Washington recently survived a brief flutter over ethics with an eye on Supreme Court Justices, some of them with peculiar friends and favors.
In Kansas, the matter of ethics in government is consigned to history and rarely discussed these days, a topic left to a remote dusty shelf. It has been nearly 30 years since ethics was a serious matter in Topeka, one that made a lot of people uncomfortable.
In early 1996, the House Governmental Organization and Elections Committee began discussion of House Bill 3000, which proposed the most dramatic change in state ethics laws in decades. The 56-page reform was seen as the blueprint for legislation to be written by the committee. The committee chair, Rep. Carol Dawson, R-Russell, was prepared for trouble but hoped the panel could craft a “significant and forceful bill” and send it to the full House for debate.
The original measure was designed to cramp a lucrative campaign finance network among lobbyists and legislators. One section banned elected officials from serving on the boards of political action committees; another forbade legislators or government employees from lobbying for one year after leaving public service. And for the first time, a provision banned the use of state or local tax funds in lobbying efforts.
Other provisions would:
‒ Ban state employees from doing business with the state or state-regulated agencies;
‒ Ban “referral fees” (kickbacks), the potential for reimbursement when legislators act as matchmakers for lobbyists and clients with business before the state;
‒ Bring cities, counties, school districts and other local entities under jurisdiction of new campaign finance, disclosure and conflict of interest laws.
There was more, including a ban on sluicing contributions from several campaign committees to one candidate (to sidestep contribution limits); and a ban on nepotism, especially in powerful state agencies.
*
The bill immediately drew fire because it had undressed Topeka’s culture of secrecy and gratification by offering to police it. In proposing certain regulations it exposed curious practices. It unmasked codes and strictures running through the legislative channels, the workplaces of powerful agencies, the culture of lobbying at the Capitol. The bill wasn’t about illegal activity in Kansas, it was about what was still legal.
The reforms fueled strong opposition. Many lobbyists, especially those financed with money from school districts, cities or counties, were critical. They were joined by colleagues who represented corporations or associations that donated heavily to political action committees.
Many legislators, especially those who controlled or benefited largely from political action committees, were annoyed. The bill would throttle their power to manage large donations and control the spigots to campaigns for rank and file legislators.
*
The bill was ultimately watered down, stripped of significance and consigned
to the nether world of inattention. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has added its own stamp of secrecy and privacy. The money and power of Washington-based cause lobbies has muscled over the force of local parties and political organizations.
Ethics in government is now a matter of history, one for the books, something that matters only to those who bother to look it up and read about a moment that passed.
