The newly formed state ethics commission created by Amendment 41 should review the legislature’s rules to see if they can be strengthened so possible conflicts of interest are more transparent to the public.
The issue arises after an investigation by 9News and The Denver Post disclosed that Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, repeatedly pursued appropriations for the Colorado State Fair while his own engineering firm received nearly a half-million dollars in contracts from the fair.
Tapia responded to the disclosure by asking the legislature’s own ethics panel to review whether he followed existing rules. That’s fine, but a review of the rules themselves by an outside body, the new ethics commission, is in order to reassure the public that legislative foxes aren’t guarding their own ethical henhouse.
Tapia said his company won the contracts through competitive bidding, and the 9News/Post investigation did not show that the Pueblo legislator violated any laws. But some critics still say it shows that state rules governing how elected officials do business with the state are weak.
The problem is an old one in Colorado, which, like most states, has a part-time citizen legislature. Lawmakers are paid just $30,000 a year and typically earn outside incomes. Both the House and Senate try to regulate conflicts between legislators’ “day jobs” and their public duties by encouraging lawmakers to abstain from voting if they have an interest in a bill different than that of any other citizen affected by the proposed legislation. A farmer/legislator can vote for bills to help all farmers, for example, but not for a bill selling his own farm to a state agency.
This system has obvious weaknesses, notably that an abstention is the same as a “no” vote, since final passage of a bill requires a majority of all 35 senators and all 65 representatives, not just a majority of those actually voting on a bill. Since special interests are often served by defeating proposed laws, abstentions in such cases don’t avoid the problem.
In Tapia’s case, the entire Pueblo delegation is famous for pursuing state cash for their districts and especially for championing the state fair. Whether or not Tapia should have been more forthcoming about disclosing his own interests is up to the legislative panel to decide, but it certainly seems as if he should have.
The incident recalls John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s comment that that his oil baron father “never broke any laws, but a lot of laws were written because of my father.”
Tapia may not have broken any rules, but his case may highlight a weakness in those rules. If so, the ethics commission is the best body to toughen them.
