Lawmakers are still working on measures that would implement the new ethics Constitutional amendment that voters passed in November.
Each chamber passed its own bill – and sent it to the other chamber.
A Senate committee is now looking at the House bill. And the chairman of the House committee on Ethics said he will wait to see what the Senate does with the House bill before he moves on the Senate’s version.
Rep. Jim Kasper (R-Fargo) said the House version is meant to provide the soon to be appointed Ethics Commission with some clarity.
"We know that when the Ethics Commission is appointed, there are certain things they can do differently," Kasper said. "But I think it would be good policy for the members of that Commission to know what the intent of the Legislature is."
Kasper said in his view, the legislation is more of a “best guess” as to what the sponsors of the initiated Constitutional amendment intended. He has been a critic of the wording of the initiated measure.
"It was so poorly drafted, and difficult to understand," Kasper said. "You can't interpret what they meant, because you don't know what they meant. So you have to go along with what the measure actually says."
The chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee said he’s asking his committee members to have any amendments ready. Sen. David Hogue (R-Minot) said he hopes to get that measure it out of his committee and on the floor very soon.
"I'm hoping that we will, in essence, fill in the blanks where the measure directed us to set, for example, penalties," Hogue said.
Hogue said he would also like to see one effective date for the measure.
"It has different effective dates for different sections," Hogue said. "I don't think that's very good policy. I think we should just pick a date, probably January of 2021, and say these are the new rules from this point forward."
And Hogue said he would not be opposed to an interim study of the measure – not necessarily to recommend changes, but to explain to everyone the rules.
