MIKE EVANS OFFERS COMPREHENSIVE ETHICS REFORM
Submitted by ArkDem on Tue, 05/29/2007 - 10:59pm.
Contact : mikeevans2008 [at] yahoo [dot] com or call 1.202.271.7897
Mike Evans, a Democrat running for Lt. Governor of Missouri in 2008, has released a proposed Ethics Reform Plan to reshape the Ethics Commission for the State of Missouri and make it harder for elected officials to skirt ethics laws when obtaining financial benefit while serving in the office. The broad ranged plan includes new laws for staff of legislative members.
This move by Evans comes in the wake of the revelation Speaker Pro Tempore Carl Bearden is recieving a paycheck from the powerful nursing home lobby, the Missouri Health Care Association.
"This is wrong and Speaker Bearden has an obligation to the people of Missouri and his legislative district to return that money," said Evans.
During the 2007 legislative session, Bearden aided the nursing home lobby in getting a nine percent increase in their daily Medicaid provider rate, which will cost taxpayers roughly $30 million next fiscal year. Nine percent was more than twice what most other health care providers received in the state budget passed earlier this month.
"I wonder how Governor Blunt, Lt. Governor Kinder, and Speaker Bearden can sleep at night knowing they cost the taxpayers of Missouri at least $30 million more dollars in taxes," asked Evans. "In a Nixon-Evans Administration, I will be fighting to lower taxes by $30 million, fighting to increase benefits for service members and their families, and for restoring areas hard hit by disaster like the community around Johnson Shut-Ins State Park."
The plan by Evans has seven points.
* The members of the Missouri Ethics Commission will be restructured to seven commissioners so that one is appointed by the Governor and one is an appointee by a joint committee of both houses of the legislature. They will join with four members elected by the voters of Missouri every year to two year terms. The Lt. Governor, to add some responsibility to the office, will be appointed Chair of the Ethics Commission with the power to vote in the case of a tie and to make an appointments to vacancies.
* Ban all legislators and their staff from doing business with, recieving any income thats over 10% of their yearly salary, and recieving any financial benefit from any companies that do business with the state. Any legislator is immiediately banned from sitting on any committee that regulates any business they recieve income from. Furthermore, legislative leadership is banned from any business holding or recieving income outside of their legislative duties.
* Two year waiting period for any legislator once they leave office before they can legally lobby for any industry or recieve financial compensation from any lobbying firm that does business with the state. Furthermore make it a crime to do any second hand advising with any lobbyists in those two year waiting period.
* The Ethics Commission will require all statewide elected officials to file a quarterly report of who donates to them and how the money is spent. In addition, legislators will be required every two weeks to file a report when the legislature is in session.
* Staffers for all Constitutional Officers and all State Legislators will be required to file a similar report of money recieved and expense accounting.
* Mandate electronic filing of quarterly lobby disclosure reports, available online and searchable, with a sortble database that lets the public know the name of the lobbyists, the official who was lobbied, and what specific legislation was discussed.
* Require legislators and their staff to report negotiation of future employment with any corporation, organization, or other entity that has legislative issues pending before the Missouri State Legislature.
Evans is confident this is one of the broadest reaching reform plans in the United States. As Lt. Governor, Evans says he will be an advocate for such legislation as well as using the office of Lt. Governor to promote citizen initiative and ballot initiatives he believes benefit Missouri. He says he is following the lead of another successful Missouri Democrat who is a reformer, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, as well as the late Lt. Governor Harriet Woods.
"I am continuing the work in Missouri that Harriet Woods began and Claire McCaskill continues today in Washington, D.C., to make government more about people and less about money," said Evans. "I want the people of Missouri to say after my first term that Mike Evans is nobody's Lt. Governor but ours!"
Evans is a native of Desoto, Missouri. Upon graduation from High School, like Harry Truman before him, Evans enlisted in the U.S. Army as an Intelligence Analyst and was stationed at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona and the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade, Maryland. Evans worked for former U.S. Congressman Dick Gephardt on Capitol Hill as well as in the Presidential Campaign of retired General Wesley K. Clark in 2004, before running for U.S. Congress in a bid to succeed Gephardt. Evans owns M&T Productions, a marketing firm. He lives in Arnold, Missouri.
