Sunday, February 05, 2012
Christina Nuckols: Disclosure rules aren't evenly applied
Christina Nuckols
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- Hollins banks on progress and patience
- Column archive
Christina Nuckols grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and worked at several newspapers in western Virginia, including The Roanoke Times, before moving to Richmond to cover state government and politics. After 14 years at the state Capitol, she returned to Roanoke in 2011 to become the editorial page editor. christina. nuckols@roanoke.com | 981-3377
From the RoundTable blog
Last week, reporters across the state shuffled through Gov. Bob McDonnell's latest financial files revealing that he accepted $99,000 in taxpayer-funded trips and corporate gifts, including clothing, tickets to sporting events and a miniature train.
Newspaper stories declaring 2011 a record year for swag prompted me to scan reports from previous years, but there are gaps in the public records available online. Most of the missing documents were for the final year of elected officials' terms, which raised an interesting question. Are departing officials obligated to file one last disclosure as they head out the door?
The answer turns out to be Yes, Yes and No.
I'll explain. Governors, lieutenant governors and attorneys general file their reports each January with the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. That office instructs statewide officials to complete a final economic interest statement as their term expires.
Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar applies the same rule to senators, who submit their reports to her.
"They do have to file because the report is for the previous year," she said last week. "Regardless of whether they run or not, they do have to file their form."
But the long-standing policy on the other end of the Capitol gives delegates a pass in their final year, according to House Clerk Paul Nardo.
The law on this is admittedly vague. It states that elected officials "shall file, as a condition to assuming office ... and thereafter shall file such a statement annually" each January. House officials read "condition to assuming office" to mean that the reason for the reports is to make sure legislators come clean about potential conflicts of interest before they start voting on bills during the General Assembly session. Departing delegates can't vote anymore, so they don't have to file. The secretary of the commmonwealth and Senate officials maintain that the law requires a report to be filed at the end of each year that an individual is in office.
The bottom line is that delegates who retire or lose an election are under no obligation to disclose the gifts they collected in their final year in office. Presumably, most of those who are removed from office by voters can't anticipate that outcome, so they are unlikely to change their behavior. But a retiring delegate might be more willing to accept a steak dinner or a free weekend at an island resort. While the lobbyist who makes the gift is required to report it, the information is less likely to be noticed by the hometown newspaper.
The larger problem here is not that a few senior lawmakers might engage in a final gluttonous binge as they cruise into retirement or prepare to run for higher office. Rather, the inconsistent reporting rules are the latest reminder that state ethics laws are confusing and enforcement is haphazard.
Another example: McDonnell reported that he hitched a ride on utility giant Dominion's corporate jet when he returned to Virginia from a meeting of the National Governors Association in Utah. He assessed the gift at $396. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli disclosed that he flew to South Carolina on the dime of Roanoke attorney John Rocovich, a trip he valued at $10,000. If there are state standards for calculating the value of free flights, they are clearly not being applied uniformly.
The idea of an independent ethics commission has been discussed off and on for many years as a means to provide elected officials with consistent, expert advice on potential conflicts and to sanction those who violate the rules. But even in the aftermath of serious scandals the reform has never attracted support in the General Assembly.
Virginia's State and Local Government Conflict of Interest Act, the law that sets out ethics rules and reporting requirements, acknowledges that "our system of representative government is dependent in part upon... citizens maintaining the highest trust in their public officers and employees." That trust, in turn is dependent on standards of conduct that are "uniform throughout the Commonwealth."
Right now, those standards aren't even being uniformly observed under the dome of the Capitol.
Nuckols is The Roanoke Times editorial page editor.
