Ethics Committees

Ethics Commissions

Members are state Legislators

Members are citizens or public officials appointed by governor or other leaders. Twenty-four states forbid public officials from serving on ethics commissions.

Internal oversight. Committee members oversee their peers compliance with ethics laws.

External oversight. Commission members oversee state employees and legislators compliance with ethics laws.

Legislative branch; Can be a joint committee, or each chamber within the legislature can have its own.

Most are part of the executive branch, although their budgets, in most states, are controlled by the Legislature.

Duties can include:

• Consider their colleagues' violations of ethics statutes
• Administering state ethics laws in states without committees
• Authoring chambers codes of ethics.

Duties can include:

• adopting regulations pertaining to state's ethics laws, providing ethics training,
• investigating ethics complaints and determining penalties or issuing advisory opinions
• Receiving financial disclosure and lobbyist reporting statements.

Jurisdiction includes only the legislature.

Jurisdiction sometimes includes the legislature, often includes other branches of state government.

Present in some form in all 50 states.

Present in some form in 41 states, and 39 commissions in 35 states have jurisdiction over the legislative branch. Commissions in Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina do not have authority over legislators. Alaska, Illniois, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York and Washington have multpile commissions with different jurisdictions. Commissions in Iowa, Maryland, Nevada and New Jersey provide commissions with fairly limited legislative oversight.