12/7/07 - Committee to revise county ethics law
At center of effort will be measure to bar election commissioners from serving as party chair
A committee will be formed to review and revise the county’s Code of Ethics, and such revisions would likely include language barring county political party officers from simultaneously serving as county Election Commissioners.
The formation of the ad hoc committee was announced by Personal Committee Chair Larry Cornell (R-Marathon and Lapeer) at a meeting Thursday morning.
The committee would start work Tuesday and County Administrator Scott Schrader estimated the revisions could be in front of the Legislature for a vote by the end of January.
Included in that could be regulations to provide for a financial disclosure process for campaign funds, something that Personnel Committee Co-chair Mike McKee (R-Cincinnatus) said is lacking.
The new ad hoc committee consists of Schrader, McKee, Personnel Committee member John Troy (D-1st Ward) and County Auditor Dennis Whitt.
Both current Republican and Democratic election commissioners are also chairmen of the county committees of their respective political parties.
A Nov. 19 opinion by the state Attorney General’s office said legislatures have the authority to bar election commissioners from serving as party chairs as well.
The proposal to prohibit such dual office holding was first attached to a local law setting the commissioners’ salaries for the next two years that was first proposed in November and was approved Nov. 29.
However, Schrader told the Personnel Committee an attorney on retainer for the county recommended the provision be written into the county’s Code of Ethics.
The existing code was approved in 1984 and revisions were completed in late 2005, but Personnel Committee member Tom Williams (R-Homer) said elections and an incoming group of legislators at the beginning of the next year meant the revisions were lost in the shuffle and never approved.
No comments:
Post a Comment