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Mike Evans, a Democrat running for Lt. Governor of Missouri in 2008, has released a proposed Ethics Reform Plan to reshape the Ethics Commission for the State of Missouri and make it harder for elected officials to skirt ethics laws when obtaining financial benefit while serving in the office. The broad ranged plan includes new laws for staff of legislative members.
This move by Evans comes in the wake of the revelation Speaker Pro Tempore Carl Bearden is recieving a paycheck from the powerful nursing home lobby, the Missouri Health Care Association.
"This is wrong and Speaker Bearden has an obligation to the people of Missouri and his legislative district to return that money," said Evans.
During the 2007 legislative session, Bearden aided the nursing home lobby in getting a nine percent increase in their daily Medicaid provider rate, which will cost taxpayers roughly $30 million next fiscal year. Nine percent was more than twice what most other health care providers received in the state budget passed earlier this month.
"I wonder how Governor Blunt, Lt. Governor Kinder, and Speaker Bearden can sleep at night knowing they cost the taxpayers of Missouri at least $30 million more dollars in taxes," asked Evans. "In a Nixon-Evans Administration, I will be fighting to lower taxes by $30 million, fighting to increase benefits for service members and their families, and for restoring areas hard hit by disaster like the community around Johnson Shut-Ins State Park."
The plan by Evans has seven points.
* The members of the Missouri Ethics Commission will be restructured to seven commissioners so that one is appointed by the Governor and one is an appointee by a joint committee of both houses of the legislature. They will join with four members elected by the voters of Missouri every year to two year terms. The Lt. Governor, to add some responsibility to the office, will be appointed Chair of the Ethics Commission with the power to vote in the case of a tie and to make an appointments to vacancies.
* Ban all legislators and their staff from doing business with, recieving any income thats over 10% of their yearly salary, and recieving any financial benefit from any companies that do business with the state. Any legislator is immiediately banned from sitting on any committee that regulates any business they recieve income from. Furthermore, legislative leadership is banned from any business holding or recieving income outside of their legislative duties.
* Two year waiting period for any legislator once they leave office before they can legally lobby for any industry or recieve financial compensation from any lobbying firm that does business with the state. Furthermore make it a crime to do any second hand advising with any lobbyists in those two year waiting period.
* The Ethics Commission will require all statewide elected officials to file a quarterly report of who donates to them and how the money is spent. In addition, legislators will be required every two weeks to file a report when the legislature is in session.
* Staffers for all Constitutional Officers and all State Legislators will be required to file a similar report of money recieved and expense accounting.
* Mandate electronic filing of quarterly lobby disclosure reports, available online and searchable, with a sortble database that lets the public know the name of the lobbyists, the official who was lobbied, and what specific legislation was discussed.
* Require legislators and their staff to report negotiation of future employment with any corporation, organization, or other entity that has legislative issues pending before the Missouri State Legislature.
Evans is confident this is one of the broadest reaching reform plans in the United States. As Lt. Governor, Evans says he will be an advocate for such legislation as well as using the office of Lt. Governor to promote citizen initiative and ballot initiatives he believes benefit Missouri. He says he is following the lead of another successful Missouri Democrat who is a reformer, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, as well as the late Lt. Governor Harriet Woods.
"I am continuing the work in Missouri that Harriet Woods began and Claire McCaskill continues today in Washington, D.C., to make government more about people and less about money," said Evans. "I want the people of Missouri to say after my first term that Mike Evans is nobody's Lt. Governor but ours!"
Evans is a native of Desoto, Missouri. Upon graduation from High School, like Harry Truman before him, Evans enlisted in the U.S. Army as an Intelligence Analyst and was stationed at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona and the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade, Maryland. Evans worked for former U.S. Congressman Dick Gephardt on Capitol Hill as well as in the Presidential Campaign of retired General Wesley K. Clark in 2004, before running for U.S. Congress in a bid to succeed Gephardt. Evans owns M&T Productions, a marketing firm. He lives in Arnold, Missouri.
