By: Mary Steurer(ND Monitor)
The Ethics Commission fears changes approved by North Dakota lawmakers earlier this week could allow alleged ethical violations by public officials to go unaddressed.
“We’re going to allow ethical concerns to fester,” Executive Director Rebecca Binstock said during a special meeting on Tuesday to discuss how legislation making its way through the session could impact the commission’s work.
Members of the House on Monday voted to approve a number of amendments to the commission’s budget, Senate Bill 2004, which included a new provision requiring the commission to dismiss ethics complaints older than 180 days. If the bill is signed into law, it would take effect immediately.
The change stemmed from some lawmakers’ frustrations with the pace at which the commission processes complaints. Some filings are more than two years old.
Commissioners asked Binstock how many complaints the board could be forced to dismiss if the bill is signed into law within the next few weeks
There are 28 complaints that will be more than 180 days old on May 1 — 17 of which are against state lawmakers, Binstock said.
Rep. Mike Nathe, who brought the amendments, has said the changes would give the commission a tool to reduce its number of pending complaints, some of which are more than two years old. He called the backlog a due process concern that is unfair to those accused of violations, including some of his colleagues in the Legislature.
Commissioners took issue with the notion that the deadline would help them.
“That’s not a tool,” said Commission Chair Dave Anderson. “Giving an arbitrary restriction is not a tool.”
Anderson also said that the Legislature should give the commission more resources if it wants the board to process complaints more quickly. The commission is following the procedures prescribed by the law, he said.
“We have things that have to be accomplished according to statute the Legislature approved,” Anderson said. “So we can’t just hurry things up.”
Nathe said previously that the intent of the bill is to have the 180-day clock start ticking against complaints as soon as the law goes into effect. Under that interpretation, the Ethics Commission would still have half a year to investigate those 28 complaints.
According to Binstock, the language of the bill is not completely clear, and the deadline may work differently in practice.
Commissioners worry the deadline will prevent the commission from meaningfully investigating complaints.
“You could have people who had a complaint filed against them stall in giving you information, which would take you past the 180 days, and so then it would be dismissed,” Commissioner Ward Koeser said.
If the deadline forces the commission to dismiss a complaint before an investigation is completed, the commission’s efforts would go to waste, Binstock said.
“By following the arbitrarily imposed deadline, really what we could have is we could have quite a bit of work, quite a bit of resources put into something and then end up having nothing as a product because we just have to close it,” she said. “I don’t personally think this is a tool for North Dakota citizens.”
Commissioner Ron Goodman wondered whether the bill conflicts with the North Dakota Constitution, which states that the Legislature may not do anything that impedes the responsibilities assigned to the Ethics Commission under Article XIV.
“It seems to me that that’s going to be a question that maybe the Supreme Court has to answer,” Goodman said.
The budget also includes a policy provision that Nathe said would help the commission throw out complaints that are unlikely to go anywhere but that the board does not have the ability to dismiss under current law.
The bill will go to a conference committee of representatives and senators, who will work out final changes to the bill.
The Senate approved a budget that included funding for a new staff member dedicated to education and communications, though that position was slashed by the House.
The commission’s main priority for the conference committee will be urging lawmakers to add that funding back in. It also hopes to convince legislators to take policy provisions out of the budget, Binstock said.
