The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices did a disservice to the public and Rep. Thomas Saviello Thursday be refusing to investigate a complaint that the lawmaker violated state conflict of interest and ethics laws. The commission can rectify the situation by quickly acting on a similar complaint from the Conservation Law Foundation on the same issue.

Faced with criticism that he abused his position on the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee to benefit International Paper, where he is the environmental manager at the company’s Jay mill, Rep. Saviello asked the Ethics Commission to investigate the matter. He framed the question very broadly by asking whether his paper company employment should preclude him from serving on the Natural Resources Committee.

The Conservation Law Foundation also filed a complaint. It asked a more probing question: Whether Rep. Saviello’s job as the mill’s environmental manager – the man responsible for ensuring IP follows state environmental regulations – should have kept him off the Natural Resources Committee, which oversees the Department of Environmental Protection which writes and enforces rules that IP must abide by.

A second complaint is that Rep. Savi-ello used his committee position to craft weaker rules for IP, and in some instances, other paper mills. It also charged that he bargained with the DEP to drop an enforcement action against IP.

The process used by the commission to handle the complaints and the conclusion it reached are flawed. Because they are charged with upholding a lawmaker’s reputation, the commission met in executive session with Rep. Saviello, an independent from Wilton, and his lawyer for more than two hours. It then gave CLF and other groups just three minutes to address the broad conflict of interest question raised by Rep. Saviello.

But this was the wrong question. No one, except Rep. Saviello, is questioning whether the fact he works for IP should keep him off the Natural Resources Committee. The question is whether his specific job should bar him from the committee, or at a minimum, require that he recuse himself from voting on matters that specifically benefit IP. His potential abuses of power to protect himself and IP should also be investigated.

Commission members then agreed to allow Rep. Saviello to withdraw his request for an investigation. They then tabled the CLF request saying they were unsure they had jurisdiction to investigate third-party complaints, despite assurances from the Attorney General’s Office that they could vote to take up such complaints. Failure to consider complaints from the public puts the commission in the untenable position of leaving the public with no place to go when they believe a lawmaker has acted inappropriately. This is a position that should not be tolerated by the commission.

In the long term, the statute governing the ethics commission needs to be revised to allow for investigations of complaints from non-lawmakers. It should also allow complaints of recent past actions, not just events occurring during the current legislative session.

In the short term, the commission should heed the advice of the Attorney General’s Office and vote to consider the CLF complaint. It should then decide that an investigation is warranted due to the gravity of the charges.

By ducking the issue, the commission did not clear Rep. Saviello of wrongdoing because that question was never answered. Worse, it failed to reassure the public that conflict of interest allegations will be taken seriously and thoroughly reviewed.