The Rhode Island Ethics Commission is contemplating major changes to the state ethics code for the first time in over a decade.
A pair of unanimous votes by the commission on Tuesday start the rulemaking process to explicitly ban lobbyists from giving gifts other than campaign donations to public officials, and to increase the maximum value of “insubstantial” gifts that can be accepted to account for inflation.
The last time the ethics panel substantially updated state ethics laws was in 2012 to require public officials to include out-of-state travel on their annual financial disclosure documents, John Marion, Common Cause Rhode Island executive director, said.
The ethics panel’s votes Tuesday came without discussion, though Chairman Lauren Jones noted the two proposed rule changes were debated extensively in prior meetings.
One rule change was born out of a three-year state investigation into Gov. Dan McKee’s relationship with ILO Group, an education nonprofit awarded a 2021 multimillion-dollar state contract. An October report detailing the investigation by the Rhode Island State Police and Office of the Attorney General found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by McKee or his former advisor, Mike Magee. But Common Cause maintained that McKee’s acceptance of $90,000 worth of consulting services — some of which was for his reelection campaign — paid for by Magee’s education company, exposed flaws in the state ethics code. Common Cause in December wrote a letter to the ethics panel, asking it to consider updating ethics rules around gifts.
The state ethics law presently bans public officials and employees from accepting gifts above $25 in value from “interested persons,” defined as anyone with a “direct financial interest in a decision” that a public official or employee might make.
While most state lobbyists adhere to this ban as a matter of practice, the law does not explicitly ban lobbyists from giving gifts to public officials in exchange for personal or business gain. That is why Magee was not penalized for paying for McKee’s consulting services in exchange for help steering a $5 million state education contract to Magee’s former colleague.
Common Cause has proposed expanding the definition of “interested persons” to explicitly include lobbyists, following practices adopted in at least 22 other states, according to its letter.
$25 limit may be too low for 2025
A second rule change being contemplated by the ethics panel would increase the monetary value of gifts that public officials or employees can accept. Existing limits of $25 per gift, with no more than $75 worth of gifts from the same person or group per year, were set in 2005. But some state lawmakers want the ethics panel to up the limit, as laid out in legislation sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Frank Ciccone III.
Ciccone’s bill, which received an initial vetting before the Senate Committee on Judiciary on April 8, calls for a $50 per-gift limit, with no more than $250 worth of gifts per year.
Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, said his proposal aimed to account for inflation.
“If you go to McDonald’s, you can get a great meal for $18,” he told the Senate Committee on Judiciary during a preliminary hearing on April 8. “If we go back to the late ‘90s early 2000s, I think this bill would put us $1 ahead of what it would bring that number to with inflation.”
A $25 gift in 2005, when Rhode Island last updated its gift limit, equals $41 today based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator. A $75 per-year cap in 2005 is the equivalent of $126 today.
Gramitt countered that the Rhode Island Supreme Court in a 1992 advisory opinion empowered the ethics panel, not the legislature, to change the state ethics code.
“We think the Ethics Commission is the proper and appropriate place to handle it,” Gramitt told the judiciary committee on April 8. “We are taking it seriously.”
Examples of public officials or employees violating the existing gift limit are scarce — mostly because the law is very clear, Gramitt said at the April 8 hearing. But when the limit is surpassed, the repercussions are “really bad,” he said.
And they can take years to resolve.
Ethical violations from a state investigation into the infamous 2023 Philly trip by a pair of former state officials remain pending after one of the officials, former administration director James Thorsen, refused to settle or admit wrongdoing. The panel is expected to get an update on the adjudicative hearing process, for which attorneys are taking depositions, at its June meeting.
Other states have $50 limit
The proposal put before the Ethics Commission on Tuesday comes from a review of gift limits for public officials in other states. A $50 per gift limit — with a $150 limit per year — is the most common across states, according to a May 14 letter to the commission from Gramitt. Massachusetts relies on a $50 per limit, while Connecticut limits gifts to no more than $10, with a separate $50 cap for food and beverages.
Gramitt’s letter, however, noted the difficulty in making a direct comparison with other states, based on varied applications of who is subject to gift rules, and a host of exceptions such as for food, drinks and celebration of life events. Some states adjust gift limits based on changes to the consumer price index, Gramitt wrote.
Both changes will go through an extensive internal deliberation and review process before taking public feedback and eventually, a formal vote. Gramitt said he expects the commission will hold public hearings on the proposed changes “by the end of the summer.”
A two-thirds majority of the nine-member panel is required to approve any changes to the state ethics code.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
