An ‘appearance of impropriety’

If a state legislator needs an opinion on whether a proposed course of action is ethical, whom should he consult?

If you said his priest, rabbi, minister or mom, you get partial credit.

But while those trusted advisers can be skilled at paring away rationalizations with the cold light of moral principle, they may not be accustomed to reading all the potential pitfalls of today’s big-money government environment. So the “full credit” answer to our first question is “the state Ethics Commission.”

Which brings us to state Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, who last week asked the Ethics Commission whether it would violate the law for him to sign a letter asking lobbyists to donate thousands of dollars to help cover the costs of a national meeting of legislative secretaries.

Ethics Commission Chairman Mark Hutchison stroked his chin, and then ruled that it would be within the law for Sen. Raggio to sign such letters seeking donations of up to $2,000, since Sen. Raggio would receive no personal benefit, but that requesting larger donations — up to $5,000, say — would be wrong.

“The commission is concerned that such a hierarchy of donations may encourage lobbyists to donate at the highest level to curry favor in the Legislature,” Mr. Hutchison wrote in the ruling. “Even though Senator Raggio has no interest in knowing the identity of the donors, the donation hierarchy may create an appearance of impropriety.”

First, if all the Ethics Commission is going to do is tell lawmakers what’s legal, it’s not needed. Any skilled attorney can tell a lawmaker what the law says.

The Ethics Commission, if it’s needed at all, is needed to tell Sen. Raggio what’s ethical. You can enact a law to make anything legal — slavery, say, or rounding up all the Japanese-Americans and putting them in camps — but it doesn’t make it right.

And the assertion that it’s OK for Sen. Raggio to use his official position to arm-twist some lobbyists — or, in real life, the government unions and regulated industries that hire them — into ponying up $2,000, but not $5,000, is hilarious.

If the legislative secretaries weren’t hoping Sen. Raggio’s name and title would get those lobbyists to cough up the dough, why do you suppose they didn’t ask Paris Hilton or the Dalai Lama to sign their letter?

If it “creates an appearance of impropriety” to twist an arm for $5,000, who on earth decided there’s no “appearance of impropriety” at $2,000?

A little more than a century ago, a failed South Dakota storekeep and newspaper editor penned a tale about a little girl from Kansas who traveled to the great capital to meet the bunko artist in residence there. And Frank L. Baum seems to have called it about right.

Now the Cowardly Lion has his “Legion of Courage,” the idiot Scarecrow can prattle off mathematical formulae with the best of them because he’s the proud possessor of a brand new “Doctorate of Thinkology,” and Bill Raggio has a written ruling saying that putting the squeeze on the casinos and homebuilders and teachers unions for $5,000 apiece would be wrong because the donors might expect something from him in return, but $2,000 is … just right.

Click your silver slippers, everybody: Time to go home.