Critics want more lawmaker disclosures

Critics want more lawmaker disclosures

	Published : Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:36 By : Agencies Print this Story

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AFX) - Changes to financial disclosure forms have state lawmakers revealing more about their sources of income, although some critics say the forms still don't go far enough in shining light on lawmakers' business dealings.

'Most legislatures are part-time citizen legislatures where all the legislators have other responsibilities and jobs,' the Center for Public Integrity's Leah Rush said. 'It sets up a natural environment for conflicts of interest.'

State lawmakers voted in 2005 to require more in-depth disclosure of their finances after the exposure of shady consulting relationships between then-Sen. John Ford and contractors with TennCare, the state's expanded Medicaid program.

Most of the changes appeared on last year's disclosure forms, chief among them preventing lawmakers from claiming no changes in their sources of income from their previous disclosure and requiring disclosure of even small sources of income.

'They changed the income threshold from $1,000 to $200,' said Drew Rawlins, director of the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance. 'You also have to give addresses for your income sources as opposed to before when you listed ABC Inc. and that was all.'

Before 2006, lawmakers were given the option of checking a box that said there had been no changes since previously filed disclosure forms -- and many lawmakers took advantage of that option year after year.

Now they are required to fill out their sources of income, with company addresses and any positions they might hold with each company, every year.

A review of lawmakers' 2006 filings showed that most lawmakers appeared to do a complete job of listing employment sources -- jobs as attorneys and farmers, stocks, retirement investments and legislator salaries among the most common examples.

But they can still check the 'no changes' box for other disclosure requirements, including the one that asks for details of relationships with lobbyists.

That's just one of the ways Tennessee falls short in its disclosure requirements, according to the Center for Public Integrity, which ranks state's disclosure laws.

Even with the changes, Tennessee pulled an F grade from the center, although its ranking moved from 44th to 32nd in the country.

'Where Tennessee still falls short is in some of the details, such as description of the employer so you know what the company does as well as a lot of the (income) values so you can see how important each investment is,' said Rush, who works as director of state projects at the public integrity organization.

Another shortcoming of the Tennessee law is not requiring legislators to report their real estate holdings, Rush said.

One change that helped boost Tennessee's ranking with the center was requiring the posting of all lawmaker disclosure forms on the Tennessee Ethics Commission Web site.

Lawmakers are also given until April 15 to file their forms to allow them time to review their IRS tax forms.