Kostelka: No hidden agenda in revised evidence standard

• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 21, 2008 - Page: 6A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

State Sen. Bob Kostelka said he is angered by implications that he and the Jindal administration were up to no good when he changed the standard of evidence used to enforce the governor’s new “gold standard” ethics reform.

“There was no last minute effort to weaken the ethics law,” said Kostelka, R-Monroe. “Please believe me. There was nothing hidden to undermine the ethics reform.”

Richard Sherburne, administrator of the Louisiana Board of Ethics, said neither he nor the board members ever said Kostelka and the Jindal administration acted nefariously.

The Public Affairs Research Council and others have criticized a little-noticed move during the final days of Jindal’s first special legislative session in February that they say would slow the prosecution of ethics cases.

With little discussion, Kostelka successfully persuaded the state Senate to go along with his amending of the standard needed to prove a violation of the ethics laws from the easier-to-prove “reliable and substantial” evidence to the more difficult “clear and convincing” standard.

The technical legal term refers to the quantity and quality of evidence required to convince a judge or jury whether a claim is true. The higher standard takes effect on Aug. 15.

Kostelka, chairman of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he discussed changing the standard of evidence in meetings attended by legislative leaders and Jindal’s executive counsel, Jimmy Faircloth.

The amendment was made on a controversial bill that replaced the Ethics Board with administrative law judges to decide cases in which a local or state government official is accused of violating the state’s rules of behavior. Under that legislation, now Act 23, the Ethics Board essentially becomes the prosecutor.

“I don’t understand the talk about this being a last minute thing. We discussed this,” Kostelka said.

At the same meeting that the idea of administrative law judges emerged, Kostelka said, they discussed that the punishments involving some ethics statutes include prison terms.

Faircloth said, according to Kostelka, that because of the severe penalties the method for deciding cases should more mimic court proceedings with the two sides presenting evidence to an impartial person who decides the facts.

“It was Mr. Faircloth’s idea to go to the administrative law judges,” Kostelka said.

Then they started discussing what legal standard to use and, Kostelka said, he proposed clear and convincing evidence.