BISMARCK — North Dakota's state ethics panel might not get everything it sought in a bill for tweaks to state government ethics laws.
The Senate in a 44-3 vote Tuesday, Jan. 31, passed Senate Bill 2048, advanced by the Ethics Commission for several requested changes, including a proposed but deleted expansion to include nearly 9,000 more state employees under its authority. The legislation now goes to the House of Representatives.
The bill's changes include extending the time frame to notify an accused person of an ethics complaint, and adding criteria for who can make complaints.
The ethics panel also sought to add about 8,960 executive branch employees to its jurisdiction over “public officials," citing the move as "an equitable expansion" because legislative branch employees already are under the board's authority.
The Senate State and Local Government Committee cut that proposed expansion from the bill before it went to the full Senate for a vote.
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Chair Kristin Roers, R-Fargo, told the Tribune her panel "didn't feel like there should be that large of an expansion of (the Ethics Commission's) scope without a lot more information and justification for that."
The bill passed with no discussion.
North Dakota voters in 2018 approved a ballot measure adding ethics mandates to the state constitution, creating the five-person panel, which began meeting in 2019.
The ethics board already has oversight of elected and appointed officials of the executive and legislative branches, members of the governor’s Cabinet, members of the Ethics Commission and legislative branch employees.
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