Ethics Bill May Include Closed-Door Ban

A constitutional amendment requiring that legislative meetings take place in public would be included in a sweeping ethics proposal under a plan pushed Wednesday by Democratic legislators and the California Newspaper Publishers Assn.

At the same time, however, Democratic leaders of the Assembly and Senate said there is no consensus on what elements to adopt from two competing ethics proposals--both of which are designed to limit the size of honorariums and gifts that lawmakers can receive.

Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly (D-Sacramento) said he believes that most legislators are now willing to clamp down on the Legislature’s long habit of making many decisions behind closed doors.

At the urging of the newspaper publishers, Connelly has proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would allow private meetings of legislative bodies only to discuss personnel or security matters. However, Democratic and Republican caucuses of each house would still be allowed to meet behind closed doors.

“I think there is some real support for it,” Connelly said. “It ought to be part of any ethics reform measure. There’s some real momentum here for changes and I’m going to hook this open-meeting provision onto that train.”

Several embarrassing disclosures have contributed to the willingness of some legislators to approve such a law, he said.

Last week, for example, it became public that the Democratic majority of the Assembly Human Services Committee had met in private to decide their strategy on two sensitive bills pending before the committee--a practice that some legislators said is common throughout the Legislature.

And earlier this year, The Times reported that lawmakers meeting behind closed doors had voted themselves more than $1 million in personal benefits, including airline tickets, life insurance and car phones.

While Connelly was making plans to expand the ethics package, however, Democratic leaders were unable to agree on what elements of the Senate and Assembly ethics proposals they will support.

The Senate has proposed a constitutional amendment for next June that would tie limits on legislators’ outside income to the creation of a salary commission that would have the power to raise lawmakers’ salaries.

Some members of the Assembly, while supporting such a constitutional amendment, are calling on the Legislature to adopt immediate restrictions on a wide range of activities, including the receipt of gifts and honorariums.

But at a closed caucus of Assembly Democrats on Tuesday night, the package developed by the Assembly Select Committee on Ethics came in for criticism by some legislators, who contend that it is too restrictive.