This Matter of Ethics

The California Legislature, with welcome cooperation from Gov. George Deukmejian, has worked hard this session to overcome a record of inaction and neglect of major state issues. Now the lawmakers have a chance to reverse a sleazy image and the statewide impression that they abuse their offices for personal gain. The Legislature should seize this opportunity by adopting a tough ethics proposal before the end of the 1989 term next month.

Skeptics, and there were many of them, scoffed at the idea that the Legislature itself could draft a really effective reform plan. In the past, the Joint Ethics Committee has been a joke, in part because members of one house were reluctant to punish members of the other chamber. But both Senate President pro tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. (D-San Francisco) have developed comprehensive and credible ethics plans. Common Cause, the private good-government group, commended the Assembly plan as an “extraordinary effort,” although adding it could stand some improvement, particularly in its enforcement provisions.

While the two plans differ in details, each generally would limit or ban outside income and honorariums for the 80 Assembly members and 40 senators, provide for an independent commission to establish legislators’ salaries, restrict gifts, prohibit legislators and state officials from lobbying their former offices for a year and apply campaign and fund-raising restrictions to legislative aides. Each house would have its own ethics committee. The Assembly plan would allow for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate alleged criminal violations.

Implementation of the salary provision would require a state constitutional amendment approved by the voters. Under the Senate version, legislators’ pay could never exceed that of a superior court judge, which now is $84,765, and there would be restrictions on collecting per diem expenses. The Assembly version would have the Legislature ratify the commission’s decisions.

These are minor details. The important point is that both houses now seem committed to a strong ethics and conflict-of-interest package. Some members may grouse about the tough restrictions, but the credibility of the entire Legislature rests on approval of the strongest possible plan.