NewsNight Maryland- State Circle Edition; 1309

oooooh Changes to the rules on ethics and assaults on old hilltop, a U-turn on a new highway, and the lights go out on an Annapolis institution. This is Newsnight Barrels, state circulation with Jeff Salkin. Good evening, everybody.

The big story around state circle this week, ethics reform and how it forced legislators to make some tough choices in four votes this week. Following last year's scandals, this was a top priority for the legislative leadership but getting the troops in line has taken a little more time and a little more muscle than expected. Newsnight's John Alba-Shan joins us from the state house tonight to tell us which reforms are in and which ones are out. John. Jeff, the full house rejected almost all efforts to water down the reforms. House Speaker Cass Taylor says he's proud of the results and he predicts easy approval next week. The reform package is vastly unpopular in the General Assembly. For more than two hours Thursday, delegates took shot after shot at the measure. For long, you're not going to be able to go next door and talk your neighbor because they may be a lobbyist or they may end up being somebody who knows a lobbyist. James Hubbard of Prince George's was incensed by language barring legislators from accepting most government jobs. It will keep good people out of politics, he argued. And you may spend 20 years working in the grassroots.

People may want you to come down here. They may want to have you elected to represent them and you're going to have to say no. But the bill's backers said it would be too easy for members to use their positions to get government jobs and warned of what voters might think. We're not ashamed of this by this and then we're not ashamed of it. But we think it ought to be a little bit tighter, a little bit more restrictive. So at least we look better if we're doing this. Free meals from lobbyists were another flash point. I mean, why are you going to starve the black caucus and the warmest caucus? But there too, the reforms survived weakening amendments. In the House and Senate, a proposed ban on members helping raise money from lobbyists for charity through heavy fire, but the House even voted to make that ban tighter. But the Senate moved in the other direction on that, saying members should be able to help raise money for charities from companies that employ lobbyists. One weakening amendment, a significant amendment, did pass the House. It is the filing deadline for the financial disclosure information members must report. That currently is an April reformers wanted to make it February.

The House voted to keep it in April after the General Assembly is completed its annual session. The Reform Commission also proposed that all members' financial disclosure information be posted on the Internet, neither chamber is considering that that appears to be out of the bill, Jeff. John, in terms of lawmakers restricting their own ability to accept meals or tickets, I'm thinking of the Senate president, who's an avid Terps fan, I believe, and the Terpses we know are doing quite well at this point. But does this mean that Mike Miller won't be able to go to a Terps game? Well, presumably he can afford it himself. He can go to as many games as he chooses, Jeff. But no more free tickets, courtesy of College Park Campus. All tickets to all sporting events are out, freebies that is. The reformers proposed that members should still be able to allow, should be able to accept tickets from symphonies and sporting events like college campuses, anyone who does not employ a registered lobbyist down here, the Senate decided even that is going too far.

Of course, of course, the House, what the other direction on that so we could still see some change from the compromise. And our newsmaker tonight is Kathleen Skolney, Executive Director of Common Cause, Maryland Kathleen. Welcome back to NPT. At this point, should the citizens of Maryland be happy with this or unhappy with this? Well, Jeff, there's always good news and bad news for the citizens of Maryland when it comes to ethics legislation. The House did a really good job on the gift ban. I know that that was very controversial. And we always believe just saying no is the easiest, clearest, and best way. And they did. They said no to gifts and that's very good. It's very, very troubling that they have chosen not to put their financial disclosures, put them out there to the public during session.

Conflict of interests always are related to financial matters. But the argument from some legislators is that these disclosures can be very personal and very detailed depending on what kind of business they have, if we're listing clients of an attorney that could drive business away. The going into public life and these folks have gone into public life willingly and devote themselves to it. And we're glad that they do. But going in obligates them to a certain trust, a certain public trust. Part of that is disclosure. Conflicts of interest are always found in the money. And all we really wanted was a portion of those financial disclosures made public. And made public while conflicts of interest are on the minds of legislators during session. The legislature declines to do that. Is there anything your group can do about it? Yes, we believe that this is so important an issue that actually tomorrow at our governing

board meeting I will be proposing that we as an organization make this available to the public online. But it would actually be the conflict of interest disclosures that are filed during session by the legislators coupled with certain financial information which allows the public to judge the conflict for itself. So folks could go to your website instead of driving to an apple and reviewing this information in person. If our governing board approves it as a project for our organization then yes, that's where it would end up. Yes, will you be doing in the next couple of weeks because if we have these differences between the House and the Senate what we've seen in the past of course is a goes to a conference committee and anything can come out of a conference committee. Well, I want to say also too that I don't know that the Senate is finished looking at amendments. So far they have kept the reporting requirement to the timeframe that was proposed in the original bill.

We think that's a very good timeframe for seven days of session and we will be working very hard to get that particular approach to disclosure in the final bill. This still strikes me as a bigger crackdown than I ever would have expected to see at the state house. I mean the idea that lobbyists won't be taking legislators out to dinner I don't think anybody could have conceived of a couple of years ago. Well, I think you're right and I think that it may take a while but eventually our legislature which takes a great deal of pride in being citizen legislators will understand that they need to act like ordinary citizens when they're there. And all of the perks and all of the status and all the longing for the special stuff really is not suitable for citizens who devote themselves to the legislature. All right, Kathleen Scolley, common cause thanks for joining us tonight. Thank you, Jeff. And his fifth year as Governor Periscal and Denny today made his very first appearance.

Thank you for watching.

Thanks for watching. Thank you very much. You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You