Ethics Jurisdiction Over Legislature Paired With a Legislative Role in Selecting Ethics Commission Members
A constitutional amendment to place state legislators under the jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission is scheduled to come before the Senate Judiciary committee this afternoon, and Katherine Gregg wrote this morning in the Projo that Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed expects it to be voted on today.
According to the Projo story, the final version of the bill has not yet been unveiled. The version officially pending in the Senate offers a compromise to the legislature’s Ethics Commission skeptics* who are worried about ceding too much authority to an outside body; four members of the commission will be appointed by the Governor from lists created by General Assembly members…
Ethics commission composition. — The ethics commission shall be composed of nine (9) members appointed by the governor; provided, that the president of the senate, the minority leader of the senate, the speaker of the house of representatives, the majority leader of the house of representatives, and the minority leader of the house of representatives shall each submit to the governor a list of names of at least five (5) individuals from which the governor shall appoint one individual from each of the lists so submitted, and four (4) individuals without regard to the lists submitted by the legislative leaders. The terms of service for the appointed members shall be as provided by law.
Two factors that likely account for the sudden re-appearance of ethics legislation at this time are…
- Rhode Island legislators in search of some kind of good-government achievement to talk about on the 2014 campaign trail, in the wake of the GA’s likely capitulation to Wall Street and the 38 Studios bondholders, and…
- The possibility of a standalone bill on this subject dampening public support for constitutional convention, by taking off of the table one of the most visible issues that can unite the people of Rhode Island versus the governing class.
(*However, I doubt that the new appointment process will do much to convince Ethics Commission skeptics amongst this blog’s contributors).
