McKinney Joins State Republicans

Calling For Ethics Committee

HARTFORD — Senate Republicans recently renewed their call for a legislative ethics committee and offered new legislation to address the two issues Senate Democrats cited last week as their reasons for rejecting a similar proposal.

“As highlighted by the still unanswered questions surrounding the transgressions of sitting Connecticut legislators, it is clear that our state suffers from the absence of a permanent ethics process that would handle complaints of legislative misconduct in a consistent, open, and bipartisan way,” said Senate Minority Leader John McKinney who represents Newtown. Sen McKinney added that Connecticut is one of only nine states that does not have a legislative ethics committee.

“This has been a stated priority of both Senate Democrats and Republicans over the past two years, and yet the majority has so far failed to come to the table to work out an agreement that will finally make this committee a reality,” he said. “One more time, we are reaching out to the majority and trying to address the two concerns they raised in debate last week in hopes of finally passing this necessary reform.”

The new legislation makes the following changes:

*whereas the original proposal would have allowed any person to file a complaint signed under penalty of false statement, the new resolution provides that only a member of the Senate may file a complaint; and

*whereas the original proposal called for a standing six-member committee, the new resolution provides that members would be appointed only after a formal complaint has been filed.

These changes were made to address specific concerns raised in debate by Senate President Don Williams (D-Brooklyn) and Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney (D-New Haven), who said the process must be restricted to avoid “opening [the institution] up to complaints filed by any partisan political folks.”

Moreover, Senator Looney argued that if a member of a standing committee were determined to be “closely allied to someone who might be subject of a complaint… the credibility of the committee might be called into question from the very beginning.” Sen Looney indicated he would be more comfortable with an “ad-hoc process” that followed the “thoughtful way” in which Senators Williams and McKinney constituted the committee of inquiry that reviewed the misconduct of then-Senator Lou DeLuca in 2007. The compromise proposal seeks to address those concerns.

“Under current law, the decision whether or not to review or reprimand a sitting member of the state Senate lies solely with the Senate President. This process is neither fair, nor bipartisan. It is my hope that the majority will welcome our revised proposal which addresses the specific reasons for their rejection last week,” said Sen McKinney.