Updates re Rhode Island and Oregon - Legislative Immunity and Annual Disclosure
<b>Rhode Island - Legislative Immunity</b><br>
According to <a href="http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/01/ri-supreme-cour-1.html" target="”_blank”">yesterday's
Providence <span>Journal,</span></a> the
Rhode Island Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/562" target="”_blank”">the court decision</a>
supporting the former state senate president's claim of legislative immunity
against the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, which equally has
jurisdiction over local government legislators and other officials. It
has thus recognized the importance of this issue to enforcement by the
state's EC.<br>
<br>
However, the Supreme Court refused to stay the lower court decision, so
that, for the time being, legislators involved in legislative activity
are outside the EC's jurisdiction. It is not clear whether this would
apply to local government legislators, as well.<br>
<br>
<b>Oregon - Annual Disclosure</b><br>
According to <a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/396871_rules21.html" target="”_blank”">an
Associated Press article</a> yesterday, the Oregon legislature is
considering changes to the state's annual disclosure requirements due
to the many complaints and resignations of local officials, as
discussed in a couple of <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/447" target="”_blank”">blog entries</a> here, both
accessible from the one link. According to the article, the biggest
problem local officials have with the disclosure requirements is
listing their adult relatives.<br>
<br>
"It doesn't make any sense; there's no public benefit to it," the
Senate Majority Leader is quoted as saying. Is there really no sense in
knowing the names of relatives who might come before a commission
member or get a contract from the local government? If there's no sense
to this, there's also no sense in knowing whom an official works for or
what property he or she owns in town, because knowing this would not in
any way help people know if there's a conflict. And it would also be of
no benefit to the public if an official who discloses this information
were (sensibly) more careful about letting family members or employers
benefit from his or her position.<br>
<br>
I think we should all thank Senator Devlin for knocking some sense into government ethics.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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