After hearing the first of Gov. Greg Abbott's emergency items Wednesday, the Senate State Affairs Committee sent ethics reform legislation sponsored by Sen. Van Taylor, R-Plano, back to the Senate floor for a full vote. In a unanimous decision, the nine members of the committee approved seven separate bills authored by Taylor. The bills will soon be read on the Senate floor, see debate and then go through votes to be sent to the state House of Representatives. The bill will undergo the same process in the House as it did in the Senate. It can be sent to Abbott's desk at any time. Taylor's bills explore a variety of ethics issues that have been discussed in sessions past. These reforms include:
- prohibiting elected officials from claiming publicly funded pensions when convicted of abuse of office;
- removing the governor, statewide elected officials and members of the Legislature from office if convicted of a felony;
- requiring elected officials to disclose their own, their spouses' and their children's contracts for goods and services with government entities;
- limiting lobbyist spending on legislators and requiring greater reporting by lobbyists;
- barring a registered lobbyist from running for elected office; and
- restricting elected officials from becoming lobbyists less than two years after leaving public office.
