Ethics legislation moves ahead in Senate

The measure further toughened a bill already approved by the House, and was quickly scheduled for a vote in the full Senate for Thursday morning.

What started out as a measure to force lawmakers to disclose consulting arrangements would now make consulting and lobbying illegal. The Senate State and Local Government Committee unanimously decided to further strengthen the measure to also make it illegal for spouses to lobby state government.

The far-reaching bill applies not only to lawmakers, but to government officials ranging from city councilmen to the governor’s cabinet.

The measure is aimed squarely at the cloud of suspicion hanging over the business dealings of beleaguered Sen. John Ford.

Lawmakers have been grappling with a flood of ethics proposals in recent weeks, trying to improve an image tarnished by mounting criticism of Ford’s business and consulting ties to government contractors.

Allegations have surfaced that Ford, a Democrat from Memphis, has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from companies with TennCare and other state contracts.

Even though Ford has yet to face official sanction for any of his business dealings, lawmakers have decided they want to add tough restrictions on influence peddling by elected officials.

Ford’s dealings also are being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the state attorney general’s office.

Senators promised to avoid a pitfall for ethics reform in past sessions, when competing House and Senate bills would often die in conference committees.

Even though the Senate committee added a number of changes, they did so with individual amendments. This would allow the Senate to easily concede if the House rejects certain parts of their proposal, said Sen. David Fowler, R-Signal Mountain.

As it sits now, the measure would ban both consulting and lobbying by elected officials, their staff or family members. Those who break the law would be subject to a class A misdemeanor, which allows up to one year in jail.

In addition, lawmakers would have to disclose out-of-state consulting agreements.

“The essence of this legislation is that if you take public funds to do public work … you will not take private funds to work against the public interest,” said Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, who is sponsoring the measure through the Senate. “That’s the heart of this legislation.”

If the full Senate endorses the measure as expected, it will be sent back to the House for a review of the Senate’s changes.

“I think the citizens of the state are troubled, they are concerned about what they’ve read, what they’ve heard, and what they’ve seen,” Herron said. “And I think it’s important for this General Assembly to make clear that if you are up here to do public business that’s what you ought to be doing, not taking private money to do our own personal business or work for the interest of some private interest.”

Herron said he briefly discussed the measure with Ford.

“He told me that he expected to vote for the bill,” Herron said.