How serious are lawmakers about ethics reform?

Amid the daily hustle and bustle in the halls of the Capitol, a showdown of great interest to the people of Alaska is quietly in the making. How it plays out, with an election on the horizon later this year, should signal to voters just how serious those who represent them are about ethics reform.

In the wake of the scandal-tainted resignation of former Attorney General Gregg Renkes in 2004, there was near unanimous wringing of hands and political posturing about the need to clarify this state's executive ethics laws to define more clearly what a financial conflict of interest entails. Both the governor and the Legislature committed to fixing the problem, yet everyone left Juneau last spring without new ethics legislation being approved.

The best the majority could do was a widely reviled and, indeed, unconstitutional proposal that sought to fight the problem of executive ethics reform by making it unpalatable for a citizen to register an ethics complaint. Senate Bill 186, offered up by Ralph Seekins, a Fairbanks lawmaker with gubernatorial aspirations, would have imposed criminal penalties on anyone who took their ethics complaint public.

Had the bill been law two years ago, when former Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin took on Renkes, she could have been jailed for talking about the case to other concerned citizens. The outrageousness of the proposal was evident in the way it was so roundly criticized.

Nonetheless, it passed out of the Senate last spring, with the blessing of Mat-Su senators Lyda Green and Charlie Huggins, before it was declared dead in the House, whose members appear to be a bit more in tune with their constituents.

Among those driving a stake through the heart of the bill was Anchorage Rep. Lesil McGuire. This is significant because McGuire is now front and center in the ethics legislation showdown.

The Judiciary Committee she chairs is slated to take up a different ethics bill this week. House Bill 194, sponsored by Les Gara of Anchorage, may not be perfect legislation, but it implements all the recommendations of attorneys for both the governor and Legislature about nixing the vague law and clearly defining guidelines for financial conflict of interest.

What it does not include, rightfully, is a penalty against someone filing a complaint. The House State Affairs Committee, chaired by Homer Rep. Paul Seaton, a steady voice of reason in the majority caucus, recognized the bill's merits in approving it last week and sending it on to Judiciary. It is worth noting that Mat-Su Rep. Carl Gatto, who sits on State Affairs, also gave the proposal his approval.

How far this worthy bill progresses in a highly partisan Legislature remains to be seen. Gara, after all, is a Democrat. And a warmed-over version of Seekins' bill, which, appallingly, still contains penalties against complaint-filers, is set to be heard in both Seaton's and McGuire's committees in coming weeks.

Legislative skeptics say this bodes ill for meaningful ethics reform this session. We remain hopeful, though, that House lawmakers, led by Seaton and McGuire, will put partisan politics aside and do the right thing for the people of Alaska by standing up for Gara's bill and promptly dismissing Seekins' misguided and self-serving proposal.