[StBernard] New ethics bill passes; it contradicts old one

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Mon Jun 23 00:21:19 EDT 2008


New ethics bill passes; it contradicts old one
Plan would reveal accuser's identity Sunday, June 22, 2008By Robert Travis
Scott
BATON ROUGE -- The Legislature passed a key ethics bill Saturday that
directly contradicts a law it approved three weeks ago and that was signed
by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

House Bill 906 by Rep. Nita Hutter, R-Chalmette, got a final stamp of
approval from the House and is on its way to the governor's desk.

It marks a significant change in state policy concerning the operation of
the Board of Ethics because it requires the board to reveal to an accused
person the identity of someone filing a sworn complaint. Under current law,
an accuser's identity is secret.

A number of lawmakers have become concerned about the prospect of political
enemies launching clandestine attacks under cover of the existing ethics
board law.

But Hutter's measure contradicts House Bill 290 by Rep. Herbert Dixon,
D-Alexandria, which was signed by Jindal on June 6 and will take effect Aug.
15. Dixon's bill instructs the ethics board to provide complaints and other
information to the accused with the name of the accuser redacted.

Now it is up to Jindal to decide whether Hutter's bill will become law. If
so, it could supersede the Dixon law because it was passed at a later date.

A sworn complaint, signed and notarized, needs only a majority vote from the
board to launch an investigation. A non-sworn complaint requires a
two-thirds vote for an investigation to begin. Hutter's bill would appear to
let the accuser see the name on all sworn complaints and on those non-sworn
complaints approved for an investigation, although the language of that
provision has been subject to different interpretations.

The Hutter bill no longer contains an provision that would have changed the
level of evidence judges would require to convict someone of an ethics
violation. A House amendment would have changed the standard of evidence
from "clear and convincing" to the lesser standard of "any substantial"
evidence, making it easier to get a conviction. But the Senate removed that
amendment.

During the special session on ethics in February, lawmakers had elevated the
standard to the level of clear and convincing, drawing protests from some
who thought the higher standard would make ethics cases too difficult to
bring to trial. That new standard has survived attempts to change it during
the current session and will take effect as of Aug. 15.




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