Dunn Withdraws as House sponsor of the Ethics bill

The state legislature is convening next week in a special session to look at reforming ethics policies on Capitol Hill, but the co-sponsor of the ethics bill is withdrawing his support.

The Joint Committee on Ethics made up of both house and senate members, came up with a compromise bill after spending most of the summer and fall debating the issue. Legislative leadership hoped the bill would pass a full assembly vote easily.

But the House Minority Leader Bill Dunn is withdrawing support of the bill in its current form, and is urging other republicans to do the same. Dunn says the joint committee rejected his suggestions to improve openness in government.

“We had amendments that would make legislators’ votes available online so that people could see exactly how they voted. It also would have had the tape recording of subcommittee meetings so that people would be able to listen to exactly what happened in the subcommittee, and the democrats voted those amendments down. And so I would like to bring those back.”

The joint committee, Dunn included, voted unanimously to approve the bill earlier this fall.