Disclosure laws in state ranked 17th among 50
Posted on Sunday, December 2, 2007
The Arkansas laws that require personal financial disclosures by governors get an average grade from a Washington-based nonpartisan group.
Gov. Mike Beebe and legislative leaders say those laws are sufficient.
These laws require an annual personal financial disclosure report not only by governors but also by other officials. The laws were part of an initiated act enacted by voters in 1988 after the Legislature balked at approving an ethics bill.
Beebe’s predecessor as governor, Mike Huckabee, and one of Beebe’s former state Senate colleagues, Nick Wilson of Pocahontas, are among officials who’ve been fined by the state Ethics Commission for not disclosing certain income on their reports.
In various states, information in governors’ financial disclosures has been important for revealing potential conflicts of interest and has raised other ethical or legal issues for governors, according to Stateline. org. A federal investigation was launched after Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s 2006 report showed a $ 1, 500 check as a birthday present for his 7-year-old daughter.
This year, the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research group that focuses on ethics and public service issues, compared the states ’ disclosure requirements for governors. It ranked states in a survey that awarded up to a 100 points based on answers to questions about how often governors are required to file these reports, what information and level of detail are required, how much access the public has to the reports, and other things.
Arkansas scored 74, 16 thhighest among the 50 states. The group gave Arkansas a C grade.
Among neighboring states, Louisiana’s 88 was third-highest, Texas’ 87 fourth-highest. They received B grades. The other neighboring states scored lower. Washington state’s 94. 5 earned the only A; Hawaii was second-highest with 89. 5.
Arkansas requires governors to file annual reports disclosing, among other things, his and his spouse’s employers; a range of income from each employer; companies for which he and his spouse are officers or directors; and investment information for him and his spouse.
But Arkansas doesn’t require the governor to report his “real property information” nor his private business clients, though his sales to governmental bodies must be reported, the center said. Thirty-seven states require governors to disclose their “real property information,” and 19 states require them to disclose private business clients, the group said.
The center said the Arkansas Ethics Commission doesn’t regularly review the financial disclosure reports to ensure they are properly completed and accurate, although watchdog agencies in 36 states do so with reports there.
The center’s report is available at www. publicintegrity. org / StateDisclosure /.
In a survey last year, the group gave Arkansas a C grade for the personal financial disclosure laws governing state lawmakers. Arkansas scored 75, 11 th-highest.
The state with the widest divergence in scores was Louisiana. It received 88 points for gubernatorial disclosure laws and 44 for legislators’. Louisiana Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal has said he will call a special session to make Louisiana a national model for government ethics law and enforcement.
Forty-three states have stronger personal financial disclosure laws for lawmakers than Louisiana, according to Jindal’s campaign Web site. The site says Louisiana has the second most public-official convictions per 100, 000 population in the nation (8. 95 ), behind only Mississippi (9. 19 ). It says Arkansas has the ninth least, (1. 99 ), citing the 2004 Harvard Conviction Rate Study.
Arkansas’ laws requiring personal financial disclosures apply to the governor and other statewide officials, lawmakers, and candidates for these offices. These laws also apply to local government officials and candidates, and some other state officials.
In recent years, legislators have given little attention to changing these laws, making only minor alterations.
The national trend is for states to expand disclosures required of lawmakers and lobbyists, said Peggy Kerns of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“The issue is a conflict of interest. The public has a right to know if there is a potential conflict of interest,” she said.
It’s possible that Attorney General Dustin McDaniel will propose requiring more financial disclosure by lawmakers as part an ethics bill he plans to propose to lawmakers in 2009, said McDaniel spokesman Gabe Holmstrom.
“But we are not interested in putting much additional burden on lawmakers,” said Holmstrom.
McDaniel served one term in the House of Representatives before he was elected attorney general last year.
McDaniel has said his bill will be similar to ill-fated legislation proposed by House Speaker Benny Petrus, D-Stuttgart. That bill, The Sunshine in Government Act, would have, among other things, required lobbyists to itemize anything they give legislators. But it didn’t include any provisions requiring lawmakers to disclose more on their statement of financial interest.
McDaniel has yet to issue an opinion requested in March on Petrus’ bill.
Beebe is pleased that Arkansas ranked as well as it did in the survey, said Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample. The state has thorough disclosure laws, and the reports required are available to the public, he said.
As far as requiring the governor to disclose “real property information,” DeCample said the governor already is required to disclose most of that information through another disclosure requirements for other things such as gifts or mortgages.
He said he doubted that it would be practical for a governor to have a second job with private business clients.
“There doesn’t seem to be a significant gap in the disclosure laws that require reform,” DeCample said.
Sen. Steve Faris, D-Central, said he hasn’t heard anybody complaining about the state’s disclosure laws.
“We disclose a lot more information than other states do,” said Faris, chairman of the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Petrus said the law is sufficient as long as the disclosure report is properly filled out.
As for requiring the commission to review the reports for accuracy and completeness, DeCample questioned how the commission would audit personal financial information and whether it could be done efficiently.
Steve Carpinelli, a spokesman for the Center for Public Integrity, questioned how much “teeth” states have to enforce financial disclosure requirements in the absence of reviews of the reports.
Graham Sloan, the commission’s director, said the commission is able only to check on whether state elected officials and candidate file their reports on time.
“We just don’t have the manpower to actually start auditing the contents of the filings,” he said.
Sloan said the commission has nine staff members, five of whom may review these reports and many other reports, such as campaign finance, lobbyist, political action committee and ballot question committee reports. “As far as auditing the contents of filings, we devote our resources to make sure everybody is filing,” Sloan said.
Thousands of public officials across the state are required to file a statement of financial interest each year, he said, and the commission “spot checks” filings for local elected officials and state commission and board appointees. If a complaint is filed about a report, the commission’s staff investigates the matter, he said.
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