Ethics cases against Idaho legislators are public. This proposal would curb that

An Idaho lawmaker wants to revamp a state process for investigating legislators’ possible ethics violations – with a proposal that would pull much of the process out of the public eye.

In his approximately 15 years on the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, said he has seen lawmakers accused of violations forced to face the court of public opinion before the severity of their offense is clear.

“Everything is so damaging to a reputation before you even have the facts,” Barbieri told the Idaho Statesman. Under the current system, after the committee determines there is probably cause that a complaint against a lawmaker is true, the committee holds a public hearing with attorneys, experts and witnesses that the public can attend.

Those public trials, Barbieri said Thursday, are unnecessary: By that point, the committee has already held its “private trial” to determine probable cause, and if the committee has decided the complaint is warranted, it could go straight to the House floor.

That House debate should suffice for sharing the facts of the case with the public, he argued.

There, “it’s all public. Now the press can go wild,” Barbieri said. “That way, we’re not duplicating our efforts, and we’re not dragging somebody through the mud in something that wasn’t necessary.”

Opponents: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’

Opponents of Barbieri’s proposal, House Resolution 27, said that’s not quite right. Rep. John Gannon, a Boise Democrat who’s served on the Ethics Committee for 10 years, said that when the House ratifies the committee’s report, there are no witnesses or experts called. It’s not a “full hearing,” he said.

During Barbieri’s introduction of the resolution during a Thursday House Ways and Means Committee meeting, House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said the process works fine as-is. She cited the last time the body held high-profile ethics hearings: in 2021, when then-Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger was accused of raping a legislative intern.

Holding a public ethics committee hearing in that case provided the visibility that ultimately led to criminal charges and von Ehlinger’s conviction, Rubel told the Statesman.

“Frankly, I think that’s the reason that criminal charges were ultimately brought,” she said. “Before that, there was no interest on the part of prosecutors or the criminal (justice) establishment.”

Under Barbieri’s proposal, those hearings “would have been done in darkness,” she said.

The current process, Rubel said, already balances the rights of the accused with the public’s right to know about ethics concerns. In von Ehlinger’s case, “I thought there was secrecy in the early stages when we needed it, and then transparency once it had ripened to a point where transparency was appropriate,” she said in committee. “And I think if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

To Barbieri, ethical concerns should be handled internally by lawmakers, who have the power to remove or discipline someone if needed.

“If the House doesn’t keep its house clean, then shame on us,” he said. “Remember, the committee is elected by the body, by each caucus. So if the caucus doesn’t trust them to make an ethical, reasonable, appropriate decision, we shouldn’t have elected them.”

His rewrite of the ethics rules would also eliminate much of the detailed process of the current system, which he argued is “micromanaging” the committee.

Gannon said the committee’s process allowed it to operate “in a nonpartisan way and in good faith.”

“You have to have a process that is fair, because we’re in a highly charged political group,” he told the Statesman. It’s important, he said, that “everybody knows what the rules are.”