Panel advances ethics reform bill to full House

Indiana lawmakers would face greater financial disclosure requirements and elected officials would be expressly prohibited from using state resources for political purposes under a proposal a House committee approved Tuesday.

A leader of the government watchdog group Common Cause Indiana called the bill a good attempt at closing loopholes in state law.

The House government committee voted 12-0 to advance the proposed overhaul of ethics laws to the full House after hearing from Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma, who is co-sponsoring the bill with House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath.

The bill follows an investigation into former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett's use of state staff and resources during his 2012 re-election campaign and a review of a senior lawmaker's private lobbying last year to kill legislation that could have cost his family's nursing home business millions of dollars in revenue.

Bosma told the committee that the proposal aims to improve transparency and bolster public trust. He said he believed legislators are people of integrity.

"It is a culture, perhaps in the past, of inattention to the potential appearance of conflict," Bosma said. "That's what the goal of the bill is: to bring to each of our attention our responsibilities as citizen legislators."

A state inspector general's public report found minimal violations by Bennett and his staff and said those could easily have been avoided by rewriting department policy to allow for campaigning. But The Associated Press reported in December that a separate report detailed extensive use of staff and Bennett's state-issued SUV for political work. The inspector general's investigator suggested Bennett could face federal wire fraud charges and state ghost-employment charges.

Bennett, a Republican, has not been charged with any criminal violations and has denied any wrongdoing.

The measure, which the full House could vote on next week, would bar any elected official or employee from using state money, facilities or personnel for political purposes.

Julia Vaughn, policy director of Common Cause Indiana, said she believed the bill was a step in the right direction, although she encouraged the creation of an independent commission to oversee the enforcement of legislative ethics, rather than a committee of lawmakers.

"In terms of providing more transparency to a process that for too long has been shrouded in fog, this is a great step forward," she said.

The proposed tightening of disclosure requirements follows December's resignation of former Republican House Speaker Pro Tem Eric Turner, who was the subject of an ethics investigation after he privately lobbied lawmakers to kill a proposed ban on nursing home construction that could have hurt his family's business.

The House Ethics Committee determined Turner didn't technically violate House ethics rules in place at the time barring lawmakers from using the office for their own self-interest.

Rep. David Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, voted in favor of the ethics bill, but questioned its ultimate impact.

"I have real strong reservations as to what this does other than attempt to make the public have more confidence in us, and that isn't going to happen," he said.