"Md. High Court Reviews Intent of Ethics Laws" is the headline to this story today in the Washington Post. The question appears to be whether or not the law may be applied retroactively. Some quotes from the story:
Former Maryland attorney general Stephen H. Sachs argued before the state's highest court yesterday that it would defy logic to exempt from the state's new ethics laws the lobbyist whose misconduct helped prompt the stricter measures.The Post report continues that Daniel M. Clements, Evans's attorney, argued that the the legislature iin 2001 did not intend to have the new law apply retroactively to Evans's 2000 conviction:Sachs appeared before the Maryland Court of Appeals to defend the State Ethics Commission's decision to revoke the lobbying license of Gerard E. Evans. Evans was Maryland's highest paid lobbyist before he was sent to jail in 2000 for devising a scheme to defraud his clients.
"It is, I think, a perversion to suggest that the same legislature that said, 'We don't like what's been going on, the process has been discredited, we look bad, and we want [the ethics commission] to clean it up,' would then go and exempt Gerry Evans," Sachs said.
Evans sued the commission over its decision to take away his license. So far his challenge has been successful: An Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge tossed out the ruling in September. Evans has been allowed to continue lobbying while his case is pending.
The commission's appeal has given rise to the high court's first formal review of a raft of ethics laws passed in the aftermath of Evans's conviction -- reforms that included a rule preventing lobbyists with recent fraud convictions from plying their trade in Annapolis.
Holding up a copy of the legislature's bill-drafting manual, Clements told the judicial panel that legislators are advised to be very precise with their wording.The Baltimore Sun has a story today headlined "Court of Appeals asked to let lobbyist retain his license: Evans' lawyers argue that ethics panel wrongly used a new law in 2002." Some quotes:"If they want the law to work retroactively, that must be expressed clearly," Clements said. "If they wanted [the law] to cover him, they had an obligation to say, 'You're covered. You're it. We're going to get you.' "
Sachs said the law sends that message by giving the commission the right to revoke the license of a lobbyist who "has been convicted" in the prior two years, noting the use of past tense.
A semantic debate between Sachs and Judge Dale R. Cathell ensued, with Cathell suggesting that "is" and "has been" essentially mean the same thing in this case.
Sachs said he gleaned the meaning because he believes the legislators made their intent clear -- they wanted to rid the state's lobbying corps of those who faced recent felony convictions. But Clements strenuously disagreed, saying he had looked through stacks of documents pertaining to the legislature's debate, and found not one instance where the members said they intended the law to reach back to apply to Evans.
Lawyers for prominent lobbyist Gerard E. Evans asked Maryland's highest court Thursday to let Evans keep his lobbying license, arguing that the state ethics panel was wrong when it used a new ethics law to strip Evans of his license after his 2000 conviction for defrauding clients. "If you are going to make a law retroactive, you have to say so clearly," Daniel M. Clements, Evans' lawyer, told the state Court of Appeals. He argued that the 2001 law should not apply to Evans, who was convicted the year before. He also said the law illegally took aim only at Evans.The Sun story includes some background about Evans:
Evans, a lobbyist since 1988 who rubbed shoulders with the state's most powerful legislators, had an income in 1998 that topped $1 million. But he was indicted in 1999 and convicted in 2000 in a scheme to garner fees from clients based on phantom legislation, a practice known as "bell-ringing."What is bell-ringing? According to this summary and analysis of the 2001 Maryland lobbying law prepared by the law firm of Piper Rudnick, bell-ringing is "initiating or encouraging the introduction of legislation for the purpose of opposing it ." Posted by Marcia Oddi at May 7, 2004 02:32 PMA federal judge sentenced him to 30 months in prison, but he served less. He registered as a lobbyist in May 2002 and has lobbied since then. After the commission pulled his license, Evans appealed. An Anne Arundel County judge sided with Evans, and the case swiftly moved on to the state's highest court. * * *
The ethics law at the core of the case was adopted in the spring of 2001 in an effort to curb what the judge who sentenced Evans for fraud had called a "culture of corruption." Effective Nov. 1 of that year, it gave the commission the power to revoke licenses for convictions dating back two years. * * *
The Court of Appeals has no deadline for when to rule. Evans, whose clients include the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, is allowed to keep lobbying while the case is pending.