After taking a drubbing in the press for the way it handled an allegation of conflict of interest against a legislator earlier this year, the state’s ethics commission is asking a special advisory committee to clarify and possibly change the law to make it easier to enforce.
Those changes, if considered, could affect other members of Maine’s citizen legislature, who are on committees that make decisions affecting their jobs outside of the State House.
The case involved independent state Rep. Thomas Saviello of Wilton. He is the environmental manager for International Paper in Jay and also sat on the Natural Resources Committee until he asked to be taken off, under pressure from environmental groups. It was alleged but never determined that Saviello had undue influence over the Department of Environmental Protection, which monitors pollutants from the paper mill discharged into the Androscoggin River.
“Let’s be very cautious about not shooting ourselves in the foot so it looks like were taking care of ethical problems,” said Rich Thompson, a member of the newly formed committee and a former legislator and current lobbyist.
“There are teachers on the Education Committee. Police officers are on Criminal Justice. Lawyers are sitting on the Judiciary Committee. You are going to lose all the expertise a citizen legislature brings to this building,” if the restrictions go too far, he warned his fellow committee members at their first meeting last week.
The Advisory Committee on Legislative Ethics will meet five more times until it delivers a report on Nov. 22. The public is invited to comment at the start of each meeting on topics that will include conflict of interest, undue influence, lobbyists, the “revolving door” of legislators to lobbyists, gifts, and educating legislators about the ethics law.
The next meeting is planned for July 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the State House, covering conflict of interest and lobbyists.
Without ever mentioning Saviello by name, Jonathan Wayne, the director of the Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, told the committee his staff “found it difficult to apply some provisions of the legislative conflict of interest statutes” in the high-profile case.
He asked for clarification on standards of conflict of interest, saying the statute contains a number of different ones. Those include whether a legislator was in conflict because he had used his office to obtain a large financial benefit for his employer, and the narrower question of whether the legislator had benefited himself personally.
Also on his list was the question of full-time compensation. Wayne said his staff had received informal inquiries about whether legislators who receive their full-time compensation from their employers during legislative session are being compensated to advocate for the employer before the Legislature.
Another issue, which some fear could open up a free-for-all, is whether the ethics commission can consider only complaints made by other legislators or whether it can consider complaints made by the public.
The committee of 15 voting members and two non-voting, ex-officio members includes:
Michael Carpenter, former attorney general and former state representative, and a registered Democrat; Roger Maller, former commissioner of transportation and registered Republican; John Rensenbrink, co-founder of the Green Party; Sandra Featherman, outgoing president of the University of New England; Kristine Ossenfort of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce; Peter Pitegoff, dean and professor of law, University of Maine School of Law; G. Calvin Mackenzie, American Government professor at Colby College and a former member of the Commission on Governmental Ethics; Mark Lawrence, former president of the Senate and currently district attorney in York County; Harrison Richardson, former House majority leader, and partner in Richardson Whitman Large & Badger.
Also on the committee are four current legislators including Sen. Philip Bartlett of Gorham, D-Cumberland County; Rep. Marilyn Canavan, D-Waterville, and former executive director of the Commission on Governmental Ethics; Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden, R-Penobscot County; and, Rep. John Robinson, R-Raymond; and lobbyists Edith Leary of Eaton Peabody in Bangor and Richard Thompson of Capitol Consulting of Readfield.
Attorney General Steven Rowe and Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the Commission on Governmental Ethics, are ex-officio members.
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