HB 563-LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE & ETHICS GUIDELINES  MS. JANET SEITZ, staff to Representative Norm Rokeberg, told members that the version of HB 563 that passed the House differs from version H of SB 397 [companion legislation] in two ways: · on page 2, lines 15-23, regarding who appoints the replacements to the disqualified members when there is a group complaint, the new language says if the disqualified members are part of the Majority Caucus, then the presiding officer shall appoint; if they are part of the Minority Caucus, the Minority Leader shall appoint. · The second change pertains to the definition of "caucus" on lines 29 and 30 on page 2. Commas were added to that sentence so that it reads "'caucus' means a group of legislators who share a political philosophy, or have a common goal, and who organize as a group." CHAIR SEEKINS pointed out that the Minority Caucus leader will appoint the member from the other house. MS. SEITZ said that is correct if the disqualified members are minority members. SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if that change was made via a floor amendment. MS. SEITZ said the change was made with a floor amendment that was agreed to by Representative Rokeberg. She added that Representative Rokeberg had offered an amendment to clarify some language that was discussed in the Senate Judiciary Committee about member versus members and some clean-up language that the committee wanted to offer. During the floor debate, Representative Gara and others pointed out that if the disqualified member is a minority member, the Minority Leader should appoint a replacement. She explained: This is when ... the complaint is not filed against an entire caucus but maybe just the members of that caucus who serve on the ethics committee are part of the group the complaint is filed against, then the first step is to appoint - for example if the House majority members were disqualified, then the presiding officer would appoint another member from the House Majority to sit in on that group complaint. If the Minority members were disqualified, then it would be the Minority Leader. And then the second part goes into it if it's all members of the caucus, for example all members of the Majority Caucus so all members of the Majority Caucus would be disqualified from participating in the ethics committee in regards to the complaint. CHAIR SEEKINS asked, "What if the complaint goes against a coalition of the caucus where part of the members are Majority and part of the members are Minority? In that case, the Minority Caucus leader shall appoint the member. To illustrate his point he talked about the ad hoc fiscal caucus, which had a member from the minority party. If that caucus violated the ethics act, the Minority Caucus leader would do the appointing. He said: I think what we're trying to get to here, if I'm correct, is that if all the members in one house of the Majority Caucus are part of the complaint, it's brought against the entire caucus, then the presiding officer appoints from the other body who the presiding officer wants to appoint to be the replacement. If it's all against the Minority Caucus, and none of the majority members are involved, then the Minority Caucus leader gets to do the appointment. Is that what we're after? MS. SEITZ affirmed that is what the House was after. She did not think they envisioned a case where all four legislative members of either body serving on the ethics committee would be disqualified. CHAIR SEEKINS agreed. He then added, "If it's caucus A's ox that's being gored, then caucus A gets to appoint from the other body. If it's all caucus B's ox that's being gored, then caucus B gets to appoint replacements from the other body that represent their caucus. So if that's the intent, and it's very clear on the record that that's what we're doing, and that was how the drafters were instructed to draft this then I don't have a problem with it." MS. SEITZ affirmed that to be the intent. CHAIR SEEKINS asked members if that was their interpretation and there was no dissent from members. SENATOR THERRIAULT suggested changing the word "members" on line 16 of page 2 to "member". MS. SEITZ said that would not work because the [ethics] committee has a member and alternate from each party so for that provision to kick in, both the member and the alternate have to be disqualified, otherwise the alternate would serve. CHAIR SEEKINS responded, "And it strictly ... gives within that body the opportunity for the majority or the leader of that caucus to do the appointing of who replaces the disqualified person. I don't have any objection to that. Do you guys have a problem with that?" MS. SEITZ said that change, and the comma change on lines 29 and 30 to clarify the definition of "caucus," are the only changes. CHAIR SEEKINS took a brief at-ease from 9:05 to 9:09 a.m. CHAIR SEEKINS announced that he would set aside SB 397 from further consideration so that HB 563 was the vehicle before the committee. He then took public testimony. MR. MYRL THOMPSON, representing himself, made the following statement: Okay, I haven't totally gone over this newest CS for the House bill but it's looking to be along the same lines as the other. I have certain problems with it as far as the - on page 5 now and the complaint dismissal part of it. That's still a First Amendment right to [indisc.] government if we disagree with these things. I actually went through and spoke to a number of people in my neighborhood and then a couple of associations yesterday and they had no idea that this bill was even in there but I think that you'd be pretty interested to know that those folks think that this is just outrageous. I showed them a copy of the bill and explained to them - and I also showed them a copy of testimony. The folks out here just think that this is crazy that the legislature is trying to write the rules that the legislature has to go by. As I said in previous testimony, the best place for this type of bill to be written, or come out of anyway, would be the ethics committee because of its balance. It has five members of the public and two members from each house. This is a committee of one where this bill is coming from and it's just not the best place to address this. You have to have the trust of the people and respect of the people and that's written into the code and, by having a fox guard the henhouse, that's not showing us any respect and it's certainly not going to get our trust and that's the most important thing here. I'll let you go with that. CHAIR SEEKINS said at the last meeting, a comparison was made between a grand jury investigation and an ethics complaint being kept confidential while under review. He sees the two as similar because of the potential for abuse - a mere allegation of an ethics violation is being made against someone as a political weapon. The suggestion is that until the ethics committee has a chance to review it, you don't want to set the committee and process up as a political tool. He asked Mr. Thompson if he is suggesting that the grand jury system is going against the will of the people. With no further participants, CHAIR SEEKINS closed public testimony. He agreed with Senator Therriault that the operating procedures of the legislature are very clear. They are set out in Mason's Manual and the Uniform Rules. In addition, the procedures under HB 563 are very public. People can always suggest additional rules for consideration. He is not aware of any other governmental body that allows someone else to prescribe the operating rules for the other body. He said he has no problem with this bill and he has no problem with the fact that if people try to use an ethics complaint for political purposes to harm an individual, they should not be able to do so by announcing their complaint to the media. SENATOR OGAN said he had suggested an alternative way to deal with the issue of confidentiality and while he does not disagree with what committee members have said, he wanted to state for the record that he tried hard to get the bill amended in the other body to allow the ethics committee to assess the administrative cost of the complaint process against someone who files a frivolous complaint. He noted that unfortunately, the debate in the House went into the late hours and additional amendments could not be considered. He explained that the amendment would have required a title change, which would kill the bill at this point in the session. He stated that he does not object to the bill moving out of committee although he would have preferred to amend it. He said he would be recommending on the committee report that the bill be amended. SENATOR THERRIAULT moved CSHB 563(JUD)am(efdadd) from committee with individual recommendations. CHAIR SEEKINS announced that with no objection, the bill moved from committee.