Statehouse ethics debate, fix begins this week

Published 4:30 am Thursday, December 9, 2010

After years of government distrust culminated in 11 legislators indicted in a bingo vote buying scheme, Alabama lawmakers are taking steps to ensure a cleaner state capitol.

A matter of minutes after being asked to chair the House Committee on Ethics, Rep. Jim McClendon, R-Springville, shared information about the special legislative session on ethics reform with locals at the Springville Café last week.

The special session, which convened at 4 p.m. yesterday, will put legislators to work with the Anti-Corruption Reform Package, a set of seven game-changing ethics bills being considered.

A public hearing held last night also provided insight into the public opinion of the measures.

McClendon said last week, “The entire legislature will be called in on a committee to sit and listen to public input. We are inviting public input. We’ve put the bills online, and we’re saying, ‘Now, come get in front of us and tell us what you think about this.’”

With corruption and scandal in the forefront of Alabama politics, the package of bills hopes to set things straight and make Montgomery a more honest place to do government business.

“I think this package of bills is going to be the initial blow. There’s gonna be some squealin’ going on,” McClendon said. “But this is going to be the initial blow, and we’re going to continue to fine-tune it.”

If approved by the state House and Senate, the bills should be ready for Gov. Bob Riley’s signature early next week.  

Protect the Public Trust Act

The ethics committee itself will receive an overhaul in their role. Most notably, the ethics committee will gain the power to subpoena witnesses and evidence for use in investigations.

Every state’s ethics commission has subpoena power, except for Alabama, McClendon said.  “We’re going to solve that problem.”

The bill also changes the standards for investigation from requiring “actual knowledge” of an allegation to allowing a person with “credible and verifiable information supporting an allegation” to file a complaint against a legislator.

“You can’t just get mad at me and report me to them, and they put me through a hard time with it,” McClendon said.

Additional changes include changing the requirement for votes to investigate an allegation from five members of the committee to four, the authority for the ethics commission to share evidence found during an investigation with the attorney general or a district attorney, which requires a report whether he or she intends to take action within 90 days, and establishes online ethics seminars to allow public employees and elected officials to receive ethics training.

Ban on ‘Pass-Through Pork’

Also known as “earmarked” money, the process of directing public funds from a state agency to a project will be halted, should the bill pass.

“For the last four years, Agriculture and Industries was the mechanism for pass-through. Let’s just say I’m in charge of this budget. Agriculture hands me ‘X’ amount of money and I give them an extra million. I put it in a line-item, then I look at the commissioner of that group and say, ‘Now, that’s my million. I gave it to you, and I’m going to tell you how to spend it,’” McClendon explained. “Nobody knows about it. You don’t know about it. Other members of the legislature don’t know about it.”

According to the bill, agency directors or subordinates permitting or perform such transactions will be disciplined and possibly terminated for allowing the  exchange to occur. Those employees are also required to report any illegal, hidden earmarks to the Governor, the Ethics Commission, the legislator involved and the presiding officers of each house.

Knowingly violating the provision will mean a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in jail and up to a $500 fine.  

PAC-to-PAC Transfer Ban

Political Action Committees are formed —  ideally — so that employee groups, club groups and common interests can pool their money and support a candidate they thought supported them, McClendon noted.

But when a PAC decides it isn’t in their best interest for the public to know about their donations, it’s simply a question of laundering it through another PAC.

“In Alabama, we have the most liberal, most unregulated PAC laws in the nation. In fact, we were recently determined by some think groups that we were number 49 in how strict our PAC regulations are,” McClendon said.

By filtering money through different PACs, a “shell game” ensues, forcing the citizenry to guess where the true source of political funding lies.

With the legislature’s approval and the governor’s signature, the bill would limit money movement to transfers from a PAC to a candidate. A candidate could not give money to a PAC, and one PAC could not transfer money to another PAC.

Ban Legislative Double-Dipping

In the state of Alabama, state salaries could officially turn to a one-per-customer opportunity for legislators.

Recently, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld a ruling that prevented double-dipping — or drawing salaries from both the legislature and the two-year college system. The legislative double-dipping ban would extend that practice to four-year colleges, K-12 education and all state employment including judicial positions. Businesses owned by legislators would also be prevented from receiving certain contracts paid for by government funds.  

In recent years, a number of legislators have run into problems by drawing a salary from both the legislature and a public college.

“Ken Guin from Jasper had three state salaries. He had his legislative salary, and he had two junior colleges paying him at the same time. Sue Schmitz was supposed to be working for a junior college in north Alabama, she was getting payroll from that junior college and she didn’t even know the password to her laptop,” McClendon said.

The arrangement, he said, allows lawmakers to vote on budgets for institutions they work for, and defrauds taxpayers out of money.

“The whole deal is us taxpayers are paying for this person to pay for this job and this job at the same time and it can’t be done,” McClendon said.  

Should the bill pass, legislators employed with any government or judicial institutions before Dec. 1 will have until Nov. 5, 2014 to find other employment or resign from the legislature.

Restricting Political Activity on State Time

Law prohibits employees of the state of Alabama, a county or a city to use state, county or city funds, property, or time for any political activities. However, dues for employee organizations like the AEA have been collected on state time for years.

“You and I are paying tax dollars for [state employees] to keep up with the dues and turn around and relinquish it to this private institution. That ain’t right,” McClendon said. “There’s nothing wrong with a private group having their dues, but they need to do it themselves.”

The proposed law would make it illegal for any person employed the state, a county, a city, a local school board or other government agency to collect money that will be used for political purposes.  

Code of Public Ethics and Accountability

From free meals to free vacations and Iron Bowl tickets, Alabama legislators receive a number of “perks” from lobbyists for simply providing an ear to their causes. However, the era could be ending with the addition of new limits on what can be spent on legislators without being publicly reported.

 “Right now, our ethics law says you can spend $250 a day on me. Every day of the year,” McClendon said. “For entertainment, sporting events, whatever — $250 a day without reporting it. That’s pretty hard to believe. I don’t guess that I’ve ever had anyone spend that kind of money on me, but I know there’s folks out there that are making out like bandits.”

This relationship between lobbyists and legislators through the purchase of gifts may shift a legislator’s attention in a way detrimental to those they serve, McClendon said.

“When that lobbyist spends that kind of money on [legislators], they start paying attention to the lobbyist rather than his constituents, and that’s who he’s supposed to be listening to—the people who sent him [to Montgomery],” McClendon said. “I’m supposed to be responsible for your needs, not Milton McGregor’s needs.”

Under the new law, lobbyists are restricted to gifts, meals or anything of value under $25, with a yearly cap of $100 in gifts from any one person.  

“You can take someone out to eat, and you can take me out two or three times, but I can’t go on your charge card every night,” McClendon said. “How do y’all conduct business? You do it over a meal. Well, legislators do that too, that’s about the only time you can get folks to sit down sometimes and talk. But now, it’s going to be reported.”

Restrictions would also limit travel expenditures, meals and hospitality that legislators are able to accept in connection with authorized functions, like national, regional or state conferences or conventions, educational functions, speaking engagements, political campaign events or economic development missions.

Transparency and Accountability Act

Tied with the code of public ethics and accountability provisions, the Transparency and Accountability Act would provide a way for the ethics commission to post electronic records to their website, to improve efficiency in their own department, but also to provide public access to those records.

Additionally, the act would provide for mandatory ethics training for legislators, constitutional officers, cabinet, executive staff, local officials and lobbyists, and require those who lobby for grants and contracts to register with the ethics commission, to ensure that they adhere to the same rules as legislative lobbyists.  

The path forward

McClendon said it’s possible that legislators will try to weaken the proposed bills or try to make them so unpalatable that no one can vote for them in an effort to maintain the current Montgomery status quo. But, by ensuring stricter ethical guidelines, McClendon, Riley and other supports of the Anti-Corruption Reform Package hope to clean up Montgomery — a sentiment which permeated many of the campaign messages this election season.

“We have 11 people indicted recently, and everyone keeps talking about there’s 20 more to come. The other shoe is going to fall. Montgomery is a rotten place, through and through,” McClendon said. “My hope is that the people who are claiming leadership roles will do what they said they’d do. They made promises to the people of Alabama, and it’s up to the voters to hold these people’s feet to the fire. To say, ‘You promised it, but you didn’t do anything. You’re still living off the lobbyists, you’re not reporting back home, and we’ll get someone else.’”