, a lawyer who served as executive director of the Florida Commission on Ethics until retiring in 2011. “The net effect I don’t think would be progress.”

While the legislation allows lawmakers to place investments in a blind trust in an effort to prevent conflicts of interest, for example, it leaves out several safeguards contained in similar laws in other states and at the federal level, Claypool said.

The bills would also allow lawmakers who have filed erroneous or incomplete financial disclosure reports to correct the forms before the ethics commission can investigate, in essence preventing the body from fining officials for their transgressions.

“Basically, they can get away with paying even less attention to the accuracy of a report,” Claypool said.

Gaetz spokeswoman Katie Betta disputed the characterization that the bills loosen existing law. She said the legislation would strengthen the ethics commission by allowing it to receive referrals from other state agencies.

Currently, the commission can initiate an investigation only after receiving a sworn complaint.

Both Gaetz and Republican House Speaker Will Weatherford, both new to their leadership posts, have said that passing ethics reform is a top priority. The state received an overall grade of C- from the State Integrity Investigation, a state-by-state ranking of ethics and accountability released last year by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.

House and Senate leaders do not agree on all the details of the bills.

While the Senate bill restricts how lawmakers can spend money from a type of campaign fund that legislators now use to solicit unlimited donations, legislation in the House would eliminate the committees altogether.

The House bill would also raise direct campaign contribution limits from $500 to $10,000 per person, a figure that Gaetz has said is too high. Ryan Duffy, a Weatherford spokesman, said he expects the House to begin work soon and to adopt a measure similar to the Senate package.

Dan Krassner, executive director of the watchdog group Integrity Florida, called the new legislation, “a mixed bag.” The Senate rushed the package through committees in an effort to pass it on the first day of the session, he said, but he’s hopeful the House may correct some of the problems identified by Claypool.

“Now that the bill is through the Senate it’s time for the House to remove provisions that protect officials who want to break ethics laws,” he said, “and instead ensure the bill protects the public.”