Gov. Phil Scott signed into law Vermont’s first-ever statewide code of ethics for public officials on Tuesday, putting to rest a yearslong debate in the Statehouse and bringing Vermont in line with a majority of other states.
S.171 establishes a baseline code of ethics for public officials in the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of state government. It sets boundaries around conflicts of interest, preferential treatment, gifts, outside employment, the use of state employment for personal gain and more. It also protects whistleblowers from retaliation.
Upon signing the bill, Scott said in a statement Tuesday that it “takes a positive step towards ensuring public trust in their elected officials.”
Christina Sivret, executive director of the Vermont Ethics Commission, said Wednesday that she was “both thrilled and relieved” to see the bill signed into law.
“It was a really bumpy ride for a while, so we didn’t know what the end result was going to be,” Sivret told VTDigger.
Different iterations of ethics codes have been trapped in committee limbo for years. After years of mounting pressure from good government advocates and the ethics commission, the Senate Government Operations Committee finally supported S.171 this year.
Once it cleared that committee, the bill flew through the rest of the legislative process with relative ease. Lawmakers in both the Senate and House passed the bill via voice vote, so there is no record of how individual lawmakers voted.
Though it’s a step forward for Vermont, S.171 is unremarkable compared to the rest of the nation. Before it passed, Vermont was one of only five states without statewide codes of ethics for officials.
In February, as the Senate Government Operations Committee wrung its hands over the bill, Jason Grammit, executive director of Rhode Island’s Ethics Commission, testified to lawmakers that Vermont’s proposal was “modest.”
Sivret agreed that S.171 is a “first step” and there’s “room for growth” down the line, especially with regard to the commission’s role.
Vermont’s ethics commission was established in 2017, but the body holds no investigatory or enforcement power.
“We see it as a first step, and it is in many ways modest compared to what other states have,” Sivret said of the new law. “But on the other hand, those states have had codes of ethics in place for a long time, and so they’ve certainly grown and changed over the years.”