Hart: ‘I don’t have a pristine past’

Lawmakers on the House Ethics Committee said Hart made a statement on the House floor yesterday about his ethics issues. “I listened to your mea culpa on the floor yesterday,” Rep. Bill Killen, D-Boise, told Hart. “You did say, and I was glad to hear you say it, that if you could go 15 years back you would have made different choices. I was interested if you would care to expand on that at all.”

Hart responded, “One of my concerns is that what’s happened here could have a chilling effect on people who might want to run for office in the future, and that we might be changing the criteria of what it takes to be a candidate for the Legislature, and that criteria might include having a perfect past. And I’ve made some mistakes in my past. … I’m concerned that there’ll be people in the future who may not run for public office because they don’t have a pristine past. I don’t have a pristine past and certainly you know about that.”