Schmidt: Conflicts of interest ‘reflect on the Senate … not the senator’

“When that bill comes out of committee, it is nothing more than a recommendation,” attorney Chuck Peterson told the Senate Ethics Committee on behalf of Sen. Monty Pearce. “And his actions in committee do not necessarily result in any action on the floor … That’s not to suggest that maybe you shouldn’t change the rule so that it’s clear that if you have a conflict, you should disclose the conflict in committee. … But I don’t think that’s what the rule says currently.”

Sen. Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, told attorney Peterson, “I guess we’re going to agree to disagree on rule 39h, because to me it clearly includes committee action, and to read it differently means a whole stretch. And No. 2 the wording, what I really like is the phrase, ‘The senator is presumed to act in good faith and in the public interest.’ Because in essence, that’s what our role is here today. As a committee, I believe our job is to reinforce and address that the Senate does indeed that. And the idea that we have a conflict, we come to this role of representing the public interest conflicted. We have our own personal interest, we have people we live with and work with, we may be in a certain party … but today we’re going to address the interests of the Senate. So to me the Senate rules are primary.”

He added, “I think it’s fairly clear that the rules 39hs do address the necessity to declare a conflict. We talked earlier about whether people can vote. And that is actually the heading of that section, ‘Right to Vote,’ and we do want people to vote, we want them to represent their people, but we want that vote to be in the light of day, under the bright shining clear light of full disclosure. You said earlier that things in committee aren’t like a full vote on the floor, and I disagree. We have things that happen in committee that prevent a full vote on the floor. So to me, any time a question is considered before a full body, it is our duty to disclose a conflict of interest that may reflect on the Senate … not on the senator.”