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I'm unclear on the meaning of that 10% thing
Who I am is unimportant
If *they* won't follow the rules they have now, what makes you so sure they will follow any other rules? No new rules until they don't break the ones they have now.
Based on the first post, I don't think Mr. Evans has any clue how all encompassing a ban on doing business with companies which do business with the state would be. Heck, they couldn't even be a greeter at Walmart in the off-session. The point of electing legislators is so they *will* act in the people's interest. And, there is no interest like self-interest, which means they should interact with the big wide wonderful world like all of us. Otherwise they become insular. But they should do so on an ethical basis. It is possible to do that. And if not, kick their butts like they deserve.
As far as the spouse thing-- Missouri is somewhere in the mid-Neolithic when it comes to how it deals with spouses and supposed conflict of interest. You need go no further than the smear ads levelled against McCaskill because of her husband's business interests. As a spouse, I've been accused of some of these perceived conflicts, when in reality, there was no conflict at all.
I am not personally impressed with Mr. Evans' credentials as they've been revealed in the first post. I merely said I wouldn't be voting for him. You are perfectly free to disagree.
You did more than disagree....
The Apostles' credentials
As I recall, even the Good Lord himself made a hiring mistake.
Good Apostles -11. Bad Apostles -1. But it only took one to do Him in. The Almighty must have skipped over that resume.
But we're getting off topic here. I find it interesting that while most Democrats running for office will invoke FDR, Truman, Kennedy, etc., Mr. Evans has chosen to clothe himself in the skirts of rather strident female politicians. I have great respect for Mrs. Woods' gutsy determination and Ms. McCaskill's political savvy. But seeing as the credentials cited for Mr. Evans involve his political service on behalf of Dick Gephardt, and his attempt to succeed him, why not cite Mr. Gephardt? His contributions to Democratic action, ideals and values are not insubstantial. Other than Libertarian candidates, people do not appear out of nowhere as Mr. Evans has seemed to in order to run for the second highest office in the state.
I am not against ethics reform, nor am I arguing for the status quo. I am fully aware that corruption must be excised and government be conducted in as squeaky clean a fashion as possible (though no such government of either party has ever existed here). We have laws in place to handle this. Why not simply enforce them?
Denying legislators part of their livelihood (not the graft, but the honestly earned part-year paycheck, and employment when term limits decree that they must step down) is denying reality more thoroughly than I wish to do in public.
Good day.
The proposals do not appear to be unreasonable.
I looked through the proposals and see nothing that could be considered outrageous or unreasonable. I am rather curious about the "strident female politicians" reference though. That seems a little odd. I don't think I've seen anyone in Missouri who could remotely be considered a strident female politician.
Surely these state legislators have college degrees and should be intelligent enough to be capable of knowing with whom and where they can apply for jobs post-legislative career without breaking the law. And if they aren't capable of knowing which businesses they can apply to then perhaps they shouldn't be legislators.
I am a little curious about one thing, though. Does anyone know many of our legislators own their own businesses or if any of them are independently wealthy?
they had credentials
I think you are wrong...
Well, there's one fellow I won't be voting for...
He's got some good points, but state legislator is a part time position, with a part time salary. In essence, if a state legislator is a part time car salesman for Ford, and the state buys Ford cars, he's going to have to find a new job.
Unless he's going to raise legislative salaries (thereby costing the people money), he's going to mandate only the independently wealthy are in the legislature.
He doesn't address legislator's family members, spouse, etc. Of course, if he did so it would put him in the positon of imposing restraint of trade on a non-legislative member. So the highly educated female professional half of a marriage is supposed to take her shoes off and go cook din-din for her lord and master?? NOT!
The two year post-legislative ban on employment seems a bit stiff. Who will support these people in that time? After all, how many state reps serve as state reps, and go back to digging ditches afterward? How many lawyers have clients who do business with the state (hey, they're in law...there isn't any private court system.)
Nice try, but no doughnut.
What's wrong with merely prosecuting ethics violations and rooting out conflicts of interest with intent to influence?