Lawmakers Benefit From Exemptions

State legislators are exempt from the state ethics law for public officials, and scores of them have used their authority in ways that could help their own, their family’s or their employers’ financial interests, according to a new published report. Of the state’s 253 lawmakers, 68--or 27%--have introduced legislation since 1991 that could specifically benefit the type of business with which they or their close relatives are associated, the Philadelphia Inquirer found in a review of state records. And 52--or 21%--serve on legislative committees that have oversight over such businesses, the paper reported. Legislators, citing constitutional separation of powers, insisted in 1987 that the State Ethics Commission exempt them from most of the restrictions. “Public office is a public trust,” the ethics law’s preamble says. “Any effort to realize personal gain through that office, other than compensation provided by law, is a violation of that trust.”