The NYT (today) seems to be predicting that little to nothing will happen in Congress. I sincerely hope they're wrong.

Good job Jon, thanks.

Here's a simple test of the ethics-reform intentions of the Oregon Democrats: will they do something to rein in the absurd, graft-insured (whoops, sorry--campaign contribution-insured) monopoly held by the alcoholic-drink distributors?

This is funny. Emmanuel and I actually agree on something! I sent a letter to DNC Chair Howard Dean on exactly this issue. Although of course my letter went farther, since I'm a populist progressive and not a DLC stooge like Rahm Emmanuel.

Here's the link

We also need to find a way to shine some light on the donors to national organizations like Freedom Works and that group that was created to fund the so-called "65% solution" ballot measure, but instead ended up directly funding Republican candidates.

Ethics reform, including restrictions on donations by corporations clearly needs to be a high priority in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate we are fortunate to find ourselves with at both the Federal and state level. However, at the state level, the problem is seldom one of direct pay-for-play as simplistically characterized here since it is not uncommon for legislatures from both parties to invite various interests to draft legislation. One of the drawbacks of a part-time, "people's legislature" is that you don't always get people who have any particular skill or talent at legislating.

To that end, I'm reprising part of a comment about ethics reform when this topic was discussed before:

There are three categories of official misbehavior (definitions from Black's Law Dictionary) in public office:

1) Malfeasance - A wrongful or unlawful act, wrongdoing or misconduct by a public official.

2) Misfeasance - The tort of excessive, malicious or negligent exercise of statutory powers by a public officer.

3) Nonfeasance - The failure to act when a duty to act existed.

If one thinks about it, much of the most egregious improper behavior by the Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate are of the misfeasance or nonfeasance character. Only rarely does someone get caught in actual malfeasance. And in this passive-aggressive corner of the country, much of the improper behavior across the political spectrum is in the misfeasance or nonfeasance category.

So what does this have to do with ethics and ethics reform? Well, if we just want to play around with ethics reform, we will go ahead and focus on the relatively insignificant problem of "presents-for-favors". Only the truly dumb take bribes. Corrupt bureaucrats and politicians of even average intelligence bank goodwill and promises of later rewards by not carrying out the duties of their office faithfully, or just don't make waves to defend ethical principles when they feel it is to their disadvantage or simply just too much work to do so. Instead, they use their offices in ways that benefit power interests who will reward them in the near term in intangible ways - like throwing perfectly legal fundraisers and introducing them to the "right people" - and only tomorrow in more tangible ways.

If we are serious about meaningful ethics reform, we will instead concentrate on patterns of influence by legislating ways to punish misfeasance and nonfeasance. That includes punishing actions like letting interest groups across the spectrum, no matter how "honorable", write legislation that makes it in whole or in large part to a vote, and transgressing the constitutionally or legally defined bounds of one's elected office such as may be the case when an Article VI officer like an SOS engages in political advocacy activities.

I wonder how many folks here, and how many of our elected leaders, have the stomach for actually making these kinds of serious changes to our ethics laws. Personally, I'd be happy if we brought Oregon's standards up to Federal standards, and otherwise quit playing around with ethics reform by fooling ourselves that campaign contributions --- and usually just those by people we don't like because they are on the opposite side from us of a political debate --- are the most significant corrupting influence on government officials. It's a reasonable bet those who understand how to make corruption really work for them are quite content to allow activists distract the public with campaign contribution reforms that often are later held unconstitutional after the energy and anger that caused them to be passed has been spent.

Ethics reform should have good traction in the upcoming legislative session for reasons ranging from the signal given in exit polling that corruption was a significant factor in national voting trends, to recent news stories on legislator trips to Hawaii – keep in mind that in addition to the good recent reporting by the Oregonian the Eugene Register-Guard has done similar stories in the past, to the recommendations of an interim Work Group that resulted from legislative activities in 2003 and 2005.

All this is very encouraging to the group that I run, the Money in Politics Research Action Project (MiPRAP), which has been working on these issues over the last two sessions. Check out our overview of what needs to happen in 2007 here: <ahref=http: www.oregonfollowthemoney.org="" lobbyist="" 2005gspcfunding.htm="">MiPRAP’s ethics reform summary and join us in helping ensure that significant action is taken next session.

Highlights echo several of Kari’s original comments: *Adequate and independent funding of the ethics commission.

*Ban on gifts, food and beverage, entertainment, and junkets. On this topic one of the details we’re thinking through concerns allowances for trips from non-profit groups. One addition to Kari’s thinking on this is a qualification regarding the source of money for non-profits; otherwise they will just become a conduit for junkets ultimately paid for by the same usual suspects.

*Quarterly reporting of lobbying spending. This increased frequency is particularly important regarding lobbying entities which currently only report once a year. I’d appreciate feedback on Kari’s thinking that this reporting should be monthly.

