W.Va. House OKs bill adding more info, spouses to ethics filings; includes revolving door ban

W.Va. House passes ethics reporting bill

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s public servants would disclose more about their financial holdings and outside jobs, and for the first time report the same details about their spouses, under legislation advanced Wednesday to the state Senate.

The bill passed unanimously by the House of Delegates would also prevent an array of officials from becoming lobbyists for one year after leaving public service. Delegates amended the bill Wednesday to extend that provision to the state’s elected executive branch officers, while rejecting a bid to apply it to political party chairs.

The House also called on officials to disclose whenever they or their spouses are directors or officers for nonprofit groups. A third approved amendment would have disclosures posted online, starting next year with statewide officials.

The state Ethics Commission oversees the disclosure filings of officials, fielding more than 3,500 annually. It requested the bulk of the measure, after the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity flunked the state for its disclosure standards.

Commission Executive Director Theresa Kirk welcomed the vote. While commission members have yet to weigh in the amendments, Kirk said they generally support “changes intended to strengthen the Ethics Act.”

“I think they will be most appreciative” of the House’s embrace of what they recommended, Kirk said.

Those key elements would require officials to report specific kinds of assets that they or their spouses held: privately owned businesses, commercial real estate and stocks, bonds and other securities not held in mutual funds or retirement accounts that they don’t direct themselves.

The new language sets the reporting threshold at assets worth $10,000 or more. The law now requires a listing of business interests worth more than $10,000, and does not include spouses.

Various kinds of public servants can hold outside jobs, including state board appointees, county commissioners and members of the part-time Legislature. Besides the names and addresses of employers that they now list, such officials would also disclose job titles and describe their duties under the bill.

The revolving door provision would apply to lawmakers, cabinet secretaries and agency chiefs, their deputies, and appointees of constitutional officers. Perhaps the most recent example of an official-turned-lobbyist is Larry Puccio. The former longtime chief of staff of Gov. Joe Manchin stepped down Jan. 1, and has since registered to lobby this session for several clients including Charles Town Races & Slots and CONSOL Energy.

House Majority Leader Brent Boggs of Braxton County noted before Wednesday’s vote that several fellow top Democrats co-sponsored the bill, and that Speaker Rick Thompson, D-Wayne, had championed it. GOP delegates, meanwhile, had previously proposed requiring spousal disclosures and advocated the successful amendments.

House Minority Leader Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, called it significant that the first bill to pass the House this session is one that should help “in ensuring the integrity of state government, and improving the reputation that we as legislators and our state government have with the people that we represent.”