Local lawmakers fear ethics bill won’t solve problem

Friday, January 6, 2006

Bill Hiles, State Gazette

Dyer County’s three state legislators said Thursday they fear a proposed ethics bill to be considered next week will not accomplish all either lawmakers or the public expect.  “I’m afraid one of the things that will come out of this is rules that will get people in trouble without knowing they are in trouble,” said Rep. Phillip Pinion, D-Union City, who represents most of west and north Dyer County, including a small section of North Dyersburg.  “For instance, the proposed legislation says I can’t meet with constituents to discuss particular legislation if their company or organization has a lobbyist.” 

“I think we need to pass some ethics reform legislation to restore people’s faith in the legislative process, but I have a couple of concerns,” said Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, who represents southeastern Dyer county and the majority of Dyersburg.  “I’m concerned about creating an ethics commission in addition to the Registry of Election Finance when giving the registry subpoena power and a few other things could allow it to do the job without creating another agency and I hope this won’t become partisan as most issues have recently.” 

“I’m afraid the governor’s call for the special session is too narrow and won’t address everything it should,” said Sen. Mark Norris, R-Collierville, whose district includes all of Dyer County.  “We need to deal with ethics problems of this administration, but the call is pretty much limited to the Legislature.”  “Eventually we’ll deal with those during the regular session whether the governor wants us to or not.” 

The ethical problems faced by the administration revolve around personnel policies about sexual harassment and political influence in the stare safety department, particularly the Tennessee Highway Patrol. 

 Prompted by a federal sting operation that led to indictments against five current or former lawmakers on bribery and extortion charges, Gov. Phil Bredesen called the Legislature into special session at 11 a.m.  Tuesday, an hour before they sere scheduled to begin their regular session.  The special session will push back the start of the regular session until the special session is completed.  The sting was called Operation Tennessee Waltz.  During the special session lawmakers are scheduled to consider legislation fashioned by a special joint committee of House and Senate members. 

A committee appointed by Bredesen has also compiled a list of tougher ethics rules its members would like to see enacted.  Pinion said he believes the ethics bill should be simplified to full disclosure of all contact between lobbyists and legislators.  “Make both disclose everything and post the disclosures on the Internet,” he said.  “If a lobbyist buys me a meal or even a cup of coffee make each of us disclose it and post the disclosures and then the voters can decide whether they want to return me to the Legislature.” 

Norris said he is skeptical any new legislation will prevent unlawful activities.  “The problem is I don’t see anything in this legislation that would prevent what happened in Tennessee Waltz from happening again.”  All three legislators said they expect the special session to last three to four weeks.  “I was hoping we could do it in a couple of weeks, but it probably will take three or four weeks,” Fitzhugh said.  “I expect it will go to a conference (committee) because I don’t see the same bill being passed initially by the House and Senate.”  Pinion said he expects the House to simplify the bill, perhaps to a version of his full-disclosure idea.  “The bill was written by two senators-Jim Kyle (D-Memphis) and Roy Herron (D-Dresden) - and they will fight to keep as much of it as possible,” he said.  “I think the House will try to take most of the confusion out of it by passing a simpler bill.  “The Senate seems to want things to be more complicated, maybe because they have a higher percentage of lawyers and the House has more farmers and people in business.”