Kari’s suggestion on reporting also mentions the need for more frequent and online availability of information on lobbyist clients. On this topic, lobbyists already have to notify the ethics commission of new clients pretty promptly; the problem is that this information isn’t posted in any kind of searchable format online. Why? See the first bullet above regarding the need for adequate and independent funding of the ethics commission.

Other comments point to the need for multiple reforms – in addition to ethics improvements, we need improvements in campaign finance disclosure and limits on campaign contributions that can muster a broad coalition of support along with a constitutional amendment that voters will support. This session the major opportunity, however, looks to be ethics reform and disclosure improvements, but more will be needed down the line. One note on disclosure improvements is that disclosure of financial support to political non-profits, regardless of their location in or outside of Oregon, is governed by IRS laws and there are limited opportunities for changes at the state level.

One recommendation by the Ethics Work Group on use of campaign funds by candidate committees is to not allow these PACs to make pass-through contributions to other political committees, including ballot measure PACs. The First Class Education situation is an example of a chief petitioner PAC giving to candidates. This could be another category of pass-through money to be banned, though, there are constitutional concerns regarding these limits on such money transfers.

A final note is that other restrictions on use of campaign funds has also been proposed by both the Public Commission on the Legislature and the Ethics Work Group whose recommendations will be voted on by the Law Commission on December 20th. A power point with a good summary of Ethics Work Group recommendations is at: here

Someone with admin privileges may want to take care of the malformed URL Janice Hartmann put it her comment because it makes it impossible for anyone to add comments on Firefox, IE, or Safari.

Kari -

I wonder how far you want to go with this...

Precisely as far as I said (you are somewhat unfair when you don't include enough of the quote to convey the essential meaning): That includes punishing actions like letting interest groups across the spectrum, no matter how "honorable", write legislation that makes it in whole or in large part to a vote,

The point here is to punish legislators who are unfaithful to the people by not doing their job, and not interest groups who really do have the right to ask that a legislator to corrupt his or her self.

Let's be clear, we know in other spheres such an action would be plagarism if the source of the text is not cited with the stolen text, and people lose jobs and and careers over that. And we know legislators would be far too cowardly to include in the text "this language requested by (corrupting interest group here)", even though we require words exactly to that effect in the voters guides. So it is very clear there is something wrong with this that you haven't grappled with in your desire to be able to influence legislators.

The reason that it is a problem is that, in our sometimes misguided love for citizen legislators, we sometimes send people who aren't always competent at legislating. Nor always at even understanding the implications and hidden gotchas skilled interests, like you, can craft into legislative language. But it sure can be in their interest to avoid the hard work of studying the language, and simply brushing off questions from opponents, if there is no penalty to pay for that kind of irresponsible behavior. Therefore, the only defense we have against ourselves is to make sure the people we send understand it is unethical to not do their own work.

Janice Hartmann -

While I think a lot of your suggestions are good procedural ideas, and finding independent funding for the GSPC is parameount, I'm disappointed there seems to be a fundamental naivete in your argument in the context of our citizen legislator.

I have already described part of the reasons above. More importantly, I am interested in reading your response to the following:

Because we feel it is a "good thing" that legislators have to otherwise make a living on their own, it is clear that one of their primary concerns will be doing just that.

Now some would argue that citizen legislators are a "good thing" because people will bring common sense and an independent source of income with them to the job. I wonder where the evidence is on how that plays out in real life?

One could just as easily argue that in view of the long-term self-preservation mandate, citizen legislators are much less likely to take outright bribes, in the form of direct cash or questionable campaign payments, which are easily uncovered and severely punished. Any legislator who is intelligent enough to see the big picture, presumably the kind of people we want to send to represent us, would clearly avoid the appearance of direct impropriety. They would instead legislate in the interest of those powerful interests who can provide them other lifetime and career benefits.

Ideally for them, they would legislate as well-heeled interests would like them to (including introducing legislative language provided by those interests) in exchange for benefits after they have left their job and are safely out of the reach of the GSPC.

Another version of this would be elected officials with further political plans who carry water for groups I would imagine Kari approves of, in the way Kari suggests, with the understood promise those groups will be there for them personally.

I contend we really do need to start from the first principles I described earlier about the three types of unethical behavior in crafting meaningful ethics reform and focus less on emotionally-appealing specifics that are easily rendered irrelevant.

Here's an interesting example in addition to the example about legislative language I described earlier: If one in principle could get writ of mandamus against an action by an elected official or a government employee, than that action should be recognized as being unethical.

Sorry for the link screw ups. Let me try again.

The MiPRAP overview of ethics reform for 2007 is at http://www.oregonfollowthemoney.org/Lobbyist/2005GSPCFunding.htm

The MiPRAP summary as a live link should (I hope) be here

The Ethics Work Group recommendations are at: http://www.willamette.edu/law/oregonlawcommission/home/work_groups55.html

A live link (I hope) is here

Again, my apologies for the earlier errors with links.