Here are the highlights (press release, no link, but you can find the whole thing at this link).
Tougher Penalties
* Increase the maximum punishment for bribery to $100,000 and 10 years imprisonment. The current penalty is up to $5,000 and to 3 years imprisonment.
* Increase the maximum penalties for conflict of interest law violations involving gifts and gratuities, revolving door violations and other abuses to $10,000 and 5 years imprisonment. Currently, penalties are up to $3,000 and two years imprisonment.
* Increase penalties for a civil violation of the conflict of interest laws from up to $2,000 per violation to up to $10,000 per violation. For bribery, the civil penalty would increase to $25,000.
* Increase the civil penalty for a violation of the financial disclosure law from $2,000 per violation to $10,000 per violation.
* Increase the criminal penalty for violating registration-related lobbying rules to up to $10,000 and 5 years imprisonment. Currently, offenses are a misdemeanor punishable by not less than $100 and not more than $5,000, with no possibility of imprisonment.
* Grant the Secretary of State authority to suspend or permanently revoke a legislative or executive agent’s license.
Stronger Lobbying Laws
* Define lobbying to include strategizing, preparing and planning related to a communication with a public official for the purpose of influencing legislative or executive policy.
* Expand the revolving door provision to apply to members of the executive branch.
* Reduce the amount of allowable incidental lobbying from 50 hours in each 6-month reporting period to 10 hours in each 3-month reporting period.
Expanded Enforcement Authority
* Make compliance with the Ethics Commission’s summons mandatory.
* Grant the Ethics Commission rulemaking authority to implement the ethics laws.
* Increase the amount of time the Ethics Commission can proceed on an ethics violation from 3 years to 5 years.
* Grant the Secretary of State rule-making authority to implement the lobbying laws.
* Give the Secretary of State authority to impose fines and to have the same civil enforcement authority over lobbying violations as the Ethics Commission has over ethics violations.
* Give the Attorney General concurrent jurisdiction with the Ethics Commission to enforce civil violations of the conflict of interest laws.
Significant Investigative and Enforcement Tools
* Expand law enforcement authority to record conversations in public corruption investigations. Current law requires that the case involve organized crime.
* Impose penalties for a new statutory obstruction of justice offense.
* Authorize the convening of a statewide grand jury with jurisdiction extending throughout the Commonwealth.
Aside from wondering about the extent to which you can actually regulate “strategizing, preparing and planning related to a communication with a public official for the purpose of influencing legislative or executive policy” (imagine the inquiries: “did you, or did you not, lie in bed awake the night before you met with Rep. So-and-So thinking about what to say to him?”), these all seem sensible to me. Your thoughts?
This is Massachusetts. Sal will be elected speaker on Wednesday!
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p>Vitale lobbied, oh, consulted. Call it serendipity for all you want. The village idiot knew what it was, but not the ethics people.
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p>Wilkerson and Turner should get awards! What a hoot?
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p>Under the Golden Dome should be a soap opera, but no one would believe it’s possible.
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p>What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!
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p>What happens on Bveacon Hill stays on Beacon Hill!
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p>LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The Governor’s Ethics Task Force did what they were supposed – and we hoped – they would do. Their recommendations tighten some of the ethical loopholes and close others that have become flagrant in this state.
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p> Now comes the moment of truth. These recommendations will have to pass before the legislators whose ethical lapses they were designed to curb. The timing is right, the American public is disgusted with, yes , the criminal behavior of some of our elected officials.
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p> Will the Massachusetts Legislature recognize this and adopt all or many of the Task Force’s recommndations or will they bottle them up in committee or weaken them beyond effectiveness?
WILL it affect the legislators?
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p>I read the summary, and it spoke of lobbyists, it spoke of state EMPLOYEES. I didn’t see the word legislator anywhere.
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p>They exempted themselves from open meeting – are they attempting to exempt themselves from ethics, too, in a show kind of way?
Are legislators not state employees? Is the governor?
For example, they vest in the pension system at a different rate (shorter time needed, d’oh!). I don’t think they ARE employees – who would be their boss? Other than the electorate, which doesn’t make HR decisions?
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p>I’m not sure, which is why I asked the legal eagles here.
Notice that they still believe it is important for every city council, town water board, and dog catching agency to have open meetings but it is not important for the Legislature to be subject to the Open Meeting Law.
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p>Remember it was a meeting at the State House between Feeney, Murray, Wilkerson and members of the licensing board discussing legislation that led to this whole federal probe. Apparently meetings like this are still legal.
I think prison should be reserved for people whose freedom would jeopardize the physical safety of the rest of us. I say make them pay through the nose. I am concerned about regulating the actual act of lobbying. We do have a right to petition and I don’t want every constituent who sets up a meeting with a legislator to have to register as a lobbyist and keep track of how much time they spend doing it.
One would hope that the onus of violating the public trust would be egregious enough. People get put to death for murder—has it stopped killing?
http://www.bluenewstribune.com…
36 proposals in 107 pages probably guarantees none of them will pass.
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p>Worse, the Legislature will cherry pick one or two of the more innocuous points, and claim “we’ve adopted some of the Governor’s ethics reforms and thank the Governor and the Task Force for their hard work”.
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p>This is reminiscent of the Governor’s secret sweeping plan to introduce three strategically placed casinos: plans drawn up without Legislatures input and introduced as a complete and turnkey plan. Such a grand plan so that it offends the Legislators’ egos, and allows any opposition to damn the entire plan by simply criticizing a few of the ideas which might look nutty. And, given 107 pages, there must be things nutty.