The Legislature adjourned sine die a day early on Thursday, March 6, 2014.

Gov. Matt Mead signed the state budget bill on Wednesday and thanked lawmakers for approving his requested $175 million for cities, towns, and counties.

Photo of the Wyoming State Capitol by Matthew Trump on Wikimedia Commons.

The Senate has approved a new version of a bill to overhaul ethics. The Senate version of House Bill 3945 requires public officials to report sources of private income, but not the amounts paid. The bill creates educational ethics seminars for public officials and requires anonymous political groups to register and report if more than half of their activity goes toward influencing elections.

The bill as passed would make no changes to who would enforce the new ethics laws or to the practice of lawmakers policing themselves. An earlier version of the bill extended state lobbying regulations to the local level, but the Senate has removed this provision.

The bill now moves back to the House for approval. If the House does not approve the Senate version as is, the bill will go to conference committee.

Lawmakers called a press conference to announce a package of bills to make major upgrades to government accountability rules and practices. Senator Ricardo Lara and Kevin de Leon have filed Senate Bill 1441 through Senate Bill 1444 as spot bills, with the intention to add substantive provisions at a later date.

The bills will include a ban on fundraisers at lobbyists’ homes and a ban on all gifts from lobbyists.

There is also a proposal to lower the current non-lobbyist gift limit of $440 to $200 for state and local officials.

The Senate is considering campaign finance bills to narrow reporting requirements of advocacy groups and widen the ability of lobbyists to provide campaign contributions. Senate Bill 654 would further distinguish non-reportable “issue advocacy” from reportable “candidate advocacy.”

Briefly in 2010, the Government Accountability Board (GAB) used its own discretion to classify campaign activity until both liberal and conservative groups filed lawsuits.

Senate Bill 655 allows a lobbyist to deliver political contributions at any time and allows for lobbyists to make personal contributions as early as April 15 of a general election year. Currently, lobbyists are prohibited from delivering contributions during a legislative session and must wait till June 1 to personally make contributions.

Gov. Mike Beebe has signed a bill allowing him not to call a special election to fill the lieutenant governor’s office.

Senate Bill 139, now Act 210, allows the governor to forgo a special election to fill a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office when the vacancy occurs within 10 months of a general election, if holding a special election would be impractical or burdensome.

Mark Darr left the lieutenant governor’s office vacant after being fined $11,000 by the state Ethics Commission for misuse of campaign contributions and taxpayer dollars.

Governor Pat McCrory drew widespread criticism for his decision to leave the 12th Congressional District seat formerly held by Mel Watt vacant until the regularly scheduled general election in November of this year. In a possible attempt to appease his critics, McCrory has called a belated special election to fill the vacant seat.

The special election will be held on the same day as the general election, consistent with McCrory’s budgetary concerns related to holding the special election on a different day. Because the two elections will occur on the same day, most candidates will be on the ballot twice.

Those candidates running in the special election will serve the remainder of the term expiring in 2014. Those candidates running in the general election, a slate nearly identical to that of the special election, will succeed the prevailing candidate in the special election and serve a two year term beginning in 2015.

Only two candidates chose not to participate in both elections, Republican Leon Threatt and Democrat Rajive Patel. Threatt and Patel will only appear on the general election ballot.

Photo of Governor Pat McCrory courtesy of Hal Goodtree on Wikimedia Commons.

The Board of Supervisors has adopted a Lobbyist Ordinance to regulate any person who contacts certain county officials with the purpose of promoting, supporting, modifying, opposing, or causing delay or abandonment of conduct. Ordinance No. NS-19-42 regulates contract lobbyists, in-house lobbyists, lobbying firms, and expenditure filers who influence policy without directly contacting officials.

Legislative, procurement, and grassroots activity is covered by the ordinance, which specifically provides for the possibility a political action committee will qualify as an in-house lobbyist.

Registration and disclosure forms will be available when the ordinance becomes effective on March 27, 2014.

A group billing itself as “the first nationwide super PAC focused on electing Democratic state legislators and other political leaders to build middle-class economic security” is challenging Pennsylvania’s ban on corporate and labor union contributions. General Majority PAC filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in late February, alleging the prohibition on PACs from receiving corporate and labor union contributions to make independent expenditures chills its free speech rights and is contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

Given the short amount of time until Pennsylvania’s primary election, the group also requested an injunction to immediately suspend the law so it may begin operating in Pennsylvania as soon as possible. General Majority made clear it intends to register as a Pennsylvania PAC upon reaching the state’s registration threshold, and will not coordinate with any state candidates or party committees.

