CAMPAIGN ETHICS BILL IN DOUBT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 10, 1993                   TAG: 9302100256
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
CAMPAIGN ETHICS BILL IN DOUBT
Powerful Democrats in the state Senate managed Tuesday to shanghai the only political reform bill left in that chamber - pulling it off the floor with a friendly assurance, yanking it into a dark committee alley and garroting it.
The action in the Senate Finance Committee casts doubt on whether the General Assembly will enact any ethics legislation this session. Senators peeved at Gov. Douglas Wilder for shutting them out of an ethics study this past fall have ordered their own study and are depositing related legislation there.
Tuesday's action involved a bill produced by Wilder's panel and sponsored by Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake. It would have established a state ethics commission to review alleged conflicts of interest, enacted a "whistle-blowers act" to protect state employees who expose fraud, and set standards of conduct for public officials.
Two other Senate bills from Wilder's ethics study were shunted into the new Senate study earlier, but Earley's had won the surprise endorsement of the Senate General Laws Committee. When it got to the floor of the Senate last week, Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton announced that it had financial implications that required a quick look by the Finance Committee.
Andrews promised that the committee would consider only the bill's fiscal impact, so Earley did not object.
Tuesday, Earley argued that the only part of the proposal that had a price tag was the ethics commission. He offered to dump that into the study to preserve the rest of the bill.
But committee member Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, dusted off the speech he's used against other ethics bills this year: Too complicated, too late, needs more study. The committee then sent Earley's bill off to the study, killing it for this year.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1993

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB