Legislative Leaders Say They'll Work Together On Ethics Reform

The leaders of all four legislative caucuses say they will work together to produce an ethics reform package in the upcoming session, an issue they say rises above political party lines. 

House Speaker Brian Bosma named ethics reform one of his caucus’ top priorities after dealing with a scandal involving GOP Representative Eric Turner over the summer. Turner, accused of influencing legislation that netted his family millions of dollars from their nursing home business, was cleared of any wrongdoing by the House Ethics Committee.  But Bosma says lawmakers shouldn’t be involved at all in issues where they have substantial, personal, financial interests.

“Perhaps we need to be a little bit clearer in our rules which really, frankly, are not that clear on this topic.  It’s clear that you shouldn’t vote and that’s it," Bosma says. "So we’re going to embellish that.”

House Minority Leader Scott Pelath says the hard part of ethics reform will be keeping in mind that Indiana is – and should remain – a citizen legislature.

“Just because somebody gained a business advantage because of something that happened in the General Assembly doesn’t mean you don’t want to have businessmen serving in the General Assembly,” Pelath says.

All four caucus leaders agree that they don’t want the General Assembly to become a full-time legislature.