Today, the House Ethics Committee voted to dismiss the ethics complaint filed by Ethics Watch against Rep. Steve King (R-HD-54), but also voted to send a letter outlining their concerns regarding Rep. King’s conduct.  Colorado Ethics Watch Director Luis Toro made the following statement in response:

“Given that the members of the Ethics Committee had concerns about the way Representative King handled his reimbursement requests and campaign account, we believe they should have found probable cause that an ethics violation occurred.  The whole purpose of an Ethics Committee is to set standards of conduct for House members, and it would send a terrible message for the Ethics Committee to condone the practice of members loaning themselves money out of their campaign account.  On the other hand, if the Ethics Committee sends a strong letter specifying their concerns with Representative King’s behavior, they can help ensure that this does not happen again.  We call on the Ethics Committee to state in no uncertain terms that members may not treat their campaign accounts as personal credit lines in the future.”

Colorado Ethics Watch filed a complaint with Rep. Terrance Carroll, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, on the first day of the 2010 legislative session, asking for the investigation into possible “double-dipping” or reimbursement for the same expenses by two different sources.  The House leadership deemed the complaint worth investigating, and convened a special Ethics Committee to investigate.

Ethics Watch reviewed campaign finance reports from 100 legislators and requested records from the Legislative Council regarding those legislators whose campaign finance records showed payments of travel expenses during the first three quarters of 2009. Rep. King was the only legislator whose reports raised a strong suspicion that he may have been double billing the state and his campaign account for travel expenses related to his legislative work.

Read more about the complaint here.

Read more about the House Ethics Committee investigation here.

Ethics Watch will post the Ethics Committee's letter when it is made public.