Rep. Eric Anderson said children have asked him how the courts could repeatedly say Hart was wrong, but he could continue to say he's right. Rep. Tom Loertscher, Ethics committee chairman, asked Anderson, "Is Rep. Hart denied the opportunity to challenge ... in any court ... the same as any other citizen would have - does he have that right or did he give that up as a representative?" Anderson responded, "I've never implied that he does not have that right. It's not in my complaint." Loertscher said, "The only way that he could be in violation of these ethics rules is if he used his office to escape these responsibilities. ... If there's evidence of that, I think that we should proceed." But Loertscher said he thought the ethics committee already had resolved that there was no such evidence with regard to the tax issues.

Rep. Bill Killen, D-Boise, took issue with that. Earlier, the panel refrained from dealing with Hart's legislative privilege claim in his state income tax appeal because the appeal was pending, Killen said, but that's since been decided, both by the state Board of Tax Appeals and the District Court. Both ruled against Hart. Killen said it's time for the ethics panel to look at that issue. Loertscher disagreed, and said the committee decided "that he hadn't abused that." He said, "That's what we decided at our final meeting." Now, the panel has taken a brief break to review its minutes.