Selling something you don’t own in the first place (say, an iconic bridge in Brooklyn) is a form of fraud, but that’s not stopping GOP state House challenger Bob Boswell from selling Colorado’s 50th District seat to highest bidder more than seven weeks before Election Day.

In a letter to Colorado lobbyists dated September 13th, Boswell opened with “Well, we’re getting down to the nut-cutting,” and went on to declare “I am going to win this race. The opportunity for you to align yourselves and your clients with the next Representative of House District 50 is now.”

As Nate Miller of the Greeley Tribune explains, that crosses a major ethical line:

I've never seen a letter like this,” said Luis Toro, director of Denver-based Colorado Ethics Watch. “It's blatantly addressed to lobbyists. That, in and of itself, is highly unusual.”

Colorado Ethics Watch said Thursday the letter, which makes a direct appeal for campaign cash, sends the clear message that influence can be bought, a charge Boswell denied. (…)

Toro said the letter is unambiguous.

“I think the clear message of this letter is: This office is for sale, access is for sale and now is the time to buy,” he said. “There's really no other way to read the language.”

The fundraising letter was one of three Boswell sent to lobbyists, but as this third letter notes, “maybe I’ve not sent out all the right signals.” That’s obviously still a problem for him.

No doubt the voters of the 50th District wish Boswell cared less about the signals he’s sending to lobbyists and more about the issues facing Colorado families. If so, Boswell is one “nut” they can cut loose this November.

The Democratic candidate in this race is state Rep. Jim Riesberg.

Texas Republican State Rep. Linda Harper-Brown drives a very nice car.

But she doesn’t own the 2010 Mercedes Benz sedan (valued at about $55,000) she drives. The car was actually purchased by a highway contractor that does millions of dollars of business with the state every year. Durable Enterprises Equipment, a company owned by Jeffrey Bryan, owns the Mercedes. In fact, Rep. Harper-Brown has driven cars owned by Durable Enterprises Equipment since her election to the state House in 2002.

In addition to Durable Enterprises Equipment, Jeffrey Bryan owns Durable Specialties and Paradigm Traffic Systems. According to the Texas comptroller’s office, these companies have done $12 million in work (such as installing and managing highway cameras) for the Texas Department of Transportation over the last three years.

Republican Rep. Harper-Brown sits on the House Transportation Committee. According to Dallas/Fort Worth’s WFAA:

After she amended the law in 2003 to allow cities to put in red-light cameras, Paradigm got into that business, too, although it says with little success.

Neither Bryan nor Harper-Brown would comment to WFAA about the car arrangement or their relationship regarding legislation.

Rep. Harper-Brown’s husband, William Brown, seemed pleased to comment on the matter.

Brown told WFAA by phone that Durable has been his accounting client since the 1980s, from which he arranged to accept vehicles as compensation instead of cash.

“I choose to allow my wife to drive one of the cars that's mine, just like I buy her supper,” Brown said.

Brown claims he pays taxes on the cars, but refused to turn over any records as proof.

Rep. Harper-Brown’s accountant husband further insists:

“She does not control any part of my business," he said. "It's my business; it's my income.”

But Rep. Harper-Brown clearly didn’t always feel that the fact that Durable was her husband’s client absolved her of any conflict-of-interest issues.

Prior to her election to the Texas House, Harper-Brown sat on the Irving city council. During her five years in that post, she abstained from votes on Paradigm bids, citing a conflict of interest.

Funny how that conflict seemed to disappear when this Republican was elected to higher office and appointed to the influential House Transportation Committee.

And not only did that conflict disappear, but she also suddenly decided that driving cars owned by that same contractor was ethically acceptable.

Rep. Harper-Brown is hoping to be elected to her fifth term in the Texas House this fall. What vehicle do you suppose she drives to her campaign events?

There was an embarrassing turn of events for Arizona Republicans this week, as one of their 7th District State Senate Candidates was struck from the ballot denied public campaign financing and fined $20,000 for allegedly submitting fraudulent documents in his request for public campaign matching funds:

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission decertified a Senate candidate after finding that dozens of his $5 contribution forms had been allegedly forged. The commission voted at its May 20 meeting to decertify Robert Green and fine him $20,000.

Under Arizona law, candidates are eligible to receive public matching funds based on the number of $5 contributions they can raise. More than half of Green’s contributions (142 of them) were disqualified by the Clean Elections Commission. The Green campaign is appealing the Commission's decision (and some of those invalidated contributions were apparently re-allowed), but there is no word on whether a reversal is likely before the Republican primary.

