Legislative Ethics

According to Catherine Turcer, the executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio, which is part of the Citizens Not Politicians coalition, the group has trained about 2,000 volunteers to collect petition signatures. “It’s clear there’s this disconnect between what it is that ordinary Ohioans want, and what it is that the state legislature chooses to do,” said Turcer. “There is real interest in ensuring that we have accountable government.”

“At the end of the day, this corrupt legislation means that we don’t have money we could be spending on other things,” Executive Director of Common Cause Ohio Catherine Turcer said. HB6, in part, gave two Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) coal plants a consistent stream of revenue, from Ohioans. “To the tune of $153,000 per day,” Turcer said.

Julia Vaughn, executive director of transparency and voting advocacy group Common Cause Indiana, said that 30-day timeframe is unfair. She worries the bill could catch people who become lawful citizens and voters whose names are still on the temporary list. “The failsafe has to move like clockwork right?” she said. “And in the real world, clockwork doesn’t always happen.”

Common Cause Georgia executive director Aunna Dennis called the measure a politically motivated bill that does not provide a clear roadmap of checks and balances it is supposed to adhere to. A better step would be to correct some of the deficiencies in last year’s bill that established the oversight commission, Dennis said in a statement. “Prosecutors who defend our state constitution should be able to do so safely,” she said. “How are prosecutors able to defend themselves from challenging corruption in our government without the proper protections?”

Laurel Brodzinsky, legislative director for California Common Cause, said Form 700 is an important tool for understanding how elected officials’ economic interests shape their decision-making. “We do think that having that transparency is really important for accountability,” Brodzinsky said. Brodzinsky of California Common Cause said there are reasonable limitations on what information is disclosed about elected officials and other public servants given the threat of violence. “We do understand the concerns of the privacy of the filer and they would not want their residential address out so publicly on the internet,” she said. But there are also legitimate reasons for making the real property interests of filers known, Brodzinsky argued. She pointed to an investigation last fall by the San Francisco Standard into a city building inspector who signed off on construction permits for his own home, which cited Form 700 records.

The alcohol industry is at it again. For three decades the industry, its powerful lobbyists and its allies in the hospitality industry have been successful in staving off increases in the state’s alcohol excise tax with arguments about how even a modest increase will hurt restaurants and local breweries. Increased prices for alcohol won’t result in less drinking anyhow, they say. The argument was most recently echoed in an Albuquerque Journal editorial. Meanwhile New Mexico is No. 1 nationwide in alcohol-related deaths and alcohol now accounts for one in five deaths of working age New Mexicans. Treatment programs are hard to come by, and not only families are paying the price. A recent study by the UNM Department of Economics says that excessive alcohol consumption costs New Mexicans $2.77 per drink in the form of crime, domestic violence, DWI and Medicaid payments.