Ethics Commission staff listen as Geoff Simon, executive director of the Western Dakota Energy Association, speaks against North Dakota’s two-year lobbying prohibition on elected officials who leave office during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing . (Jacob Orledge/North Dakota Monitor)
(Mary Steurer – North Dakota Monitor) – The North Dakota Ethics Commission received pushback from lawmakers Wednesday on one of its first bills, with a nearly unanimous recommendation to reject it.
The Ethics Commission can issue advisory opinions to help officials under its jurisdiction understand how ethics laws and rules apply in certain circumstances.
Currently, the commission may only publish opinions if someone specifically requests it. House Bill 1046, requested by the commission, would change this to allow the commission to issue advisory opinions of its own volition.
“We have consistent questions that come up, but nobody kind of gets around to asking for the advisory opinion,” Executive Director Rebecca Binstock said during a Wednesday hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. “In those instances, the commission would like to say something has come to its attention multiple times, and so let’s go ahead and provide some clarity on this situation.”
Several members of the committee voiced skepticism, wondering if this would give the commission too much power.
“By allowing the commission to just start weighing in on things, they effectively are creating rules and whatnot beyond what has been requested,” Rep. SuAnn Olson, R-Baldwin, said.
Once requested, advisory opinions are authorized and approved by commission members by a majority vote. Some members of the House Judiciary Committee also expressed concerns that this was too low of a threshold.
The committee voted 13-1 to oppose House Bill 1046 after adopting an amendment to require approval from at least four of the five members of the Ethics Commission to issue an advisory opinion.
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