Legislature approves ethics fine restriction

• By MELINDA DESLATTE
• Associated Press writer
• Published: Feb 26, 2008 - Page: 4A

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The Legislature gave final passage Monday to a bill that would outlaw the way Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign had planned to pay a possible ethics fine against the governor.

Jindal’s office said the governor supports the bill, so he is expected to sign the measure that headed to his desk with a unanimous vote from the Senate.

Senate Bill 29 would bar third parties from paying ethics or campaign finance violation fines levied against officials and candidates.

Jindal faces charges before the Ethics Board for an alleged violation of campaign finance law. His campaign treasurer, Rolfe McCollister, has taken the blame for the violation and offered to pay the fine himself, if one is levied. The bill would prohibit that.

Supporters said it would be inappropriate for a third party to pay fines or penalties for someone who violated the law. They said it could let someone who may have already donated the maximum amount of money to a candidate, in effect, donate more money by paying a candidate’s fine.

“That’s a direct assassination on the code of ethics,” said Sen. Robert Marionneaux, D-Livonia.

The proposal by Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, had a rocky road to passage. It was approved unanimously by the House but killed twice by a Senate committee, which Peterson initially blamed on the Jindal administration.

Peterson tacked her bill into several Senate proposals that bypassed the Senate committee, and the Governor’s Office said Jindal supported the measure. One of Marionneaux’s campaign finance bills had the amendment by Peterson added to it.

Senators who opposed the bill in committee objected to the bypass of the committee, but they didn’t vote against the measure on the Senate floor. It was approved with a 35-0 vote.

Along with banning third parties from paying fines, Peterson’s bill would force candidates to personally pay ethics fines levied against them. The bill would allow penalties for violating campaign finance law to be paid with either campaign funds or a candidate’s personal funds.

Among the opposition raised by the Senate committee members, Sen. Mike Walsworth, R-West Monroe, said he thought a campaign staffer should be able to write a personal check to pay a fine if his error was the cause of the fine.

The governor faces ethics charges that he violated the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws for failing to timely disclose spending by the state Republican Party on his behalf. The Ethics Board scheduled a July hearing on the charges.

Jindal’s campaign acknowledged it failed to report $118,000 in direct mail spending by the GOP on time, and McCollister said he will pay the maximum $2,500 fine personally to end the matter — when the Ethics Board levies a fine.