The public campaign finance system in Arizona is easily one of the most robust in the nation, and the state’s Clean Elections Commission has broad powers to reprimand, fine, or disqualify candidates who violate campaign finance laws. The Commission can even vote to expel a sitting legislator, as it did to a Republican State Representative last year, if it finds sufficient evidence of campaign finance violations in his or her last campaign. That case is only now wrapping up after a lengthy appeal by the legislator.

Republican Senators voted last year to kill the public-finance system through a ballot measure, a move unanimously opposed by Democratic Senators. That resolution has not been passed by the State House.

The Republicans have two other candidates in the 7th District, based in the northern suburbs of Phoenix, and the eventual nominee will face Democrat Eric Shelley in November.

Update: "Decertify" apparently doesn't mean what we thought it meant in this context. Green is still on the ballot but will not have access to public financing. The post has been updated to reflect that.

California legislators may be the highest-paid in the nation (even after a self-imposed 18% pay cut this year), but that obviously didn’t stop the GOP's current Senate Minority Leader and former Assembly leader from taking more, more, more – in the form of unreported gifts from organizations with business before the legislature.

California’s ethics commission is considering fines against both Leaders, as well as a third Republican, State Sen. Tony Strickland, who negotiated a $3,000 penalty for concealing the source of an attack ad he ran against his 2008 opponent:

In recommending the fine, the commission staff said the mass mailing "deprived the public of the knowledge of the true source of the negative campaign piece and thus, appears to be at worst intentional and at best negligent, particularly given the sophistication of Respondent Strickland as a current member of the California State Legislature, and a former Member of the Legislature at the time of the campaign activity in question."

The commission is scheduled to consider the agreement with Stickland[sic] at its April 8 meeting, at which time it will also consider imposing fines of $200 each against Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta) and former Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) for failing to disclose gifts from sources that lobby the Legislature.

Hollingsworth, you might remember, led a temper tantrum this past September in which Senate Republicans forced the closure of several domestic violence shelters across the state. Democrats, in cleaning up yet another GOP injustice, later appropriated money to keep the shelters open.

As for the ethics investigation, well, let's just say it probably wouldn't have happened to a nicer group of people.

After defeating scandal-plagued Republican Delegate Phil Hamilton in 2009, Virginia Democrats made ethics reform a priority in the 2010 session. Yesterday, despite their minority status in the House, Democrats successfully passed an ethics overhaul authored by DLCC Finance Chairman and State House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong.

But while Armstrong is credited with writing the legislation, it was truly a team effort among House and Senate Democrats:

Armstrong, a Democrat from Henry County, said the Hamilton case demonstrated that the Assembly's self-policing system is broken and the voters expected it to be fixed.

"The next time something like that happens - and it will - we'll have a mechanism in place to deal with it," he said.

Armstrong's bill incorporated proposals from Del. Robin Abbott of Newport News, the Democrat who unseated Hamilton. She ran on a platform that included ethics reform.

"I'm very pleased" by the Senate vote, Abbott said Wednesday. "It gives us some transparency in the process, and it also provides protection against frivolous complaints. I got everything I wanted."

The vote was a vindication of sorts for Sen. Ralph Northam, a first-term Democrat from Norfolk, who sponsored a companion bill that closely tracked the Armstrong measure and was unexpectedly shelved by a House committee last week.

Senate Republicans voted en-mass for the bill on final passage, but not before trying to kill the bill on a technicality. All 18 Republicans voted for an amendment that made a “minor wording change” that did not affect the substance of the bill. Had the amendment passed, the bill would have gone back to the House of Delegates, where the Republican majority could have quietly let the measure die.

Democratic senators voted unanimously to keep the decision in the Senate’s hands, and because of their narrow majority, the bill now awaits the governor’s signature.

Indiana Speaker Pat Bauer -- a DLCC Board Member -- scored a major victory this week when the state House of Representatives passed his ethics reform proposal by a vote of 97-0.

House Bill 1001 is the most comprehensive ethics plan in Indiana state history:

--The bill requires legislators to report all gifts they receive worth more than $50 — a stricter standard compared with the existing reporting threshold of $100.

--It prevents lobbyists from paying for lawmakers to travel out of Indiana and establishes a one-year "cooling off" period after legislators leave office before they can work as lobbyists.

