(The Center Square) – The 2006 Ethics Act prohibited Gov. Bill Lee from receiving payment for a trip to the Alliance Defending Freedom Summit and the Ethics Commission cautioned lawmakers about narrowing the law.
An opinion issued by the commission said Lee should not have received expenses for his travel to the event in June, where the governor was the keynote speaker.
Lee has repaid the organization for the nearly $1,900 in expenses, according to The Tennessean, which first reported on the trip.
The Ethics Commission said, in its opinion, the General Assembly worded the 2006 Ethics Act to include the word “indirect,” “to avoid the very scenario contemplated by the facts presented, allowing an entity closely related to the employer of the lobbyist to furnish gifts to state officials and thereby creating, at a minimum, an appearance of undue influence on these state officials.”
“As with all questions of statutory construction and interpretation, the Tennessee General Assembly could certainly choose to narrow the reach of the gift prohibition as found by this advisory opinion in the future. However, the Ethics Commission would caution against such action,” the commission said in its opinion.
Rep. Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville, initiated a similar inquiry about a trip taken by Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds after a report by The Tennessean. Reynolds paid back $2,000 paid by ExcelinEd, a school choice group with a registered lobbyist.
“The Ethics Commission has stood firmly on the side of the people, making it clear that the governor isn’t above the law,” said Rep. Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville. “They have ordered him to pay back the trip to Florida, funded by an organization employing a lobbyist in Tennessee. When I first filed an ethics complaint against Commissioner Reynolds for doing something similar, it was obvious that this behavior was wrong and broke our ethics rules.”
Hemmer said he would look for ways to “strengthen our ethics laws in the next legislative session.”
