It’s about principles

State Sen. Alan Clark confesses to trying to collect $155 in taxpayer money as per-diem reimbursement for attending a legislative meeting he didn’t attend.

And, for that, he says the Senate Ethics Committee ought to be ashamed of itself.

For his own part, Clark told this newspaper that he is “fine” with the fact that Senate administrative officials turned him down for the reimbursement. He admits he made a mistake, although he propounds that he didn’t commit any actual wrong.

But he’s not fine with the Ethics Committee, which found him guilty of unethical conduct and recommended he lose his Judiciary Committee chairmanship and any per-diem reimbursement for the rest of the year.

It’s hardly that big a deal, he argues. I’ll relate Clark’s version of events — his confession nestled deep in a resentful defense — then provide a tutorial on real personal ethics, which matter more than externally regulated ethics.

He was in Little Rock to attend the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee meeting, qualifying legitimately for mileage and per diem. Then he began feeling ill. He spent the night at the Capitol Hill Apartments.

He slept late the next morning but got up in time to go to the Capitol late and sign in for the ongoing Senate meeting with Boys State delegates. Then he would attend a noon function at Republican headquarters down the street.

He was walking to the Capitol when he noticed all the kids going into the building and decided not to risk infecting them with whatever was ailing him.

So he called Sen. Mark Johnson to tell him he was ill and ask him to sign him in. (Johnson obliged, but says he misunderstood, thinking Clark had been at the meeting, but left on account of illness while forgetting to sign in.)

Clark went on to the Republican function, then to lunch with a Republican Senate colleague, Dan Sullivan.

Later, Sen. Bart Hester, the president pro tem-elect, called to tell him his per-diem request was being denied, and he said all right. Later still, he found out that Sen. Jimmy Hickey, the outgoing pro tem, had filed an ethics complaint against him.

So, let’s examine that narrative from Clark in terms of real personal ethics, by which doing something wrong or questionable would not even occur to a person — or by which one would consider such an action in the context of whether it was right, then accept the old adage of ethics that, if you have to ask, don’t do it.

Perhaps Clark never gave a thought to the impropriety of dropping in only to get reimbursement. Perhaps he indeed gave thought to whether he ought to do that, in which case the adage would apply. When in doubt, don’t.

Then, walking up the incline to the Capitol from the apartment, he decided not to go in. Real personal ethics at that point would have had him do nothing other than redirect himself to GOP headquarters for the function, albeit a bit early.

When it occurred to him to call Senate pal Johnson for the absentee sign-in, real personal ethics would have had him consider whether that was the right thing to do, then accept the answer implicit in the question.

Real personal ethics are not about what you can get away with. They’re not about a faulty instinct. They’re about conscience kicking in to do triumphant battle with any faulty instinct.

Alas, Clark’s narrative fails on all counts in terms of real personal ethics, no matter what the full Senate does based on the Ethics Committee recommendation in a written report not yet formally filed.

Clark also argues that, in the business world, no company would think of revoking expense reimbursement if an employee got sick and couldn’t make an appointment while out of town on business.

But real personal ethics would not invoke irrelevant private corporate policy to try to defend snatching taxpayer money through an inauthentic signature vouching for a public servant’s attendance that did not occur.

That only $155 is at stake is not the point. Real personal ethics are about principles, which apply to the propriety of an act, not the heft of it.

As for Johnson, real personal ethics would have had him tell his friend that he simply wasn’t comfortable signing his name and advising him to get in touch with the Senate staff on how to proceed.

Clark also contends, by the way, that the complainant, Hickey, was acting vengefully over a political matter. But another’s motivation bears not at all on one’s own conduct.

Critics of public ethics rules say you can’t regulate personal ethics. That’s true. You can’t. But a public institution should self-regulate in matters it can clearly see.

Meantime, Republican state senatorial nominee Bryan King of Green Forest is calling for wholesale reform of per-diem reimbursement in periods between sessions, basing it on essential travel for constituent services rather than signing in — or being signed in — for pointless interim committee meetings.

I say “pointless” in the fervent hope that Boys State can survive Clark’s absence that day.