Reach out and touch someone - so the telephone company's slogan went, back when phones were big and dumb. Today, phones are small and smart but the line still holds. A flurry of angry callers - or concerned citizens, take your pick - reached out and touched members of the General Assembly last week, and they made a fast connection.
Messages generated by what one news story described as "a quick-strike telephone campaign unleashed by conservative opponents" caused Democratic state senators to scurry away from one of the best parts of the package of ethics-related reforms that their leaders had unveiled just a day or two earlier. That provision called for public financing of additional Council of State offices, such as state treasurer, starting in 2012. It was abruptly abandoned, without a fight.
Too bad. In total, the Senate's package of ethics reforms offered a real, and rare, opportunity to combat some of the abuses that have plagued state government in recent years. Giving more candidates the option of public financing would have dealt with an underlying cause of corruption. Some day all Council of State candidates should have that option. Here's hoping no big scandal brings it about.
Progress pending
And yet, even in this every-other-year "short session" the legislature can and should toughen restrictions on "pay to play" contracts and appointments, and impose a longer timeout period on top officials leaving state government to become lobbyists. It can slap meaningful penalties on campaign contributors who falsely give in the name of others, thereby multiplying their clout. And it can open up currently closed pay records of state employees, shedding light on potential salary and pension abuses.
Legislators should also get going on serious studies that will enable it to do more in 2011. This summer's Senate package, for example, doesn't include tough measures requiring that candidates stand by their campaign finance reports, nor does it authorize prosecutors around the state to convene investigative grand juries to go after official corruption, leaving that job to federal officials.
Nor should senators give up on public financing for the remaining Council of State races - labor, agriculture, secretary of state and treasurer, with attorney general to follow in 2016 (already covered are insurance commissioner, auditor and superintendent of public instruction). Public financing is uniquely important for these statewide elected offices, which directly oversee particular industries and interests. It's simply smart government to separate candidates for these posts from big-money contributions from those particular sectors.
No candidate would be forced to go the public-funding route, but the option would be there. This doesn't have to be a partisan issue; in 2008, for example, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for insurance commissioner used public financing.
But because the funds have to come from somewhere - in the Senate bill, from increased fees paid by those doing business with the offices in question - and because a "fee" can be labeled, misleadingly, as a "tax," the phones started to ring last week.
All of a sudden
The other main objection was that Senate Democrats had sprung the financing provision without hearings and with little notice. The view here on that one: guilty. The Senate Democratic leadership is too prone to backroom decision-making, and until that bad habit is broken the GOP - and citizens - have a legitimate complaint about process.
However, fee increases on various Council of State services are certainly not too high a price to pay for an effective dose of election reform. And who, after all, is better suited to pay the relatively modest cost of publicly financed campaigns than those who would gain most from dealing with top officials free of any special-interest, big-money taint?
Reformers need to buckle down to the job and show some staying power, in both the Senate and the House. Government here still has a long way to go before it's certifiably clean.
