A state lawmaker cannot accept an expenses-paid trip to attend a conference for drug companies and other health-related industries at the Ritz-Carlton in Arlington, Va., the state’s Independent Ethics Commission said Thursday.
In a rare instance where the commission unconditionally shot down travel by a lawmaker, the five-member commission said that state Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, cannot accept airfare, hotel and other trip expenses offered by the Center for Business Intelligence, a company that holds conferences for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries.
The conference, to be held in August at the Ritz-Carlton, was to feature a discussion of state laws that affect the industries. Pace is sponsoring a bill that would require businesses that receive state tax incentives to disclose how many jobs they have created.
“The reason they were inviting me was I was supporting bills they considered outright hostile,” Pace said, adding that he was to speak as part of a panel of state lawmakers from across the country. The estimated cost of the trip was $2,000.
Voters passed the Amendment 41 gift ban for government workers and elected officials, and since the ethics commission began issuing opinions and rulings in 2008, it has ruled that lawmakers and state workers can accept trips if doing so benefits the state.
In his request, Pace noted that he’d sponsored a 2009 bill aimed at the pharmaceutical industry that would have prevented drugmakers “from providing economic benefits to health care providers (and) required greater transparency by pharmaceutical companies in their marketing and advertising schemes.”
Pace said accepting the expenses-paid trip would inform him “about the various types of gift-ban and disclosure requirements different states have adopted or considered to address the corporate transparency issue.”
In its ruling, the ethics commission said “the conference appears to be a networking and lobbying opportunity for the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical-device industry, rather than an idea-exchange opportunity that would benefit the state.”
Accepting the expenses-paid trip “would not serve a legitimate state purpose,” the ruling said.
In the more than two dozen rulings and opinions the commission has issued, only a handful have clearly banned gifts.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