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack was removed from office February 26 after a jury found him guilty of crimes of dishonesty. Mack is ineligible to hold public office in the future and lost his tax-payer funded pension.

City Council President George Muschal was sworn in as acting mayor just hours after a judge ordered Mack’s removal. Although he is willing to serve out Mack’s term, Muschal made it clear he does not intend to run in the regularly scheduled mayoral election on May 13. He plans to spend the next few months working with the state, including Gov. Chris Christie, to facilitate positive change for the city.

After he took office in 2010, Mack’s administration clouded the city in a haze of corruption, cronyism, high crime rates, and financial mismanagement. Mack was convicted February 7 of six counts of bribery, fraud, and extortion; his sentencing is scheduled for May 14 in federal court.

The Ethics Commission will be holding a series of workshops over the next few months to receive input concerning proposed amendments to campaign laws. The suggested reforms include classifying the duplication of candidates’ campaign materials as nonmonetary contributions instead of independent expenditures.

In addition, the commission seeks to curb the practice of making independent expenditures on credit so as to delay disclosure of donors who verbally agree to pay the debt after the election.

Commission staff researched and produced a report to be discussed at the next commission meeting on Thursday, March 13, 2014. The report is available here.

Virginia’s lack of gift laws has been thrown into the spotlight recently with the federal indictment of former Gov. Bob McDonnell. McDonnell became embroiled in scandal after accepting gifts worth thousands of dollars from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams. While state law required all gifts of more than $50 to be disclosed, there was no limit on what a public official could accept from any donor. Williams also gave gifts to McDonnell’s wife and daughters; these gifts went undisclosed because state law does not require gifts to officials’ family members to be disclosed.

The national attention on Virginia has turned the tide in favor of ethics reform. Several ethics bills filed before the session convened on January 8 have now been incorporated into Senate Bill 649. This comprehensive bill prohibits gifts of more than $250 from lobbyists, requires reporting of gifts to immediate family members, changes lobbyist reporting from annual to semiannual, and establishes the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council, a newly created legislative agency tasked with facilitating compliance with the state’s ethics laws. The bill passed the Senate on February 10 and the House of Delegates with a substitution and amendments on February 26, but the Senate rejected the House’s amended bill on February 28.

While it remains to be seen whether the General Assembly will pass ethics reform before it adjourns on March 8, newly sworn-in Gov. Terry McAuliffe took swift action to ensure his administration would not face the same ethical issues as McDonnell’s had. On his first day as governor, McAuliffe signed Executive Order 2, which prohibits the acceptance of gifts in the executive branch exceeding $100 per calendar year. The order became effective immediately upon his signature. Gifts from lobbyists and principals are now restricted to $25. The order does allow for some exceptions, such as excluding items of $25 or less from the definition of gift. It also allows the receipt of certain items while engaging in an activity serving a legitimate public purpose, such as food and refreshments served at certain events.

Jane Feldman is stepping down as Executive Director of the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission. She is the first and only director to serve, as the commission is a product of a 2006 ethics ballot measure.

Luis Toro, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, praised Feldman, calling her “the very model of a dedicated civil servant.”

While Feldman looks forward to retirement from state government, her critics claim she may simply be a scapegoat. Complaints brought the commission under public scrutiny, and a House committee will soon hear a bill concerning the commission’s procedural mechanisms. Meanwhile, the commission is investigating Gov. John Hickenlooper for alleged gift violations.

There is no word yet of a new Executive Director.

Lawmakers have passed a measure to keep the lieutenant governor’s office vacant until the November general election.

Senate Bill 139 allows Gov. Mike Beebe to postpone a special election for the vacancy left by former Lt. Gov. Mark Darr, who left office following $11,000 in fines for ethics violations.

The bill awaits Beebe’s signature.

SB12, signed into law September 2013, goes into effect today. The bill amends the state procurement code and makes changes to procurement preferences, contract awards, small purchase procedures and thresholds, minimum competition requirements, methods of bid submission, vendor registration requirements, and applicable definitions.

Vendors may contact Chief Procurement Officer Jason Soza with any questions concerning the bill. Additionally, a summary of all changes can be found on the Department of General Services website.