The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

State News

March 16, 2010

Manchin unconvinced of need to boost ethics law

Staff Writer Associated Press

CHARLESTON — Gov. Joe Manchin isn’t sold on requiring public servants to disclose their spouses’ employers and financial interests.

Manchin told reporters Tuesday that he understood the concerns of senators who killed a pending ethics bill just before the legislative session ended Saturday.

“They have their own lives, they have their own careers. They didn’t put their names on the ballot,” the governor said during a post-session press conference in his Capitol office.

The bill was the first to pass the House, and did so unanimously. Besides extending existing disclosure requirements to spouses, it called for greater reporting by officials of their financial holdings and income sources. It also proposed a one-year wait before an array of public officials could become lobbyists.

Some lawmakers want Manchin to revive the measure on a special session agenda. With the Legislature in extended session this week to complete next year’s budget, House Minority Leader Tim Armstead urged that action in a floor speech Monday.

“The people of West Virginia expect and deserve better than this,” the Kanawha County Republican said. “I think it’s something that we as a collective body need to keep on the front burner.”

More than half the states require such spousal disclosures, according to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, which flunked West Virginia for its ethics laws.

The group’s 2009 survey found information mandated about a spouse’s employment in 37 states, investments by 33 states and real estate by 28 states. The report noted that requirements for such reporting were not always made clear in the laws and forms of some of these states.

West Virginia’s failing grade prompted the state Ethics Commission to recommend the spousal disclosures and other provisions of the House-passed bill. It oversees more than 3,500 such filings from public servants annually.

Delegates passed the bill to the Senate on Jan. 20. It had finally advanced from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week when that chamber’s Finance Committee declined to take it up. Finance Chairman Walt Helmick, D-Pochontas, cited concerns about the spousal language but also noted the number of other high-profile bills also assigned to his committee during the session’s final days.

 

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