JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – After scandals saw two legislators resign from office at the end of last session and continued accusations of corruption have plagued Jefferson City, ethics reform could take center stage during the 2016 legislative session.
While lawmakers are currently working on their own solutions to ethics problems in the Capitol after an unfruitful 2015 for reform, one outside group has also taken action to limit the interaction between government officials and special interests.
Ryan Johnson, president of Missouri Alliance for Freedom (MAF), believes that holding legislators to a standard of ethics could create more accountability to the people instead of lobbyists. That is why starting this week, he and the MAF are launching a movement to get legislators on both sides of the aisle to sign an ethics pledge to encourage self-accountability in government.
“We very simply believe in ethics reform in Jefferson City,” Johnson said. “We believe there’s a culture down there that’s not conducive to good government that doesn’t always represent the citizens.”
In August, former state Sen. John Lamping wrote a pledge with five major tenets that Johnson and the MAF will ask current legislators to take.
No gifts, meals, tickets, travel, late night bar bills, or cab rides home should ever be paid for by a lobbyist. If you still want to hang out with your lobbyists friends at all hours, no one’s stopping you, just pay your own way.
All fundraising should stop during session. This leaves 33 weeks to fundraise. Too often votes are being cast as donations are being deposited.
Candidates should pledge not to engage in relationships with interns or staff members, nor create a hostile work environment for any staff member.
Candidates should agree not to resign early in order to accept a paid gubernatorial appointment, and they should wait two full years before becoming a paid lobbyist. Too many back room deals involve more than just compromise.
Any failure to fulfill the pledge should result in immediate resignation.
As an advocate for small government, Johnson likes the idea of self-regulation.
“The best thing about this is that it’s self-imposed,” Johnson said. “This concept doesn’t grow government, doesn’t create a new law. This is legislators reigning themselves in. It would almost negate the need for ethics reform.”
Still, Johnson said there was consensus around the Capitol on both sides about ethics reform, and he supports changing the way politics happens in Jefferson City. Johnson does worry that some members of the legislature, namely those on the left, would want to tie campaign finance limitations to ethics reform, which he and his group see as a limitation of free speech. Johnson says liberal members of both houses should not “miss the forest for the trees” when it comes to making meaningful ethics reform.
He also believes that while Jefferson City has suffered from the indiscretions of a few people, that his group wants to provide a chance for the people of Missouri to trust their elected officials again.
“I don’t think anyone is beyond salvation,” Johnson said. “The way we change culture is through people, so we either change people or we change people’s minds. There are a lot of good men and women in Jefferson City, but what this really does is weed out the bad apples.”
