Friday, January 05, 2007

Dem Caucaus Rule Violates Ethics Code? Don't Think So

Kleinheider of Volunteer Voter has an interesting post from past my bedtime last night. Target2 on News2 was preparing a story on the State Democratic Caucus meeting to select a candidate for Lt. Governor. Trent Seibert of Target2 believed he was on the cusp of catching the entire Democratic Caucus in an ethics violation as they both selected a candidate and voted for that candidate in next Tuesday's vote.

At issue was a rule covering the selection of a candidate:

A binding vote will be made on the election of the Speaker and other leaders of the Senate and on reapportionment matters. A person may abstain from voting for such leadership position or reapportionment and not be bound by the Caucus position except if he be a candidate for a leadership position in the Caucus.


Did this really violate the Rules of the Senate as Trent believes? Here are the pertinent rules:

(e) It shall be unethical:

(3) for any member of the Senate , by loyalty pledge, unit rule, or other formal agreement, to restrict himself or herself, or any other member of the Senate, from voting on any matters before the Senate or any of its committees except in accordance with the member's personal convictions and with the member's oath of office.


Ultimately, Trent's story in progress was made moot as the Caucus rule was dropped just prior to the secret ballot which ultimately gave Wilder another stint as the Democratic candidate.

But what I take issue with is the "gotcha" conclusion that was being prepared, "So basically Trent was set to nail every member of the Democratic Caucus on an ethics violation as soon as they made their binding vote for Speaker."

Hmm, seems to me that there's one big problem with this conclusion. The Senate rules deem it unethical to make a binding promise of a vote "except in accordance with the member's personal convictions."

So the Caucus rule is only unethical for those who do not wish to vote for Wilder in the first place. That really only applies to Sen. Jerry Cooper and not the 15 other Democratic senators.

As I've said, since the Caucus rules were dropped, this is all moot. But I don't think Trent Seibert or anyone else could pin this ethics violation on "every member of the Democratic Caucus." But then, that wouldn't be much of a story.

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