Legislative Code of Ethics Unnecessary

Cory Heidelberger at the Madville Times is right: the legislative code of ethics being called for in the wake of the Dan Sutton and Ted Klaudt cases wouldn't do any good, and we shouldn't waste our time on one.

I talked to House Majority Leader Larry Rhoden of Union Center back in June and wrote about this issue in the Rapid City Journal on June 12.

Last week, Rhoden told me he had doubts about how much a code of ethics would help, but said that in light of recent events and the public’s concern over these matters, he felt it was appropriate to take a look at it.

At that time, he asked Rep. Larry Tidemann of Brookings, chairman of the Legislative Research Council Executive Board, to examine this issue. I have not followed up on what conclusions Tidemann and his group reached.

Here's what I said at that time regarding a code of ethics, and I haven't changed my mind:

Both the Sutton and Klaudt incidents involved personal relationships that existed regardless of either party’s legislative status, could have happened anywhere, could be understood by the average person as being improper, and were prosecutable under the law.

In Sutton’s case, the matter was dealt with under existing state Senate rules; in Klaudt’s case, he was no longer in the Legislature when he was arrested.

Existing House and Senate rules seem adequate to examine allegations of improper legislator conduct and deal with those within the proper scope. Regardless of whether we agreed with the outcome, the Sutton hearings demonstrated the system we have now works.

Laws serve essentially two purposes: (1) to bring justice by punishing wrongdoers, and (2) secondarily to provide a deterrent to those who might consider doing wrong.

The second, ancillary purpose does not always work as human nature and our overworked legal system illustrates. But if a people are committed to justice, the primary purpose almost always does.

And in the Ted Klaudt case, there were laws already in place which were quite capable of rendering justice, as the trial and verdict have shown this week.

If we want a legislative code of ethics to prohibit and punish every criminal and unethical thing someone could do, then get ready to write a document larger than the U.S. tax code. But that isn't necessary.

A code of ethics can be useful for a government body in regulating behavior that, while perhaps unethical, usually isn't criminal for the average citizen. Sutton's case bordered on that, and was dealt with within that context by the legislature, but was also investigated by the criminal authorities. Klaudt's case involved something criminal regardless of the perpetrator's government affiliation, and it was handily dealt with by the proper authority.

A code of ethics, spurred by the Sutton and Klaudt cases, might make some people feel good, but it wouldn't prevent such things from occurring in the future, and it wouldn't make dealing with such acts any easier than they already are.