Conflicts of interest
Lawmakers across U.S. vote to feather their nests
Anational survey of legislators’ ethics statements shows the broad scope of a problem only too familiar to Pennsylvanians: Across the country, many lawmakers have outside sources of income that expose them to conflicts of interest and raise questions about who they’re truly serving.
The Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press examined the ethics statements for 6,933 legislators serving in various states in 2015 and found that at least 76 percent had outside sources of income. They reported their findings in December.
In a series on legislative ethics in 2015, the Post-Gazette reported that at least 54 percent of Pennsylvania lawmakers had outside sources of income ranging from natural gas leases to small businesses. Efforts to curtail legislators’ moonlighting here have failed time and again. That’s because lawmakers would have to vote to limit themselves, and that isn’t likely to happen absent a sustained public outcry like the one that forced lawmakers to repeal their 2005 middle-of-the-night pay grab.
But an outcry is warranted here and around the country. When they have other jobs, legislators can be distracted from serving their constituents. That’s especially true in the small number of states, including Pennsylvania, with full-time legislatures paying full-time salaries and generous benefits.
More concerning are the conflicts of interest that arise when a lawmaker’s personal financial interests and public work collide. The Center for Public Integrity/AP story featured some doozies of examples, including an Iowa senator who promoted a tax change that benefited manufacturing concerns like the one he owned, a Louisiana representative with a rare coin business who pushed a tax cut for those in that line of work, two Utah lawmakers who draw paychecks from Utah’s bond adviser and voted for a bond issue of up to $1 billion and a North Dakota representative who voted for funding bills for colleges that included two clients of his insurance business.
“Pennsylvania lawmakers who believe they may have a conflict of interest are required to ask their chamber’s presiding officer whether they should vote,” the center and AP reported. “In 30 instances in the Senate over a recent three-year period, every inquiry received the green light.”
The Post-Gazette’s 2015 series raised questions about similar scenarios, including lawmakers with gas leases who vote on fracking-related legislation, and the Legislature’s reluctance to recuse members from voting even when they raise the possibility of conflicts themselves. Clearly, little has changed.
Legislative bodies around the country should do a better job of keeping lawmakers from voting on legislation in which they have a direct financial benefit. That kind of reform should begin in Pennsylvania, but it won’t happen unless voters send the message that they’re tired of business as usual.