Legislative Immunity

I have treated the legislative immunity litigation in Rhode Island as the least relevant to other states and to local governments, because the ethics program was set up pursuant to a special constitutional convention. But an amicus brief filed this week by Common Cause of RI and the League of Women Voters of RI made me realize that a constitutional convention or, at the local level, a charter revision process, is a valuable alternative to consider for creating an independent ethics commission.

Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi will be resigning his house seat tomorrow, according to an article in today's Boston Globe. DiMasi is currently being investigated by the Massachusetts Ethics Commission, and he has raised a defense of legislative immunity against its re