Nixon outlines what ethics reform ‘must’ include
By Cara | January 5, 2010
With state legislators on both sides of the aisle introducing bills to reform the way they do business in Jefferson City, Gov. Jay Nixon has drawn a line in the sand on what he says “must” be in a bill next year.
“Meaningful ethics reform must begin with contribution limits, but it cannot end there,” Nixon wrote today in a letter to members of the General Assembly.
In 1994, 74 percent of Missouri voters approved a statewide ballot initiative that set limits on campaign contributions.
In 2008, the Republican-controlled General Assembly repealed campaign contributions on the last day of the session and then-Gov. Matt Blunt signed the bill into law.
The repeal on contribution limits opened up the floodgates to large sums of money flowing into the campaign coffers of politicians on both sides of the aisle — including Nixon — just in time for the November 2008 general election.
“No effort to reform the ethical culture of public service in this state — or the ethical stature of those of us who live that service day in and day out — can be true to the manifest will of those we serve unless it reinstates the previous limits on campaign contributions and closes the loopholes that would render them meaningless,” Nixon wrote in the letter.
Under the previous law, individual contributors were limited to giving $1,375 to statewide candidate, $675 for Senate candidate and $325 for House candidates. Many contributors would attempt circumvent the limits by making donations to legislative district committees, which would in turn funnel the money to the candidate’s committee.
The Democratic governor also is advocating for lawmakers to ban non-candidate political action committees from passing donations to other non-candidate committees.
The practice makes it almost impossible to trace the original source of the money, making it a form of legalized money laundering.
Nixon also wants to see a ban on current members being able to work as paid campaign consultants for fellow legislators. This proposed reform, which is being sought by Republicans and Democrats, is mostly in response to former House Speaker Rod Jetton running a consulting business while being in charge of deciding the fate of legislation.
“Simple common sense demands that the practice of one elected official paying another elected official for ‘political advice’ be outlawed completely and forever,” Nixon wrote.
Nixon also would like to close the so-called “revolving door” that allows lawmakers to immediately become lobbyists after leaving office.
The former attorney general noted state law already prohibits certain executive branch officers who leave state government “from returning to lobby in their former areas of responsibility for a reasonable period.”
Legislators have already included these reform proposals in various bills that have been pre-filed in December. Other lawmakers have proposed strengthening the penalty for violating campaign finance laws, banning gifts and meals from lobbyists and giving the Missouri Ethics Commission more enforcement power.
Nixon ended his letter by saying that a “consensus on these key reforms already has formed, and, therefore, they should be the foundation of our efforts.”
The 2010 legislative session begins at noon on Wednesday, Jan. 6.
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