--Lobbyists who are not lawyers will no longer be allowed to represent multiple clients who might take opposite sides of an issue, and legislative liaisons for state agencies and universities will be required to report their lobbying expenses.
The ethics bill also applies to the governor, other elected state officials and candidates running for those offices.

--Officeholders and candidates will be prohibited from raising campaign funds during odd-numbered years when the General Assembly is writing the state budget. A similar ban already applies to state legislators.

--The bill also forbids those holding statewide office from using tax dollars to pay for radio and television advertisements featuring their likenesses to promote issues and themselves.

The Senate passed HB1001 last week, and the legislation now awaits the governor's signature.

Georgia and Florida have been something of a Petri dish for Republican corruption lately. Both states’ Republican House Speakers resigned in disgrace in the last few months, and both of their replacements as Speaker are already involved in some ethically shady dealings.

We start in Florida, where the Republicans’ Speaker-Elect has lost millions of dollars in bad financial deals -- and he appears to be skimming off the top of his campaign account to make ends meet:

[Rep. Chris] Dorworth financed his bid to become speaker through his reelection campaign fund and his political committee, Citizens for an Enterprising Democracy. A good portion -- more than 30 percent, or $40,000-plus -- went to his pocket for reimbursements in the past two years, records show.

Among the recent expenses: A $600 flight to Miami for the Super Bowl and a $527 stay at the luxury Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

In defending himself against charges that he went gallivanting around the state on his supporters' dime, Dorworth told a reporter -- and this is true -- “I clearly don't gallivant. . . . I'm not a gallivanter.''

Regardless, he really should send a letter to each of his campaign donors letting them know how much fun he had at the Big Game. They would want to know what their money is buying.

Meanwhile, over in Georgia, new Speaker David Ralston is raising eyebrows for accepting over $1,200 in free meals in the month of January, all paid for by lobbyists:

Reports to the State Ethics Commission show lobbyists spent about twice as much on Ralston in January as they did on Glenn Richardson, the man he replaced, during the same month last year.

Lobbyists disclosed spending $1,225, or about $40 a day, on Ralston in January, mostly for meals and refreshments. (…)

Last January, before he was the House leader, Ralston was treated to two lunches, worth $43.35, by lobbyists.

If Ralston maintains that pace all year, he’ll receive nearly $15,000 in free meals from lobbyists. By comparison, that’s almost as much as his base salary as a State Representative ($17,342, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures). An arrangement like that raises real questions about what these lobbyists are getting in return.

This week, Democrats in the Virginia House and Senate introduced a sweeping package of ethics reforms that would prevent scandals like those involving former GOP Rep. Phil Hamilton. Hamilton came under fire last year when officials learned that he negotiated a job offer for himself with Old Dominion university even as he worked to secure public funds for the school.

The bill would create a five-member ethics advisory panel, which would be empowered to investigate potential misconduct by lawmakers -- even if they resign -- and hold meetings in public.

Additionally, the bill would require:

--A legislator to disclose any wages or salary paid to him or an immediate member of his family, regardless of the amount, by a state or local government or advisory agency employer:

--the Clerks of the House and Senate to establish a searchable electronic database, available to the public through the Internet, containing the information from the disclosure of personal interests statements filed by legislators, legislators-elect, and candidates for the General Assembly.

--That payments to a member for office expenses and supplies may be made only upon the member's submission of a voucher for the expenses.

--A member of the General Assembly to disclose in his annual disclosure of personal interests any salary and wages in excess of $10,000 paid to him or his immediate family for employment with a state or local government or advisory agency.

If passed, the legislation would be the first overhaul of Virginia's General Assembly Conflicts of Interest statutes in more than 20 years.

This week, the Indiana House passed a sweeping new set of ethics reforms. The bill passed the lower chamber by a vote of 97-2 and now heads to the state senate for consideration.

Speaker Pat Bauer -- a DLCC Board Member -- introduced the legislation to reinforce public confidence in state government. If passed, the law will:

• Prohibits lawmakers from becoming lobbyists until one year after the end of their term.

• Lowers the reporting requirement threshold for gifts and meals from lobbyists to lawmakers from $100 to $50.
• Bars the governor from fundraising during a long budget session. Lawmakers already are prohibited.
• Prohibits lobbying firms from representing clients with conflicting interests.
• Bans businesses holding contracts with the state for more than $100,000 from contributing to some political campaigns.

The two members who chose to vote against the legislation were both Republicans.