April
8, 2008
Contact: Arthur C. Barton 323-1148
Today
the Ethics Commission again made
a statement that careless
reporting of financial information
in required annual reports to the
Commission is unacceptable. The
annual financial disclosure forms
are the basis for determining conflicts
of interest government officials
may have. Erroneous, incomplete
or inaccurate information is subject
to penalties under perjury laws.
Senator Ciccone, as other elected
officials before him, showed a
cavalier attitude toward providing
the information required by the
annual disclosure form. His dismissive
attitude has now had a price and
a well-deserved price.
More troubling
is the absence of censure by
the Ethics Commission
regarding Senator Ciccone’s
conflicts of interest.
The real issue here is that Senator
Ciccone sponsored and voted for
legislation that would have had
taxpayers subsidize his employer,
the Laborers Union, when the union
was involved in disputes with municipalities
and state agencies.
This case
shows that the current Ethics
regulations are deeply flawed.
The investigators for the Ethics
Commission concluded that Senator
Ciccone’s actions clearly
represented a conflict of interest.
But current regulations are interpreted
so his conflict is acceptable because
other public employee unions also
would have benefited from Senator
Ciccone’s legislation.
Something is wrong with this picture.
Senator Ciccone is fined for carelessly
filling out a financial disclosure
form, but his legislative actions
determined to represent a conflict
of interest are blessed by the
Ethics Commission because a handful
of large public employee unions
would share in the benefits conferred
by the legislation Ciccone sponsored.
Operation Clean Government applauds
the Ethics Commission for upholding
the importance of the accuracy
and completeness of the required
financial disclosure statements,
which is the standard for information
about potential conflicts of interest.
We implore
the Ethics Commission to review
its regulations and their
interpretation that allow legislators
with flagrant conflicts of interest
to avoid punishment by granting
favorable treatment to their friends
and allies as well as themselves.
The “class exception” which
has bailed out Senator Ciccone
encourages more pigs to feed at
the public trough so no one pig
can be singled out.
