Analysis: Ethics Commission should live up to its name

Tennessee Ethics Commission refuses to let the sun shine too far in

Email | Print By Ken Whitehouse

About the only positive thing one could say about the almost four-hour meeting of the Tennessee Ethics Commission yesterday was that the seats were comfortable.

The full board of the Ethics Commission met Tuesday in the auditorium of Nashville's downtown library and debated questions like, "What is a lawyer?" and "What is a lobbyist?" It spent an extraordinary amount of time discussing the punctuation and sentence structure of various proposals.

And what were those proposals? Well... here are three ideas put forward by the new executive director of the commission, Bruce Androphy:

1. Require the employers of lobbyists (the chief executive officer and chief financial officer) to attend ethics training classes conducted by the commission. Yes, that means that since Microsoft has a registered lobbyist in Tennessee, Bill Gates would have to come sit in a classroom and learn about ethics from a state employee. While anyone who has suffered through the "Windows 98" operating system would love to inflict such a torment upon him, it's not likely to happen soon.

2. Require all "immediate family members" of Tennessee lobbyists to register with the commission. Yes, your 98-year-old parents who live in a nursing home in Pella, Iowa would now have to interrupt their canasta game and fill out a form because they had the misfortune of siring a lobbyist. Aren't you proud?

3. Add the executive director of the commission to the list of those who have to file a complete disclosure statement. Do Androphy's parents have to file as well?

Thankfully, the first two recommendations failed to garner the support of commission members, but a more serious recommendation by Androphy met with approval.

In response to an open-meeting and public-records request made by Tennessee Bar Association Executive Director Allan Ramsaur, the commission sided with Androphy and declared that e-mail communications and deliberations between two or more members of the commission in regard to advisory opinions were protected by attorney/client privilege.

Let's break this down. The ethics commission won't let people know what they are debating or how they came to a conclusion on advisory opinions that govern a lobbyist's livelihood.

What is even more bizarre is that Ramsaur was requesting a copy of an advisory opinion that was requested by and given to Nashville attorneys Byron Trauger and Charles Trost.

Androphy stated that the relevant section of Tennessee law authorizes the commission to "issue written advisory opinions" to a "person" subject to its jurisdiction. In the eyes of the authorities, only Messieurs Trauger and Trost have requested the opinion of the Commission. "While the Tennessee Bar Association may very well be interested in Advisory Opinion No. 06-02, the TBA is not a party to the current opinion request," the commission ruled.

Forgive the lack of better vocabulary on this reporter's part, but ...What the hell?

Honestly, what's the point of a commission that won't let lobbyists know how it came to an advisory opinion that it won't share with anyone?

The actions of the commission raise serious questions about the possible violation of Tennessee's Sunshine Law. It is curious indeed that the organization of state government charged with making sure everything is above board prefers to do its business behind closed doors.

While no one has any reason to question the integrity of those on the commission, a little common sense and a more open interpretation of the state's Open Meetings Act would do much for all parties in this situation. And it would go a long way towards helping those whom the Ethics Commission is supposed to police keep themselves on the right side of the law.