OKLAHOMA CITY - Ethics legislation that prohibits fundraising by lawmakers during legislative sessions and forbids cash transfers between political action committees was sent to the floor of the Oklahoma House Monday.
Lawmakers gave preliminary approval to the measure after its author, Rep. Dave Dank, R-Oklahoma City, said the Legislature needs to tighten rules governing ethical conduct and campaign financing by elected officials to restore the public's faith in them.
"A lot of citizens don't trust us," Dank told members of the House Rules Committee. "They think some of us are for sale."
Committee members also passed legislation by Rep. Jason Murphey, R-Guthrie, that would create a "No Gist List" of lawmakers who do not want gifts or anything else of value given to them by lobbyists.
An amendment approved by committee members would expand the list to include all elected officials subject to state ethics rules, including statewide officials.
Dank's bill, dubbed the Oklahoma Clean Campaign Act of 2008, prohibits fundraising by legislators or legislative candidates during regular legislative sessions as well as 15 days before and after sessions.
Dank said he wants to end questions about whether passage of legislation may be tied to campaign donations.
"There must be a healthy distance between the process of raising money and making law," Dank said. "Otherwise citizens will suspect — sometimes with justification — that legislation is for sale at the state Capitol."
The measure also forbids PAC-to-PAC transfers, requires that campaign funds be used only for legitimate campaign expenditures and equalizes the status of all campaign donors, more clearly defining groups and individuals eligible to contribute.
"For decades there have been clouds over the whole business of raising and spending campaign money in Oklahoma state government," Dank said. Provisions that capped total contributions from individuals and mandating some reporting procedures were removed from the bill to make it simpler, he said.
"It's a bill about some basic principles," Dank said. "I hope no one will have a fear over this bill. It has strong support from the people who pay our salaries."
Members of the committee voted for the bill without opposition or debate. The bill's title was struck, a procedure that will eventually send the bill to a joint House-Senate conference committee.
In January, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission adopted a rule to stop PAC-to-PAC transfers, which critics say allow the identity of big campaign contributors to be hidden.
Supporters say the rule promotes open government and accountability in the campaign financing system. Like individuals, PACs are limited to giving candidates for office $5,000 per election cycle, but critics say the PAC loophole allowed large amounts of cash to be funneled to certain candidates without public disclosure.
Former House Speaker Lance Cargill, who resigned in January following a series of embarrassing revelations, has been the subject of an ethics investigation into his fundraising activities.
Cargill, R-Harrah, was criticized after being installed as speaker when he summoned lobbyists to a private consultant's office away from the Capitol to ask them for contributions to political action committees.
He also came under fire for attending a fundraiser for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee at the home of a Texas businessman linked to Carroll Fisher, the former state insurance commissioner who was impeached and is now in prison on corruption charges.
The ethics bill is House Bill 2196.
