Flexing the ethics muscle: restoring public confidence in government after a scandal is a legislature's prime goal.

• Author: Moore, Nicole Casal
• Position: STRONG ETHICS, STRONG DEMOCRACY

They have names like Shrimpscam, Azcam, Bop Trot, Operation Lost Trust, Tennessee Waltz. They are investigations into political corruption and ethics violations that snare legislators and damage legislatures. In 2005, scandals in at least six states involved lawmakers. The fallout can be devastating to public perception and confidence and sullies the reputation of the institution and those who serve in it. That's when ethics reform takes center stage.

In the year since four Tennessee lawmakers and others were arrested m a bribery sting and charged with extortion, their former colleagues in the General Assembly have been busy enacting new ethics laws.

Leaders appointed a bipartisan, joint ethics committee and called legislators into a special session where they created a new ethics commission with broad jurisdiction over lawmakers. They banned lobbyists from giving lawmakers campaign contributions or gifts. And they required lobbyists to report more details about their finances. These are among the more visible of the many ethics and lobbying provisions Tennessee legislators passed late last year and in early 2006.

But none of them would have prevented the scandal of 2005. Those crimes were already against the law, points out Tennessee Senator Jim Kyle, a member of the joint ethics committee that wrote the bills. So why did the legislature pass them? "We felt that if we didn't exceed the public's expectations, we could lose the moral authority to govern," Kyle says.

Though initiated in response to scandals, Tennessee's new laws aim for a higher purpose--to help restore public confidence in government.

And Tennessee is not alone. Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina and other states reacted to scandals in the last few years that legislators felt violated the public trust.

SCANDAL BREEDS REFORM

State legislators across the nation have introduced close to 200 ethics and lobbying bills so far this year. At press time, five states Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Tennessee and Virginia had enacted new laws, with Tennessee's overhaul the most significant. It's too early to tell whether this will be a banner year for ethics reform. Some factors suggest that it might be. It's an election year. And the federal scandal involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and several members of Congress has cast a shadow over government.

A January 2006 Harris poll found that only 4 percent of U.S. adults believe the Abramoff scandal is an isolated case, compared to 86...