Barry Erwin is the chief policy officer for the Council for a Better Louisiana.
BATON ROUGE — Critics of a measure to overhaul the process of investigating ethics violations by public officials say it would constrain the work of the state`s Board of Ethics, subject members to political pressures and make the board less independent.
House Bill 674, which passed the state Legislature overwhelmingly and now sits on Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk, would place impediments on ethics investigations and provide officials accused of wrongdoing with more avenues to stymie such probes, some public policy groups say.
The bill would mandate a two-thirds vote of the ethics board to investigate a sworn complaint and the same threshold to file formal charges. The board currently makes these decisions based on majority votes.
In addition, information on subpoenas or questions submitted to witnesses would have to be provided to the targets of investigations within 30 days of such actions being served, according to the Legislature’s analysis of the bill. The targets of investigations would also be able to respond to allegations, orally or in writing, in final board reports prior to the scheduling of public hearings, the analysis says.
The passage of HB 674 comes after the enactment of another bill last year that gave the governor and Legislature the power to directly appoint members to the ethics board. Previously, board members were chosen from candidate lists provided by the state’s private colleges and universities.
Barry Erwin, chief policy officer for the Council for a Better Louisiana, said the combination of last year’s action and this year’s overhaul raises concerns about the ethics board’s ability to hold officials accountable for ethics violations.
“When you put them together, it creates a high bar for the ethics board to investigate,” Erwin told the Louisiana Record. “... What happened last year makes the ethics board less independent.”
HB 674’s provisions provide for more back-and-forth between the ethics board and targets of investigations, adding more steps and more deadlines in the investigation process, he said.
“There is a concern that (HB 674) creates the potential for more political pressures to be applied to people,” Erwin said.
Supporters of the bill, however, argue that the ethics board has pursued public officials for minor infractions, forced small-town politicians to spend money on attorneys for actions that were not done with any malice and damaged officials’ reputations over small matters.
“The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana agrees that tweaks to the ethics code are likely needed to adapt to changing circumstances and to address those legitimate legislative concerns,” a recent opinion piece by the council’s president, Steven Procopio, and research director, Melinda Deslatte, states.
But the council and other public policy groups say HB 674 would weaken guardrails, potentially derail cases and lead to increased public distrust of public officials.
Landry himself has been the target of an ethics board investigation. While serving as attorney general, he failed to disclose a campaign donor’s provision of private flights to Hawaii for a conference, prompting the filing of a complaint.
Erwin stressed that critics were not picking on either the current governor or Legislature but are looking toward the long term and assurance that future elected officials would be held accountable.
