Do we need Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s ethics reforms in Kansas?

John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (left) as his choice for Vice President on Friday. One of Palin’s major accomplishments in her short tenure as Governor that caught my eye was something that might benefit Kansas: ethics reform.

The Juneau Empire gave some details of the ethics reforms introduced in Alaska last year with Gov. Palin’s leadership (”Governor approves ethics bill - Palin proclaims new standard for Alaska lawmakers,” July 10, 2007):

Palin on Monday signed House Bill 109, calling it “a good first step” in ensuring Alaskans can trust state government.

The bill includes a host of new rules for the legislative and executive branches of government. One new requirement is that lobbyists must report buying legislators meals any time they cost more than $15. Another bars executive branch officials from having significant financial stakes in companies they deal with in their jobs.

Ethics laws

• House Bill 109 improves laws affecting lobbyists by:

• Requiring ethics training for lobbyists and their employers.

• Increasing restrictions on lobbyists’ gifts.

• Barring persons with certain felony convictions from lobbying.

• Barring spouses and domestic partners of legislators from lobbying for pay.

• Prohibiting certain high-level executive branch officials from lobbying for one year after leaving those positions.

• Improves disclosure laws by:

• Requiring electronic filing of campaign and financial disclosures.

• Requiring legislators and legislative employees to disclose all boards on which they serve.

• Requiring final financial disclosures from legislators, public officials and others within 90 days of leaving office.

• Requiring more details in financial disclosures.

• Requiring members of more executive branch boards to file financial disclosures.

• Improves executive branch ethics laws by:

• Increasing requirements for public officials’ blind trusts.

• Specifying when a financial interest in a business is insignificant.

• Increasing restrictions on employment after leaving service in the executive branch.

• Barring political use of state aircraft except when that use is incidental.

• Requiring the governor, before granting executive clemency, to disclose any interest in the matter and obtain an ethics determination from the attorney general.

• Improves legislative ethics laws by:

• Requiring ethics training.

• Increasing restrictions on gifts legislators and legislative employees may accept.

• Prohibiting legislators from receiving outside compensation for legislative, administrative or political work.

• Making it a crime for public servants not to report bribery they know about.

• Prohibiting agreements to exchange campaign contributions to elected officials or candidates for changing their votes or positions on a matter.

While the Meadowlark normally follows mostly political money, and would need to investigate how some of these Alaska reforms would help Kansas, it’s clear ethics reform in Kansas could be vastly improved.

For example, “barring political use of state aircraft except when that use is incidental,” perhaps would prohibit Gov. Sebelius and other state officials from attending athletic events using the Kansas executive aircraft. How is attending out-of-state athletic events, when only a select few can attend, a necessary function of government?

[See "Friend of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius? Did you get to fly the State of Kansas Executive Aircraft to the NCAA basketball tournament in San Antonio?", Kansas Meadowlark, May 11, 2008. An unpublished Meadowlark investigation showed that Gov. Sebelius has NOT used the state aircraft for all her campaign trips for presidential candidate Barack Obama.]

A July 23, 2007 Juneau Empire editorial suggests what may be a serious problem in Kansas because so many Kansas corporate “open records” are exorbitantly expensive to purchase:

Gov. Sarah Palin signed into law an ethics reform package for state officials that’s a step toward preventing violations like [State Rep. Tom] Anderson’s from happening again.

The law bans officials from being compensated by outside entities - like businesses or lobbyists - for actions undertaken as part of their official duties. It also prohibits accepting campaign contributions as bribes.

. . .

The measure unfortunately does not stop officials from having consulting contracts, but at least stricter disclosure rules will make it harder for legislators to hide - and therefore get away with - impropriety stemming from these positions.

The new law isn’t perfect, but it’s a solid start. And realistically, stricter ethics laws aren’t the ultimate answer. Just as drunk driving laws don’t prevent people from doing so, expanding the bounds of what is specifically labeled as misconduct won’t make an honest politician out of a sleazy one.

While Kansas legislators do file annual statements of substantial interest, knowing who is on the board of directors of many Kansas corporations is too expensive to find through requests to the Kansas Secretary of State’s office. The fees to buy these corporate records, and find a corporation’s board of directors, are so high in Kansas that they effectively hide this information from the public, and could easily be hiding corruption. Missouri provides such corporate information online for free. Texas only charges $1, which is much more reasonable than the Kansas fee of something like $15.

The new KanView system helps identify what companies are receiving state contracts, but that information may not be of much value if there is no way to know the players in a company.

Many law makers are also attorneys, and the relationships between their corporate interests and government interests (including school districts) are not always clear.

There are many campaign finance reforms needed in Kansas, including greater scrutiny of large PAC-to-PAC transfers, how PACs are using non-profits for election purposes for candidates, and how out-of-state political money affects Kansas elections, sometimes in hidden ways.

Perhaps we need to invite Gov. Palin to visit us in Kansas and give us more details about her ethics reforms. Ethics reform and more state government transparency would help all Kansas citizens.

When will Gov. Sebelius and Kansas legislators get serious about ethics reform in Kansas?

Tags: ethics reform, Gov. Sarah Palin, government corruption