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House panel struggles with misconduct claims
Published on -3/19/2010, 10:19 AM
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Associated Press
TOPEKA — A legislative committee struggled Thursday to determine whether a top Republican lawmaker committed misconduct by filing a lawsuit against the state of behalf of businesses, while his top Democratic accuser levied another allegation of wrongdoing.
House Speaker Mike O’Neal, an attorney, said he did nothing wrong when filing a suit on behalf of businesses, trade groups and insurance funds to reverse a budget decision made last year. Democrats filed a complaint with the House last week, saying his involvement posed a conflict of interest.
The panel’s three Republicans and three Democrats said House rules give them little guidance in defining misconduct.
“I don’t know how we draw a line — ’X is OK; Y is not,”’ said committee Chairman Clark Shultz, R-Lindsborg.
Committee members asked O’Neal’s chief accuser, Democratic Minority Leader Paul Davis, how the lawmaker’s involvement in the suit posed a conflict. Davis replied it was “the totality of the circumstances,” noting that O’Neal was leading the House when the policy being challenged in the lawsuit was passed. He said the suit amounted to O’Neal representing special interests.
“I think a lot of it just hinges on the role of the speaker,” he said.
Davis used the public meeting to verbally lodge a new and unrelated complaint against O’Neal, claiming the powerful lawmaker blocked a legislative review of one of his legal clients — a claim O’Neal immediately and harshly denied.
Davis acknowledged not knowing whether the allegation was true and didn’t attempt to document it for the committee. Davis later defended his claims, saying he was reporting secondhand information from four other House members, including Republicans.
O’Neal said he’s never even represented CVS Caremark Corp., which Davis claims O’Neal helped. The Woonsocket, R.I.-based company handles prescriptions for state employees.
“I am outraged by that. I am absolutely incensed — not a grain of truth to it,” O’Neal said. “I am tired of this sort of stuff.”
The committee, assembled to hear the complaint, has the authority to recommend censuring, reprimanding or expelling O’Neal — actions that would require a two-thirds majority vote in the House — or that lawmakers take no action. A similar committee was last formed in 1951.
O’Neal filed the lawsuit against the state in January in Shawnee County on behalf of industry workers’ compensation funds, the Kansas Bankers Association, the Kansas Realtors Association and a Wichita company doing business as Speedy Cash. The lawsuit challenges legislators’ decision last year to confiscate fees paid by the groups for specific regulatory purposes to help balance the state budget.
After the hearing, O’Neal said Democrats’ definition of misconduct appears narrow enough to apply to only him.
“That’s where this gets just rankly political,” O’Neal said. “Let’s find a way to single this out so that it doesn’t apply to anybody else that has a boatload of clients.”
O’Neal is expected to testify when the committee meets again Tuesday
• O’Neal’s lawsuit is Kansas Building Industry Workers Compensation Fund, et. al., v. State of Kansas, Department of Administration, Division of Accounts and Reports, No. 10C 000083.
