Dozens of Republican and Democratic state lawmakers may have violated a law requiring them to update their public income disclosure when they or their spouse change jobs.
The memo from the Maine Ethics Commission to legislative leaders states that as many as 58 legislators may not have updated their income statements within 30 days of a significant change in income, employment or affiliation with a political committee or organization. The requirement is designed to inform the public about a legislator’s employment, which can then be checked against legislation they support and potential conflicts of interest.
The requirement is featured on the first page of the legislator’s income disclosure, but the ethics memo suggests that more than a third of the lawmakers who served last year didn’t follow it.
In apparent response to the memo, three Republican senators filed updated their income statements Wednesday.
The memo was sent amid an ongoing political tussle between Republicans and Democrats over Democratic Rep. Ryan Tipping of Orono, co-chairman of the Taxation Committee.
Republicans have called on Tipping to recuse himself from deliberations over bills that deal with a 3 percent surcharge on high earners to fund local education. That’s because Tipping received $9,000 in payments from the political action committee that worked to convince voters to enact the surcharge.
Republicans allege Tipping has a conflict of interest. They also accused him of violating the income disclosure requirement because he didn’t immediately update his public income statement after accepting the PAC payments.
Wayne’s memo raises the possibility that some of the Republicans attacking Tipping may have also failed to update their income statements in accordance with the disclosure law.
Wayne has previously argued that lawmakers may not be aware of the requirement, despite its prominent placement on legislators’ disclosure forms. In Tuesday’s memo to legislative leaders, Wayne says commission staff compared income statements from legislators between 2015 and 2016 to determine that at least 58 may have violated the requirement.
Wayne confirmed to Maine Public Radio that the commission had drafted a list, but he declined to provide it. Wayne said the findings are preliminary and he is concerned that publicly disclosing legislators could wrongfully implicate them.
“We have some serious concerns about releasing the preliminary list because the public could come to conclusions about legislators’ compliance based on incomplete information,” he wrote.
When asked whether the list had been provided to legislative leaders, a move that would likely make it a public record, Wayne responded that the list is internal to the commission.
Wayne said the five-member commission will review compliance issues when it meets April 18. At this time, he said, it’s unlikely the commission staff will pursue enforcement action against the 58 legislators or ask them to provide information that would help determine whether they violated the disclosure requirement.
“The staff is viewing this as an opportunity to improve our education to legislators, rather than taking a punitive approach. During 2016, the legislators received very little notice of this requirement from the Legislature or the Commission, other than the instruction on the front page of the 2015 statement that the legislators were required to file in February 2016,” he wrote.
