By Marsha Shuler
Advocate Capitol News Bureau
Published: Feb 26, 2008 - Page: 1A

The Louisiana Senate decided Monday that the state Board of Ethics should be stripped of enforcement powers.

The House rejected the Senate version a short time later and sent it to a conference committee, which stripped a Senate provision some feared would keep people from filing ethics complaints.

The Senate altered House Bill 41 to expose people filing complaints to paying court costs and attorney fees if the ethics complaints are found invalid.

Senators voted 23-15 to add the “loser pay” provision to the bill.

House Speaker Jim Tucker later asked the House to reject the measure, thereby sending HB41 to a conference committee to hammer out a compromise.

Tucker, R-Terrytown, asked to remove the amendment on courts costs and attorney fees.

The Ethics Board votes twice before deciding whether to move forward on a complaint, he said.

The board essentially has two bites at the apple to declare a complaint invalid before an official needs to call an attorney, Tucker said.

Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, also urged the House to reject the Senate’s changes.

Chaisson, Sens. Butch Gautreaux, D-Morgan City, and Ed Murray, D-New Orleans voted against HB41 when the Senate approved the measure with the “loser pay” provision on a 33-3 vote.

After the House voted 87-12 to reject HB41 as returned by the Senate, the amendment’s sponsor, Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, changed his mind and agreed to drop “loser pay.”

“I certainly don’t intend any consequences that might have a chilling effect on the public bringing attention to any illegal act or official mistake,” Nevers said.

A conference committee late Monday crafted wording that removes the “loser pays” provision from the measure. The compromise awaits final legislative passage today.

Under HB41, the 11-member Ethics Board would continue to investigate complaints and bring charges, then prosecute the charges. But the board would no longer sit in judgment.

HB41 would turn over ethics trials to panels of three administrative law judges. The judges are civil service employees hired by an appointee of the governor.

“We should not allow any one agency to conduct all three functions,” said state Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Grosse Tete.

Government watchdog groups opposed the measure, contending insufficient time had been devoted to studying the major change in ethics responsibilities.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said earlier this month that he added the measure to his ethics agenda because of complaints he heard from legislators and local officials.

The Senate rejected an alternative proposal made by the Ethics Board to restructure its operations to fix “a due process” problem.

Under the proposal, the Ethics Board would split itself into two panels: one to do the investigation and charging and the other handling the trial.

“This board has served worthily. They have great knowledge in ethics laws on the books,” said Sen. Butch Gautreaux, D-Morgan City, who sponsored the alternative.

“Allow the Ethics Board to function in this new way, splitting responsibilities, then when we can come back next year. ... We can measure things and see what the outcome has been,” Gautreaux said.

He called the move toward administrative law judges “a rush to judgment.”

Sen. Willie Mount, D-Lake Charles, said all the ethics functions should be left in the hands of a citizen board of volunteers, instead of turned over to state employees.

Marionneaux said Gautreaux’s proposal “guts the bill.”

“This is the Board of Ethics’ recommendation to us to clean up their own act,” Marionneaux said. “Why hasn’t there been a division before now?”

Gautreaux’s proposal died when only 11 senators voted for it and 24 voted against it.

Michelle Millhollon of the Capitol news bureau contributed to this report.

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