Idaho lawmakers need more than an invisible ethical line

If you’re wondering whether there is any ethical boundary that Idaho’s lawmakers will acknowledge, you’ll be glad to hear that there is.

It’s just that the line – like a theoretical subatomic particle – has not actually been observed.

At least not by Idaho’s lawmakers.

Last year, Idaho’s ethics commission wrestled and wrestled and wrestled with the clearest, if-it-were- a-snake-it’d- have-bit-them ethics case anyone could have invented, courtesy of state Rep. Phil Hart. Hart stole public timber to build a house and has tried to use his elected status as an excuse for his tax evasion, among other ethically creative acts.

In the end, the House Ethics Committee really cracked down by recommending that Hart not serve on a tax committee while he was arguing his tax case. Hart continues to maintain, preposterously, that he’s been the victim of political attacks and a flawed ethics process. He often puts quotation marks around the word “ethics.”

Since then, there’s been a lot of talk about ethics and exactly no legislation. Maybe it’s still on the way. But so far, that ethical line remains awfully faint, and no kind of inappropriateness seems to cross it. People spin through the revolving door between the Statehouse and lobbying offices. Lawmakers keep their financial conflicts of interest a secret. Legislators act blithe and unconcerned about bringing forward issues with which they have direct personal conflicts. Recently, a lawmaker proposed a bill that seems targeted at providing his son some relief from parking problems.

And everyone’s pretty OK with it. “I don’t think that crosses that ethical line,” House Speaker Lawerence Denney said about the parking bill.

I’m just happy Denney admits the existence of an ethical line. He is the guy who blocked, all by himself, an ethics bill last year that would have required lawmakers to disclose their finances. The problem with that bill, supposedly, was it wasn’t good enough, and so Denney used the perfect to defeat the good.

At the start of this year’s legislative session, as a bipartisan group formed to consider adopting the kinds of common-sense ethical safeguards that most states already have, Denney seemed to roll his eyes at it.

He said that if someone wanted to propose an independent ethics commission, “I really don’t believe, as far as ethics goes, that it’s necessary, but perception is reality.”

Perception is a bugger, that’s for sure. Consider the perceptions arising from the most recent case, reported by the S-R’s Betsy Russell.

Ty Palmer is a young man who follows the goings-on at the Capitol closely. Last year, he visited the Statehouse many times during the legislative session, and he is doing so again this year. He’s worked with Coeur d’Alene’s Bob Nonini on a bill to limit the number of photocopies agencies can make of certain documents. He’s testified before a legislative committee about the proposal.

Last year, Ty Palmer got six parking tickets around the Capitol building while the Legislature was in session.

This year, on the first day of the session, his car was towed away from a Capitol-area parking spot – something the city of Boise does only after ticket scofflaws build up a backlog of unpaid tickets.

Since the towing, he’s gotten three more tickets, which remained unpaid earlier this week.

Four weeks after the towing, Ty Palmer’s dad, state Rep. Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, introduced a bill to shut down the parking meters around the Capitol during the legislative session.

On most parts of Earth, there wouldn’t be much question about the propriety of this. On most parts of Earth, even if Rep. Joe Palmer weren’t acting narrowly on behalf of his son, Rep. Joe Palmer would recognize the possibility that someone might misunderstand his intentions – that someone might come to a mistaken perception – and work to avoid the conflict of interest.

In Idaho, though, this falls just a little short of that line.

Just a tiny bit shy of that line.

Joe Palmer sounded a bit defensive when asked about this.

“You know what? There’s not a bill on this floor I vote for that won’t have some sort of effect on me,” he said. “We’re a citizen Legislature – it’s ridiculous.”

The ethics bills that might make it to a vote this year would not directly affect cases like Palmer’s. The hoped-for bills this year would do simple things that should have already been done: require a waiting period between leaving government and lobbying government; protect whistleblowers; and require financial disclosures to identify potential conflicts of interest.

But Palmer’s defensiveness and Denney’s dismissiveness highlight the real problem, and the real reason these foxes can’t guard the henhouse. Someone needs to brighten up that ethical line so Denney and Palmer and everyone can see it and believe in it and recognize it.

Because sometimes perception is reality. And sometimes reality is reality.