Swift filed disclosure prior to bill's signing
Lawsuit prompted ethics statement
By Anthony Flint, Boston Globe, June 19, 2004

On the day she signed a bill that shielded her from personal liability in a civil rights lawsuit, former governor Jane Swift filed a disclosure statement with the state Ethics Commission, a move that put her in full compliance with the state ethics law.

State law says that public officials should not participate in matters that affect their own financial interests. However, the law has an exception, allowing officials to participate in enactment of "general legislation," as long as they file the disclosure form describing their action and the potential conflict of interest.

Peter Sturges, executive director of the Ethics Commission, confirmed that Swift filed the disclosure form just after noon on Dec. 30, 2002, hours before she signed a bill extending the indemnification of constitutional officers who lose civil rights lawsuits.

Earlier that year, Swift was sued by Christy Mihos, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board member she fired in 2001. Mihos, reinstated after a court ruling in 2002, alleges that Swift violated his First Amendment rights and is seeking $1 million. The lawsuit is still pending.

The revised language requiring the state to pay the damages if Swift loses was attached to an unrelated bill during an informal legislative session -- and passed, with no debate and without all lawmakers present on Dec. 27, 2002.

The legislation was approved by the Senate the same day and landed on Swift's desk three days later.

Attorney Cheryl Cronin, who represented Swift before the Ethics Commission on other matters, said that "there is no question" that the legislation Swift signed would be considered general legislation, because it extended the same protection to other constitutional officers and did not name Swift specifically.

If the legislation had been considered more specific, or "special legislation," Swift would have had to recuse herself from signing the bill.

The fact that Swift was the only constitutional officer at the time facing a civil rights lawsuit probably wouldn't convince the Ethics Commission that the bill was special legislation, said Carl Valvo an ethics law specialist at the firm of Cosgrove, Eisenberg and Kiley.

"You could find some reasons to say that it's special," Valvo said, but "in determining whether it's special or general, you don't look at what's going on in the real world."

For example, a bill increasing penalties for drunken driving would still be considered general even if it was prompted by a specific accident, he said.

Former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger, also formerly the head of Common Cause, said distinction between general and special legislation underscores the limitations of the state ethics laws.

"This may be an issue that the public should just be aware of, rather than an issue of whether there was a violation of state law," he said. "It's within the power of the Legislature or the executive branch to do this sort of thing. If it's general, the mere fact that it benefits one person isn't a violation."

Swift, who filed nearly two dozen disclosure forms with the state Ethics Commission as governor and a state senator, did not completely fill out the form she submitted on Dec. 30, 2002. The law requires that public officials acting on general legislation that benefits them describe the action and the potential conflict of interest. Swift wrote a single sentence about the bill she was signing and not a description of why it would benefit her.

In the previous disclosure forms submitted to the Ethics Commission, Swift wrote in much greater detail about baby gifts she received from public officials or private individuals doing business with the Commonwealth, or about family ties to businesses with business before the Commonwealth.

There is no history of the Ethics Commission penalizing anybody for an incomplete disclosure form.

Sturges would not comment on whether the form was properly completed or on whether the commission would review the matter.

Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com