Ethics, anyone?

It started, early this legislative session, with a modest and sensible request by the state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Elections Practices. Nine candidates in the previous November’s elections had run afoul of Maine’s new Clean Elections Law. Some of the fines the commission were required to impose were excessive in relation to the infraction. The citizen-initiated law, the first of its kind in the nation and being used for the first time, needed adjustment to allow the commission more flexibility in assessing penalties that better fit the infractions.

Lawmakers then took this modest and sensible request and turned it into shameful and irrational legislation. After all, why go to all the trouble of ironing the wrinkles out of the law the commission is mandated to enforce when you can reshape the commission and bend it to your will?

In one of those dark-of-night, backroom deals that has no place in Maine politics, lawmakers took the job of appointing the five commissioners from the governor and gave it to themselves – commissioners now will be selected by the governor from a list of nominees the legislative leaders of the two parties find acceptable. Thus, those who are to be watchdogged get to pick

the watchdogs.

Perhaps even worse, this occurred with a deliberate effort to avoid accountability. The original bill dealt only with the common-sense adjustments the commission said the law needed and was subject to the usual scrutiny and input the public-hearing process affords. The amendment that was attached to gut the commission’s independence was not and the enactment vote was taken without a roll call. Given the propensity politicians have for publicity, this is a fine time to opt for anonymity.

Certainly, the process of enforcing election law can never be completely depoliticized, but making important appointments is part of a governor’s job description and the wise governor with an agenda to promote does not make such appointments in a way guaranteed to aggravate partisan divisiveness. Gov. King made his choices exceedingly well – they include a former judge and a former attorney general – but now one has resigned and the other four may follow.

This sad episode does, however, offer a valuable lesson for future commissioners – charity doesn’t pay. Although the commission makes available to candidates highly readable and easily understood guides to election-finance law, commission Executive Director William Hain, speaking in support of the modest and sensible changes back in April, told lawmakers it appeared that the nine offenders committed unintentional violations due to unfamiliarity with a law undergoing its first test.

”There was no skulduggery here,” he said. Now there is.