State Ethics Commission moves closer to lawsuit

By Ron Jenkins

Published: June 20, 2008

(AP) - The Oklahoma Ethics Commission appears to be a step closer to filing a lawsuit against the Oklahoma Legislature over a lack of funding.

The governor's office signaled Friday that a special legislative session sought by the ethics panel to address its funding woes looks like a lost cause because of legislative disinterest.

Paul Sund, spokesman for Gov. Brad Henry, said there is no indication from legislative budget leaders that they are receptive to Ethics Commission chairman Don Bingham's request for a special session.

Sund pointed to a statement Monday by Rep. Ken Miller, R-Edmond, House appropriations chairman, who said it would be "a waste of taxpayer dollars" to hold an extra meeting of legislators on the issue.

"That kind of tells us there is little chance of making any headway" toward a funding agreement with legislators that would make a special session successful, he said.

Henry previously indicated it would be useless to call a special session if an agreement could not be reached.

Sund said the governor's office tried to negotiate an agreement in the final days of the legislative session last month, but to no avail.

In seeking a special session, Bingham wrote that it was a matter of "constitutional urgency" to get adequate funding for the Ethics Commission. Among other things, the agency is seeking funds for an additional investigator. It has had one investigator since its inception almost two decades ago.

Bingham said the state Constitution mandates that lawmakers properly fund the agency, something he says has not been done.

In the past two years, he said negotiations with key legislators "have produced budget appropriations that do not come close to sufficient funding of the operation of the commission."

Commissioner John Raley said Friday he had been in contact with the agency's staff to prepare a response to the failure of the special session idea.

"We were simply trying to explore and exhaust every possible remedy to this problem" by requesting a special session, he said.

Raley said agency officials have learned that on the last day of the regular session, the Legislature came up with millions of extra dollars for several agencies that exceeded the $7.1 billion general budget agreement.

"That reveals the fact that money was available" to boost the ethics agency funding "with an extremely small percentage" of the money given to other agencies, he said.

Raley said ethics commissioners are "still trying to avoid a lawsuit" but are running out of options. He said the agency's needs could be funded with a small percentage of the money it would cost the Legislature to defend the suit.

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