Changes to ethics rules add transparency to state investigations

RICHMOND

Two state ethics advisory panels have added procedures for open hearings when legislators face conflict-of-interest inquiries and for the continuation of active investigations even if a lawmaker leaves office.

And the rule adjustments may not be finished.

Revisions made when panel members recently met also specify that deliberations after an open hearing will be held in "closed session," a situation state law appears unclear on.

Additional amendments to state law may be requested to resolve that ambiguity and to resolve questions about how open-records laws apply to the panel, according to Division of Legislative Services director E.M. Miller Jr.

Whether those fixes are warranted, or can pass the General Assembly, is uncertain.

"I probably pushed this law about as far as I could get it through the General Assembly," said House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong, a patron of ethics legislation this year. "In the waning days of the... session there were an awful lot of folks trying to kill this thing, so you wonder if additional legislation to open it up may be difficult to do politically."

Armstrong, a Henry County Democrat, said his preference is to make the process as transparent as possible, including open deliberations by panelists following a public hearing. But Armstrong, an attorney, said he is open to opposing views. After all, he noted, juries deliberate in private after open court hearings.

The net effect of the rules changes makes ethics inquiries "more like a legal process than it was in the past," said Ronald E. Carrier, a longtime member of the state Senate ethics panel.

Because of that, he added, "we will learn a lot about the process once we have a case."

A push for ethics reform arose in the wake of reporting by The Virginian-Pilot last year that revealed former Del. Phil Hamilton had negotiated a $40,000 job for himself at an Old Dominion University teaching center while securing hundreds of thousands in taxpayer seed money for the program.

Hamilton, a Newport News Republican, subsequently became the target of a state ethics investigation that ended when he resigned after losing a re-election bid in November. Separate from the state investigation, federal authorities have examined Hamilton's conduct.

Last year, federal subpoenas were served on the Newport News school system, Hamilton's former employer, and on the clerk of the House of Delegates in connection to Hamilton.

While federal officials have declined to discuss whether they are investigating Hamilton, there are indications an investigation has been active: The Division of Legislative Services earlier this year provided records to authorities in response to a subpoena.

Hamilton declined to comment for this story.

In the legislature, Armstrong and Norfolk Democratic state Sen. Ralph Northam were among the lawmakers who filed bills to open up the process and prevent lawmakers from short-circuiting investigations into their actions simply by resigning.

Although advocates succeeded in making formal investigative hearings public - previously the process was shrouded in secrecy - and closing the resignation loophole, the final product contained new wrinkles not in some of the original legislation.

For instance, a preponderance of evidence now is the standard that must be met for an ethics complaint to proceed from a confidential inquiry to a full investigation conducted in public. A legal threshold common in civil matters, it requires a greater weight of evidence to prove a claim, said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.

Independent of that process, Gov. Bob McDonnell pledged during last year's campaign to establish an independent state ethics commission.

McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said the governor remains committed to fulfilling that promise and his administration is devising plans that could be introduced in the 2011 General Assembly session.

Pilot reporter Bill Sizemore contributed to this story.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com