Defending the Senate Ethics Committee process

Several years ago, I worked as staff to the Chairman of the Ethics Committee when the current process for handling complaints was adopted. This process includes keeping complaints confidential until a finding of substantial cause is made.

The concern that motivated the confidentiality clause was that in the hands of political opponents, we might see the Ethics Committee become a political football the way the State Ethics Commission did, where an opponent filed a complaint, forwarded it to the media and got a headline saying, “Ethics complaint filed against legislator,” while the Commission’s determination that the complaint is frivolous might come months or years later.

Additionally, the concern was raised that the Ethics Committee might become a full-time investigatory group, so complaints were limited to those filed by members, employees or volunteers, or cases in which the Committee determined on its own to investigate.

Because the Senate does not have professional investigators, a trial-type procedure was adopted as a fact-finding mechanism, and because this is America, the accused has several protections.

With the benefit of experience, we might do things differently today, but Senators on the Committee and before the Committee should be allowed to follow the procedures in place currently, lest they themselves start violating the rules.