A Nevada court found yesterday that the state ethics commission did not have jurisdiction over a state senator on grounds of legislative immunity, even though the state constitution has no Speech or Debate Clause. The judge gave the senator a preliminary injuction to prevent his having to appear before the ethics commission next week. No decision is available yet, but the judge did say that the state constitution would have to be amended for the ethics commission to have jurisdiction over a state legislator.

The NYC Campaign Finance Board has put together an excellent Doing Business Database, consisting of a searchable list of individuals (principal owners, principal officers, and senior managers of entities) “doing business” with a wide assortment of city agencies and quasi-governmental entities, including through contracts, bids or proposals for contracts, concessions, franchises, grants, economic development agreements, and pension fund investment agreements, as well as those engaged in real property transactions (the sa

I may seem obsessed with legislative immunity, but it is both a timely topic for so old a constitutional concept and a serious threat to local government ethics enforcement that, I feel, the government ethics community should start dealing with offensively rather than, as it is now being handled, defensively.

I hadn't realized it, but two weeks ago Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan dismissed a state ethics commission case against the state's former senate president, William V. Irons, due to legislative immunity. Like the Louisiana decision, this one involved a basic conflict of interest - whether Sen. Irons should not have voted on a bill that gave financial benefits to a company for whom he worked.