The potential for conflicts of interest among Kansas lawmakers is high, according to a new national study that found few states do much to prevent legislators from serving on committees that write laws or policies likely to affect their personal fortunes or occupations.

Even fewer states require their legislators to disclose their investments or financial ties to businesses.

“In many states, ethics laws are set up to be a facade. They’re window dressing,” said Leah Rush, who coordinated The Center for Public Integrity study. “We think it’s time to take off the window dressing.”

While Kansas scored well in one category of disclosure aimed at minimizing conflicts of interest, it ranked near the bottom in another.

The analysis praised the state for requiring its lawmakers to disclose their sources of income. But because of the potential for conflicts of interest, it criticized Kansas for doing nothing to keep bankers off the banking committees, farmers off the agriculture committees or lawyers off the judicial committees.

Released last week, the study found that during the 2001 session only three states — Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia — had more legislators sitting on committees expected to affect their livelihoods than did the Sunflower State.

In Kansas, 45 percent of the state’s 165 legislators were found to serve on committees with ties to their holdings or occupations.

“We’re not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with a farmer being on the agriculture committee or having a teacher on the education committee. You’re going to have that,” Rush said. “But we are saying that Kansas should do more in the area of disclosure — you don’t require job titles, for example, and you don’t make the financial statements available online.”

Sixteen states post their legislators’ financial statements online, Rush said.

Neither does Kansas require candidates to indicate the percentage of income they receive from their employers, business interests, stock holdings or positions on corporate boards.

In three states — Idaho, Michigan and Vermont — lawmakers are not required to disclose any of their financial interests.

Citizens, not professionals

The report raised few eyebrows among officials in Topeka.

“This has been the subject of two major studies — one in 1980, another in 1990,” said Carol Williams, executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. “The conclusion, so far, has been that it’s a tradeoff. Unless we want to pay for a full-time, professional Legislature, we’re going to have doctors and nurses on the public health and welfare committee.”

Kansas House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, dismissed the study’s recommendations.

“First of all, we have a citizen Legislature that’s a part-time job at best, and it doesn’t pay worth a damn,” he said. “That’s the down side. The up side is that we have a very good cross section of Kansans, most of whom, I believe, are honest and want to do a good job.”

The Kansas Legislature, Mays said, is one of the “most honest in the country.”

The potential for conflicts of interest, he said, is offset by the “two-party system. The Democrats watch the Republicans and the Republicans keep their eyes on the Democrats. It’s a check and a balance, and it works real well.”

Sen. Henry Helgerson, D-Wichita, isn’t so sure.

“I agree, it’s a tradeoff that comes with having a citizen Legislature,” he said. “But there have been abuses, times when individuals have used their positions to benefit themselves, their interests or their clients.”

Rep. Carl Krehbiel, R-Moundridge, said he “bends over backwards” to avoid the conflict of interest that comes with his owning the telephone company in Moundridge and serving as vice-chairman of the House Utilities Committee.

“I always vote ‘present’ whenever a bill has anything to do with me, my family or my business,” he said. “But in my six years in the Legislature, I can’t remember a single time when a teacher voted ‘present’ on a spending bill that affected education. And I can’t recall a single KPERS recipient ever abstaining on a KPERS vote.”

KPERS is the pension fund for state employees and school teachers. Legislators also are eligible for KPERS benefits.

Nothing in the works

Krehbiel, Helgerson and Mays each said they were unaware of anyone planning to introduce a bill to restrict membership on committees.

“Before you do that,” Mays said, “you’re going to have to show me where there’s a problem.”

That won’t happen anytime soon, said Lynn Hellebust, a former executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Kansas and the first director of the Kansas ethics commission.

“You’re not going to get anyone inside government to say there’s a problem,” Hellebust said. “And right now, there isn’t a full-time organization outside government that concerns itself with conflict-of-interest kinds of issues. There’s a void out there.”

Lack of funding forced Common Cause Kansas to give up its full-time, executive-director position.

And Hellebust said The Center for Public Integrity study exaggerated the effectiveness of the state’s disclosure laws.

“I work with those (reporting) forms,” said Hellebust, who publishes a directory of state legislators. “A lot of times the information in them is unintelligible. It’s filled with abbreviations or cross references that unless you’re familiar with stock and bond transactions, don’t make sense.

“As far as I can tell, no one reviews this information,” he said. “There’s no one who tells them to clean it up or who holds them to a consistent standard.”