Editorial: State ethics reform ignores the real problems

It looks like Republicans in Pennsylvania’s capital are following the Congressional GOP’s recent example when it comes to mishandling ethics reform.

In one of the Pennsylvania State House’s first acts of the new legislative term, the House Ethics Committee, under the direction of Republican Scott Petri, pushed through a bundle of rule changes for the Committee’s operation. The House advertized the changes as reform, and while some might address smaller problems, the centerpiece of the new rules will make it far easier for legislative wrongdoers to escape punishment in our state.

In an interview with PennLive, Petri said that overall the reforms were meant to clarify the Committee’s powers and jurisdiction. Some of the smaller provisions of the new rules are undoubtedly improvements. A provision that prohibits anyone from bringing charges against a legislator facing an election within 60 days, for example, does prevent politicization within the Committee. Requirements to publicize all criminal findings also remedy smaller issues currently facing the state legislature, including widespread criminal activity among legislative leaders Eight former speakers of the Pennsylvania House are currently in jail — an unacceptable number.

But the focal point of the reforms — a requirement for unequivocal, “clear and convincing” evidence of wrongdoing for the Committee to indict and bring charges against suspected legislators — doesn’t so much “strengthen” the Ethics Committee as defangs it. Petri defended the increased burden of evidence for ethics investigations as protecting the due process rights of members accused of wrongdoing. Interestingly, Congressional House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., defended the — now-retracted — gutting of the Office of Congressional Ethics in the same way.

But there’s little evidence in Harrisburg of state legislators’ rights being cast aside in the pursuit of ethics. There is, on the other hand, a significant history of the Ethics Committee being barred from prosecuting members who were later found guilty of crimes. In 2015, Rep. Ron Waters, D-Pa., of Delaware County and Louise Williams Bishop, D-Pa., of Philadelphia County both had charges in front of the Ethics Committee dropped before later being convicted by external prosecutors.

The overall effect of the reforms are less to clarify the Ethics Committee’s powers than to neuter them. The issues that the new rules address are minor and peripheral at best. There is little history of the Ethics Committee being used to take down political opponents that could be caught by the 60-day pre-election ban, and even less of Ethics Committee oversteps regarding due process.

Ethics reform is unquestionably needed in Harrisburg — Pennsylvania’s state legislature has a deserved reputation as one of the most corrupt in the nation. But, as well-intentioned as they might be, the enacted rules change ignores real issues that need to be resolved and instead chases after red herrings.