Senate committee hears opposition to H.1 changes that delay ethics commission powers and remove required consultation

The Senate Committee on Government Operations on May 7 took testimony on H.1, the bill amending how the State Ethics Commission refers complaints and when its investigatory and hearing authority takes effect.

Michael Grady, with Legislative Council, told the committee that draft 1.1 of H.1 would remove the existing required consultation and instead require the commission to include "an application of the state code of ethics to the allegations and a recommended action" when it refers a complaint. Grady also described a two-year postponement of the commission’s investigatory and hearing authority from 2025 to 2027 in the draft.

The change would, Grady said, strike the prior required consultation language (referenced in the draft as a removal of "section 12 23 a") and make any advice the commission provides to a referred entity "confidential and nonbinding on the entity." He said the draft also removes an exception related to consultation records in section 12 31 and pushes back multiple…