The El Paso ethics bill is closing in on passage, but Rep. Chavez may have derailed it

The El Paso County ethics bill is on track to make it out of the House before the session ends, state Rep. Marisa Marquez, D-El Paso, said early Monday. But later in the day came a last-minute amendment offered with little public explanation by state Rep. Norma Chavez that could derail the bill.

The bill, which has produced argument and debate between El Paso politicians both at home and in Austin, is running out of options at the Capitol.

Last Thursday, the House version of the bill failed to make the deadline of midnight by which all bills must have passed Second Reading in order to stay alive during the tail end of the session.

That leaves the Senate version of the bill, currently parked in the House Local and Consent Calendar committee, chaired by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston.

“I sent out information notices to all members of the committee asking them for a favorable outcome,” said Marquez. She said early Monday she hoped for it to be out by the end of the week.

But state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said Monday -- without naming anyone -- that he was worried the bill could fall victim to last-minute political maneuvers.

“With delays, deceptions, and denials, the bill is now at risk,” Shapleigh said. “El Pasoans need to ask a lot of questions about who slowed this bill, who stopped this bill and who might kill this bill.”

Shapleigh might have sensed something coming, because in the late afternoon Monday, after his comments, came Chavez's proposed amendment. The amendment would prohibit the sheriff or any supervisor from ordering deputies to drive a public official if "the primary reason for doing so is that the official is or may be intoxicated."

Chavez, reached briefly via telephone, said that despite the sheriff's signing on to the ethics bill, "The sheriff doesn’t always represent the best interest of the deputies. I have always sponsored legislation for CLEAT (Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas) and the deputies. This has been in discussion by some deputies who don’t believe this is a good practice. They don’t want to do that."

When pressed as to the reason for the last-minute amendment -- for example, whether it had been an ongoing problem and whether misuse of personnel wouldn't be covered under ethics rules anyway -- Chavez said she had a person waiting and hung up.

The El Paso Times posted a blog item that quoted Chavez as saying that the sheriff's office "may have" a list of elected officials who can call for rides.

She also said to the Times: "I'm not on that list. I'm not privy to that. I'm just saying it's wrong, it shouldn't be done."

El Paso Sheriff Richard Wiles said he had not been told of the proposed amendment, and said he didn't know why it was being offered.

"I don’t see how that would make the bill stronger, especially considering that using public resources for personal use anyway … is just not right, not appropriate. It would be a violation of policy anyway. We don’t use city or county property for our personal convenience so I really don’t understand what that's about or why it's needed," he said.

Wiles said the scenario had not happened with him, and "if that's the allegation and she (Chavez) has specific information she needs to come forward with it."

He also said that he thought issues with the union had been ironed out: "I thought everybody was on board. ... CLEAT, the state union, was a little concerned about problems with the ethics bill overlapping with civil service and the contract and we agreed with them."

Another question is whether the amendment is even germane to the bill, which deals with setting up an ethics commission as opposed to the rules that the commission will enforce, said one Austin source, who asked not to be named because of the delicacy of the evolving situation.

The issues with the bill first began to surface in March, when County Commissioner Veronica Escobar and County Attorney Jose Rodriguez accused Chavez of deliberately working against the House version of the bill during the committee process. That led to a series of opinion pieces by Escobar, Rodriguez and County Commissioner Anna Perez [link, Marquez [link, and Chavez [link]

Chavez maintained that she had legitimate reservations about the bill and that there was plenty of time left in the session to iron out its flaws. (Other members of the El Paso delegation had already raised their concerns and supported the bill after Marquez amended it.)

After submitting a portfolio of concerns in April, some of Chavez’s proposals were adopted by Marquez and grafted into the bill. However the bill hit the House floor too late to be acted upon before last Thursday's deadline, despite Chavez urging Calendar Committee Chair Brian McCall to expedite it.

With the House version dead, the Senate version is now the only vehicle for the county’s hope of being able to enforce its ethics code with a commission that can fine politicians and employees.

Thus Marquez, as a back up, amended the other version after it came over from the Senate so that it now is identical to the House version that died Thursday.

But with the Senate version now parked in the Local and Consent Calendar committee, it remains in a tenuous position. The deadline for that to be voted upon by the House is midnight May 27.

“To have a simple bill this late in session puts it at risk,” Shapleigh said. “When a bill is knocked off Local and Consent it makes it hard to figure out who did it.”

Shapleigh was referring to the House rules regarding Local Calendars.

Local Calendars deal with bills that are locally limited in scope. Bills can be bumped off a Local Calendar if they are discussed for longer than 10 minutes on the House floor. That means they can be very easily filibustered by someone if they choose to oppose a bill.

“That’s always a possibility,” Marquez said early Monday, before Chavez's proposed amendment became known. But, she said then, “I would be very surprised if someone got up to the back mic and tried to knock it off.”

if the bill passes the House this week, it is likely the Senate will approve the changes Marquez has made to the original bill. Shapleigh said Monday that he would support the changes, which include de-fanging the proposed ethics commission so that it can only impose civil and not criminal penalties on politicians who violate the ethics code.

But before it gets back to the Senate it must pass the House. Which now has become more questionable.

“We can only hope,” Shapleigh said. “If it does not make it, we need to ask a lot of questions as to why...The Senate bill went out 60 days ago. This bill should have been out by now.”