Tribune reporter provides overview of proposed ethics reforms

In an article in today's Columbia Tribune, veteran reporter Terry Ganey provides an overall view of the ethics proposals that will be considered by the state legislature this year;

The members of the House and Senate will be deciding how to regulate the flow of money, the grease of politics, into their own campaigns. They will be considering their relationship with lobbyists, who support their lifestyles while in office. And they will even be defining what they can do with their own careers once they leave office, the timing of when they, themselves, can become lobbyists.

This points to the possibility of rhetoric without real results.

“I hope we don’t pass an ethics bill and it’s just cosmetic reform,” said Senate Minority Leader Victor Callahan, a Democrat from Kansas City.