Vermont is one of only three states with an independent ethics agency that has “limited or no power” to investigate state officials or impose sanctions, a new report has found.
The report, released last week by the Coalition for Integrity, a nonprofit that promotes government transparency, found that Massachusetts, Florida and Minnesota have the strongest ethics commissions.
Vermont, Virginia and Utah have the weakest.
Vermont’s ethics commission, established in 2017, can review ethics complaints, but doesn’t have the power to investigate or impose sanctions.
Commissions in other states can probe unethical behavior, impose fines, and in some cases, take legal action.
The Coalition said that a “toothless ethics agency serves no purpose.”
“Agencies need wide powers to investigate and sanction all government personnel,” the group says.
Larry Novins, the executive director of Vermont’s ethics commission, said that there is no more oversight of state government now than there was before the panel was established.
Although the commission has adopted an ethics code, and issues ethics advisory opinions, the code is unenforceable, Novins said. While the commission receives ethics complaints it can only pass along those complaints to independent entities like Judicial Conduct Board, Department of Human Resources, the legislature’s own ethics panels, or the attorney general’s office.
“The difference between ethics oversight in Vermont with an ethics commission and the ethics oversight that we had before is an unenforceable ethics code and a body that forwards complaints to the people who would have gotten them anyway,” Novins said.
In Massachusetts, Texas and California, ethics agencies have broad power to investigate state officials and sanction them with fines and or file court injunctions that require compliance with ethics rules.
New York’s ethics agency investigates complaints, and can sanction public employees who serve outside the Legislature. A separate legislative ethics panel determines sanctions for members or employees of the Legislature.
Five states have no ethics agencies whatsoever.
Novins said that by establishing the commission, Vermont lawmakers created a good foundation for governmental ethics oversight, but that they still have more work to do.
“It’s a very incomplete system,” Novins said of the commission. “I think what the Legislature created is a good basis for governmental ethics oversight. But in order to be effective it needs to be more comprehensive and it needs to go further.”
Novins said that in the coming months, the commission plans on reviewing its ethics code and submitting it the Legislature. He hopes that the Legislature will adopt it in statute so that it is “binding” and “not merely advisory.”
Then it would be up to lawmakers to determine who gets to enforce the code— whether it’s the ethics commission, or some other entity.
Earlier this month, the commission revoked an advisory opinion it issued last year saying Gov. Phil Scott’s relationship with his former company amounted to a perceived conflict of interest.
In October 2018, a month before the general election, the commission ruled that Scott had violated the state’s code of ethics because the company he had co-owned, Dubois Construction, also did business with the state.
The governor and others criticized the decision as politically motivated, and the Democratic lawmakers who created the commission also said the panel mishandled the case.
The commission also said it would no longer issue advisory opinions when third parties request them, and only response to requests from state officials or employees with questions about their own actions.
The leaders of the House and Senate government operations committees, which created the commission, did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
But earlier this year, Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas, D-Bradford, the chair of the House Government Operations Committee, said she was concerned about giving the commission investigative power.
“Right now, I’m feeling a little nervous about their first trip out of the gate,” Copeland Hanzas said. “But with these clarifications and with another year under their belt, we may be able to come back and consider that in the future.”
The governor has applauded the commission for revoking its advisory opinion and changing its approach. Scott’s office said Monday that before the governor determines if the commission should be modified, he needs to see how it functions moving forward.
“Without seeing how those changes impact the Commission’s work we can’t speculate on what additional changes should be made,” Rebecca Kelley, Scott’s spokesperson said Monday. “But the Governor will be willing to listen to any proposals put forward on this front.”
Correction: This story originally misstated the process for ethics complaints in New York. It has been corrected.
