The state legislature is closer to sending one of its ethics reform proposals to Governor Jay Nixon (D).
A committee of House and Senate members have agreed to a compromise on a bill to bar state legislators and state elected officials from hiring one another as political consultants.

Representative Shamed Dogan (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Shamed Dogan (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Bill sponsor Shamed Dogan (R-Ballwin) said one point the committee agreed on was defining that people whose primary business is printing, catering, or other such services, are not considered political consultants under the bill’s prohibitions.

“People are able to still provide tangible goods so if they do yard signs or buttons or something like that for campaigns but that’s … in the ordinary course of their business, they are still allowed to do that,” said Dogan.

Some Democrats raised a concern the bill doesn’t bar them from being hired by the state’s Republican or Democrat Central Committees, but Dogan said those are hypothetical concerns.

“I don’t think that’s something that’s realistic. I have not seen any examples of anyone doing that whereas the main thrust of this legislation is from things that we’ve all seen and dealt with around the Capitol,” said Dogan.

Dogan and those Democrats also said for the committee to try to address that now would go beyond the scope of his original bill, and at this point in the process that is not allowed.

The conference committee’s proposal will go back to the House and Senate, who will vote to send it to the Governor.

Other ethics proposals are going through a conference process, and the House and Senate appear to have greater differences on those.