Senate leader questions need for special ethics session

Gov. Phil Bredesen said recently that he is leaning toward calling lawmakers back to Nashville in the fall to pass special ethics legislation after the arrests of five current or former lawmakers last month on bribery charges.

Ramsey, R-Blountville, also questions the need for an independent commission to enforce campaign finance and lobbying laws.

“I’m finding that, in theory, we may have all the teeth we need” in the Senate Ethics Committee that he chairs, Ramsey said. The state House also has an Ethics Committee.

The panels were rarely used previously, but Ramsey said the Senate committee responded effectively to allegations against former Sen. John Ford of Memphis with the help of the state attorney general’s office. The Senate panel received a report last month showing that Ford had inappropriately profited from consulting contracts with firms doing business with the state.

Ford was arrested May 26 along with six others on unrelated bribery and extortion charges resulting from an FBI sting operation. Ramsey said he believes the Senate Ethics Committee would have recommended Ford’s removal from office after 31 years and that the full Senate would have agreed. Ford resigned two days after his arrest.

Ramsey said the experience shows the committee can effectively deal with ethical lapses by lawmakers, and that launching a new independent commission on ethics is unnecessary.

“I think the talk about an independent commission is all well and good. But at the same time, I think the buck needs to stop with elected officials,” he told The Knoxville News Sentinel. “The Senate Ethics Committee did a pretty good job (investigating Ford contracts), plowing new ground, I don’t think an independent commission would have done anything differently.”

Barry Schmittou, a Clarksville man who filed an initial complaint with the commission against Ford, is scheduled to meet with Ramsey on Monday to make new ethics complaints against senators.

Schmittou contends that Lt. Gov. John Wilder, D-Mason, and Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Mike Williams, R-Maynardville, used campaign funds inappropriately. He also wants the ethics committee to formally ask Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, and Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis, if they accepted bribes as alleged in federal indictments.

Crutchfield, Bowers, Ford and former state Sen. Roscoe Dixon all have pleaded innocent in court to federal bribery charges. Newton is to be arraigned Wednesday.

Ramsey said none of Schmittou’s complaints warrant a formal inquiry by the ethics committee at this point.

All the documents and evidence against Crutchfield and Bowers, he said, will not be available to the committee until after their trials.

“We have no choice but to defer to the federal court system on those allegations,” he said. “We have to wait for all that to play out first.”

Ramsey said there is a possibility that the committee would consider disciplinary action against Crutchfield and Bowers even if they are acquitted of criminal charges.

The owner of a Memphis billboard company, David C. Hogue, has filed a complaint with the committee against state Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis. Hogue contends Cohen, an attorney representing a competitor, inappropriately used his position as a senator in a proceeding before a Memphis regulatory board.

Cohen has denied any impropriety and Ramsey said he is inclined to agree after a brief look at the accusations.

“That seems perfectly legitimate,” said Ramsey. “I’m just one of five (committee members), but on the surface, it doesn’t seem to amount to much.”

Bredesen has said he plans on consulting people outside state government on whether the state should set up an independent ethics commission. The Legislature, meanwhile, will have a special committee of lawmakers to make recommendations.

The governor said he is prepared to call a special session over the objections of lawmakers.

Ramsey said that would be a waste of taxpayer money.

“Any special session is going to cost taxpayers about $30,000 a day and I’m not sure that’s what we need to be doing, though obviously, if the governor calls one, I’ll be there,” he said.

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Information from: The Knoxville News Sentinel, www.knoxnews.com