Senators request ethics agency emails
Capitol Bureau ddenwalt@oklahoman.com
Outgoing leaders in the Oklahoma Senate have asked for emails and other documents surrounding the Legislature’s funding of the Ethics Commission.
A letter sent late Friday by Senate President Pro Tem Mike Schulz and Judiciary Chairman Anthony Sykes, makes 21 requests for information, emails, contracts and other records.
These include the agency’s
spending and budget request, along with communications made by employees and commissioners.
Both Schulz, R-Altus, and Sykes, R-Moore, are term-limited and cannot run for re-election. They will leave office this year.
The Ethics Commission voted 5-0 May 11 to sue over next year’s budget.
The commission criticized its budget after receiving no legislative appropriation from the state’s general fund. Instead, the agency is required to use $710,351 from a fund made up of fees collected from lobbyists, candidates, political parties and political action committees.
The Ethics Commission is expected to ask the Oklahoma Supreme Court to find legislators in violation of the Oklahoma Constitution.
Both Executive Director Ashley Kemp and commission Chairman John C. Hawkins spoke out after lawmakers approved the 2019 budget this month. Hawkins wrote to lawmakers that he was appalled at what he considered a budget cut after the commission’s new rules on gifts and restrictions on legislators and other state elected officials from becoming a lobbyist after leaving office.
The Legislature later revoked the lobbyist rule, which would have required a “cooling-off” period of two years before elected state officials could register as a lobbyist.
The Ethics Commission’s budget request included a line item for $1,170,000 to create an Open Government department to streamline access to records and meetings.
The department would have been to “provide an avenue for administrative recourse, rather than private civil action or criminal charges, through the Commission.”
The senators’ letter asks for communication about the proposed department and any draft rules that were circulated.
It also asks for any contracts made with outside attorneys and private investigators over the past two years and financial records from fee collections.
“The Senate simply made the request to learn more about the Ethics Commission’s budget requests and recent plans to grow the agency,” said Senate spokesman Aaron Cooper.
Kemp said Friday that the formal records request was unnecessary but that the records will be provided as soon as is practicable.
“Because the commission has only seven staff members to fulfill its responsibilities, the commission goes to great effort to make information available online,” Kemp said, noting that much of the information requested is already made available on its website.
She said the Ethics Commission is relatively young, created less than 30 years ago after several serious episodes of public corruption.
“The citizens’ goal in placing the commission in the constitution was to ensure it could fulfill its role without interference,” Kemp said. “The vast majority of those interested in serving the state, and actually serving the state do so for the right reasons — to serve the state of Oklahoma. For those who fall short of these expectations, the commission will hold them properly accountable.”