We need it, but it wouldn't have done any good?

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Senator Gene Abdallah is on Keloland.com today making note that we need a code of ethics. Because it wouldn't have done a darn thing?
Republican Senator Gene Abdallah of Sioux Falls says, "We have to have a code of ethics like everybody else has a code of ethics, every other department or agency or business."

Senator Gene Abdallah is a member of the executive board. Monday the group is meeting to discuss the page program and other lawmaking issues. But just weeks after a former lawmaker was arrested, two legislative leaders have sent a letter to the board asking them to also appoint a committee to study a code of ethics.

Abdallah says, "But there's bi-partisan support for a code of ethics and we'll certainly look into it along with the entire page program."

And while Abdallah believes lawmakers need a code of ethics, he doesn't think a code would have stopped the allegations facing former House member Ted Klaudt.

Abdallah says, "What good would the code of ethics have done there. I mean a person doing those kinds of things knows they are going to go to the penitentary. They are certainly not going to be spooked off by a code of ethics, but we still I think need one."
Read it all here at KELOland.com. Um.. Er...

Someone tell me when this all starts making sense.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A code of ethics is a good sound bite, and that's all it is. I agree, it wouldn't have prevented Klaudt's actions. These are grown people, they know right from wrong, and a simple written document is not going to change their actions one way or the other.

I just hope the next legislative session doesn't devote a week or more to passing a code of ethics. I want them to address funding education and many other more pressing issues that will have some actual effect on our lives.

We already have the true Code of Ethics in the form of the Ten Commandments. You can see how well that is being followed in many cases! Just writing it down will not make bad people stop being bad people.
6:46 AM
Anonymous said…
What Klaudt did is a crime. No code of ethics would have caused him to pause. Please.

You could have a rule that any member indicted for a felony can't vote or looses committee positions. Don't they do that in DC? Because if Klaudt was still serving, he could continue to serve now in SD pending the outcome of his trial, correct?
7:43 AM
Anonymous said…
I wrtoe on e of the best post i have ever written got ready to click send and found out my server was down and couldn't even hit the back button to copy and paste for a save.
Dang.
Shall try to write again but, theyare never the same.

By the way Gene is right!
9:35 AM
Anonymous said…
The Senate Pro Temp has said that there is no problem, and the Speaker of the House is Klaudt's lawyer.

Good luck getting any substantive ethics reform past these guys.
12:24 PM
Anonymous said…
...not the first time Abdallah's logic has failed to make sense. Wonder if they caught him before happy hour.
12:35 PM
Anonymous said…
Bob Gray is so far entrenched in the culture in Pierre, he wouldn't know corruption if it walked up to him with and handed him a check in the Senate Lobby.

And the fact that the Speaker has now created a conflict of interest in any subsequent legislative investigation shows you how much these guys just don't get it.

Don't hold your breath on any true ethics reform. There will still be the lobbyist funded hosipitality suites, there will still be the free meals, free drinks, special favors done by the lobbyists, and the pages and interns will be oogled (and worse) by the legislators buying them drinks at the Longbranch.

And through all of it, people like Bob Gray will say it's not a problem.
12:37 PM
Anonymous said…
12:37, is that you Sen. Apa?
12:42 PM
Anonymous said…
Bob, Apa would sign his name and mention testicles once or twice.
2:18 PM
Anonymous said…
12:37 When have I ever said there was no problem? I have said, and still believe, the page program is a good program. I have also said that Ted Klaudt's actions weren't about the page program. Keep in mind that I voted and cosponsored the ethics legislation last session, and also voted to expel Senator Sutton. So grind your ax on somebody else.
5:21 PM
Anonymous said…
On May 25th, Knudson and Rhoden wrote a letter and later released it to the press calling on the legislature's Executive Board to approve a summer study to create an ethics code.

Knudson sponsored the bill to create an ethics code and ethics committees this last session, along with legislative leaders Heidepriem, and Hargens and others. Conspicuously absent as a sponsor was House Republican leader Rhoden. Not only did Rhoden not sponsor the bill, he even voted to kill it in House State Affairs Committee when it was killed on a party line vote.

Where was Rhoden before the E-Board took a vote on summer studies at the April meeting? He wasn't urging it when it was actually time for the E-Board to decide what studies to do.

Funny how Rhoden has come around on this issue. More on Rhoden's spin tomorrow.
10:23 PM
Anonymous said…
Why in the world would we need a summer study on ethics? What a waste of taxpayer money. I think I could even write a code of ethics; it doesn't take a rocket scientist. If they want to pass one, pass it. It won't accomplish anything in the long run because people will either be good (which is most of them) or not (and those don't care about a written code anyhow). But a summer study??? Come on now.
7:12 AM
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