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If a professor at a state university serves in the Colorado General Assembly, whom does he represent? The voters that chose him over someone else at the last election, or his institution and profession when it's time to draw up budgets?
Certainly, there could be conflicting interests in such a case, and Rep. Phil Pankey of Littleton thinks he's found the answer. He's proposed that state employees be forbidden from serving in the legislature, and at least one committee has already approved his measure.
Can you really have two masters and serve both of
those masters at the same time?
he asked.
In theory, legislators ought to have only one master -- their constituents. In practice, a legislator doesn't have to be a state employee in order to serve two masters.
Consider Rep. Chris Paulson, the legislature's water expert. He's not a public employee, so he shouldn't have much trouble serving just one master -- his constituents in Englewood.
But you don't have to live in Englewood to have Paulson
represent you. The Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy
District, more than 400 miles away, once paid the Colorado
Cattlemen's Association $1,902.54 for promotion.
The
cattlemen in turn paid $1,902.54 to the law firm of
Saunders, Snyder, Ross & Dickson, of which Paulson is a
member.
What the water district got for its money was Paulson's
influence, pure and simple. As you can tell by the
bill,
he explained in a letter with the statement,
the majority of the time was spent working on the phones
trying to get the funding proposal passed through the
Senate in a way that would work.
So which master does Paulson serve? His constituents in the Denver suburbs, or his law firm that can be hired by a remote water district to promote a controversial and expensive project?
As you can see, it isn't just state employees who might run into such problems while serving in the legislature.
Sen. Cliff Dodge may indeed put his constituents first, but I've seen newsletters from the Colorado Broadcasters Association, of which Dodge is an official, which boast that broadcasters can be sure they have a friend in high places. Sen. Ted Strickland holds some sort of public-relations job with the petroleum industry -- would he still have that job if he weren't a powerful state senator?
Where the money comes from is the fine line,
Rep.
Pankey said, arguing that state employees should be
forbidden from serving in the legislature.
When a state employee runs for office, though, it's a matter of public record where his income comes from. Voters can presumably decide if this is acceptable.
When a lawyer runs, it's generally confidential as to who his clients are, precisely how much they pay him, and what services they receive in return. Voters might well decide that they'd rather their representative served them, rather than any special-interest group with a checkbook, but how are they going to decide if they don't have that information?
It seems silly to worry about state employees when there are so many other ways to get a legislator to serve two masters, but extending the legislature's approach to public service could solve another state problem.
The Colorado treasury may come up short this year, and Sen. Cliff Dodge suggests that cutting state employees' pay might balance the books.
That won't go over well with state employees, but perhaps we could allow them to make up the difference by acting just the way legislators do -- they could sell their influence.
For instance, a state patrolman would still give you a ticket when he caught you speeding. But if you paid him $50, then when the case came to court, he'd ask the judge to go easy on you.
Or a prison guard could augment his decreased income by charging fees for allowing contraband into the penitentiary. Instead of trying to improve Colorado education by serving in the legislature, a college professor might start charging consulting fees to his students.
If possible conflicts of interest are a real problem, then the legislature ought to address them all with a strong ethics bill, instead of picking on state employees. If not, then let everybody have a chance at the gravy.
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