Idaho ties for worst in public disclosure

BOISE – An extensive new study by the Center for Public Integrity shows Idaho tied for worst in the nation on disclosing the private interests that influence state legislators, with Washington ranking the best.

That’s because Idaho has no personal financial disclosure law for state legislators, who decide on their own whether to vote on public matters that may affect their personal pocketbooks. Washington has an extensive public disclosure law, passed by citizen initiative in 1972.

“It’s a means for the public to have tangible proof that the officials are acting in the public’s interest and not for their private gain,” said Doug Ellis, spokesman for the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. “It’s just one of the things you have to do if you want to run for office.”

Idaho is one of just three states – along with Vermont and Michigan – that doesn’t require lawmakers to disclose their personal assets and sources of income.

“Idaho legislators are often called on to approve bills affecting their own financial interests,” the center reported in an article that focused on Idaho as something of a worst-case scenario.

Rathdrum Rep. Wayne Meyer’s advocacy for pro-field-burning legislation was highlighted in the article, titled “Balancing Act.” Meyer is a grass-seed farmer who burns his fields each year, and who has been outspoken about his support for the practice since he first ran for office. He was defeated in the Republican primary this year after serving five terms.

“Meyer’s dual role was widely known, and until his defeat it was probably the most visible example of how easily public and private business can mix in Idaho’s part-time, citizen legislature,” the center reported.

But it also pointed to an array of other, lesser known examples, including:

• Sen. Curtis McKenzie, R-Nampa, an attorney whose firm represented Qwest Communications in its unsuccessful bid to get the state Public Utilities Commission to allow it to deregulate its telephone rates. After failing there, the company pushed a hotly debated deregulation bill in the Legislature, which passed the House but failed in the Senate by one vote. McKenzie voted for the bill, and didn’t declare a conflict of interest.

• Rep. Tim Ridinger, R-Shoshone, a hay hauler, is vice chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and voted for a bill to allow heavyweight trucks on Idaho roads. He declared a conflict of interest on an early version of the bill, but not on the final version.

• Rep. Kathy Skippen, R-Emmett, voted for the truck bill after her husband, Dar Olberding, testified in favor of it as the lobbyist for the Idaho Grain Producers Association.

Idaho House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, said, “I guess disclosure would be a first step. It’s very embarrassing to be at the bottom of the list.”

But Idaho lawmakers often have reacted defensively to proposals to increase disclosure and reporting. When Jaquet proposed a bill to require that campaign contributors’ employers be disclosed, it was shot down.

Idaho’s “Sunshine Law” was passed by voter initiative in 1974, and imposed requirements for campaign finance disclosure and lobbyist registration, a first in Idaho at the time.

An ethics in government law followed in 1990. It directs lawmakers to declare if they have a conflict of interest, but doesn’t prevent them from voting. In 1997, Idaho passed its first campaign contribution limits, limiting contributions to legislative campaigns to $1,000 for the general election and $1,000 for the primary.

Last year, lawmakers amended that law to allow county political parties to give twice as much.

Roger Sherman, program director with the political watchdog group United Vision for Idaho, said his organization favors personal financial disclosure.

“The Legislature seems to be nervous that people will use this information to make them look bad,” Sherman said. “We’re not trying to offend them. We only use that information because it’s important that people understand the difference between the public and private interests of people who are there to serve the public interest. This is about public interest.”

Washington’s disclosure law may have looked more like Idaho’s if it had been left to the politicians affected by it.

Hugh Spitzer, a University of Washington affiliate law professor, said he isn’t a big fan of the initiative process, but he believes that if the Legislature had written the disclosure regulations, the rules would have been much weaker.

The law, which was approved by 72 percent of state voters in 1972, requires openness not only from candidates and officeholders, but from lobbyists.

“It’s got teeth,” Spitzer said. “Washington’s is particularly strong because it was adopted through the initiative process.”

Spitzer said that while the law is tough, funding for the Public Disclosure Commission, which enforces the law, isn’t made a high budget priority by state lawmakers. That’s especially true during tougher economic times, Spitzer said.

“They can say that we have the best law,” Spitzer said of the Center for Public Integrity study, “but the PDC doesn’t have the resources to enforce it as well as it should.”

Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said his state’s lawmakers historically have tended to greet campaign finance and similar proposals with, “Are you saying I can be bought?” The year before the Sunshine Law initiative passed, lawmakers defeated bills proposing campaign finance disclosure and lobbyist registration.

Ysursa said the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, the citizen groups that pushed the 1974 Sunshine Law initiative, opted not to include personal financial disclosure.

“It was a hard enough battle to get the other two,” he said. “I don’t think the Legislature was real fond of the Sunshine. Some still aren’t to some degree, but it’s a way of life. … It’s ingrained everywhere now. Back in the early ‘70s, it wasn’t.”

Sherman, as an organizer for the Idaho Citizens Network nearly a decade and a half ago, recalled battling for funding for personal care services when the key legislator handling the issue on the joint budget committee was the owner of a chain of nursing homes who opposed the idea.

“We saw it as a fight between nursing homes and people who wanted to have care at home,” Sherman said.

The funding eventually passed, and the lawmaker retired.

“A lot of it is about potential conflicts,” Sherman said. “It’s not saying that everyone is corrupt. We would never say that. But we do think it’s important that people have the information.”

The center’s study found that Idaho House members have declared conflicts on votes 56 times since the ethics law took effect in 1991. In 32 of those cases, they then voted on the bill, with 28 of those votes since 1998.

Senators have declared 36 conflicts since 1991, the center found. This year, four declared conflicts, and three of those then voted anyway.

Senate President Pro-tem Robert Geddes, R-Soda Springs, told the center’s researchers, “I think people sincerely believe that it’s more critical to vote than to (avoid) a potential conflict.”

The Center for Public Integrity, whose motto is “Investigative journalism in the public interest,” was formed in 1989 by former “60 Minutes” producer and investigative journalist Charles Lewis. It has published numerous reports, books and newsletters, and broke the story in 1996 of how wealthy Democratic fund-raisers and donors were being rewarded with overnight stays in the Clinton White House.

Ysursa said he’s taken issue with some past low rankings the center gave Idaho’s campaign laws, and hasn’t heard much interest from Idaho lawmakers in passing personal financial disclosure laws. “The topic really has not been brought up very often, if at all,” he said.

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, told the center, “Idahoans value their citizens’ legislature. … They historically have not wanted a professional legislature. They just abhor the thought, and recognize that the trade-off there is you get conflicts of interest.”