Today is the last day of the legislative session, only not really. The General Assembly has already called itself into Special Session to deal with the budget crisis so there will be more partisan debate to come. One of the more interesting episodes of the session about to come to a close was the proposal to create a legislative ethics panel. This idea has percolated since the case of Republican Senator Lou DeLuca and came to a head this year when the Republicans put forth a proposal that was shot down by the Democrats. This came against the backdrop of the elections and ethics cases of two Democratic Senators, Gaffey and Crisco. The Republicans recently came back with a revised version of the bill in the form of an amendment which took into consideration many of the objections raised by the opposing party. It’s a good bill. It calls for a panel that would allow members of the chamber to bring complaints against their own members, not from the public as previously proposed. There would no longer be a standing bipartisan panel but an “ad hoc” panel created for each case. These provisions would remove some of the opportunities for politics and frivolous complaints.
But the real question here remains – would it work? It is clear just from the bill’s progress through the General Assembly that a legislative ethics panel is a tough pill for these politicians to swallow. How can they police themselves when they cannot even bring themselves to vote on a bill that would require them to police themselves? The state already has an independent agency, the Office of State Ethics that has jurisdiction over public officials. The State Elections Enforcement Commission has jurisdiction over campaign financing issues. Between these two agencies, any case of wrongdoing can be pursued. While the content of the current proposal is admirable, the legislature doesn’t seem to have the will to judge itself.
