[Vision2020] Hart Faces Another Ethics Complaint

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (January 8, 2011) Spokesman-Review.

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Hart facing another ethics complaint
Charge stems from lawmaker’s meeting with judges
Betsy Z. Russell
The Spokesman-Review

BOISE – Yet another ethics complaint has been filed against Idaho Rep.
Phil Hart, this one by the write-in candidate who unsuccessfully ran
against him in November.

Hayden businessman Howard Griffiths, who garnered 25 percent of the vote
for his write-in bid, sent in an ethics complaint even though officials
say only House members can file those; earlier, another North Idaho
resident did the same, filing an ethics complaint against a representative
who had filed his own complaint against Hart.

Griffiths’ complaint focuses on Hart’s participation in a meeting between
local judges and North Idaho lawmakers at a time when he had his own tax
appeal pending before one of the participating judges. Hart’s appeal of an
order to pay more than $53,000 in back state income taxes, penalties and
interest was rejected by 1st District Judge John Mitchell on Dec. 8; Hart
filed a motion for reconsideration two weeks later and has a hearing
before Mitchell scheduled for March.

Griffiths said it was unethical for Hart to go hear the judge’s requests
for funding and other consideration from the Legislature when he had his
own matter before the same judge. “Here’s Hart in the front row looking
right at them,” Griffiths said. “The whole thing is, it’s mind-boggling.”

House Speaker Lawerence Denney said he received Griffiths’ complaint and
forwarded it to House Ethics Committee Chairman Tom Loertscher, R-Iona,
who plans to convene a meeting of the committee next week.

“I’ve got a perfectly good ethics committee – they might just as well be
busy,” Denney said.

As for Hart’s participation in the meeting with the judges, Denney said,
“I don’t think it’s inappropriate, but let’s let the ethics committee
look. I suspect that if they think there’s probable cause, that there will
be a complaint brought by a legislator.”

Hart is a tax protester who is fighting an order to pay back state income
taxes, which he contends are unconstitutional, and also has hundreds of
thousands in IRS liens against him stemming from his decision to stop
filing tax returns for several years in the 1990s.

The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously in September to recommend
that Hart be removed from the House tax committee while he presses his
personal tax fight.

Hart won a fourth term in the state House in November.

He couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, who was among the North Idaho lawmakers
who attended the meeting with judges, said it’s an annual event. “The
presentations were kind of nebulous this year – in the past, we’ve had
some pretty specific requests,” Goedde said. “I think the judges are very
aware of our economic situation and were concerned about asking for
funding.”

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

“Frugality in the public sector should not be seen as cruel or careless,
but rather as necessary to maintaining our economic and personal
liberties,”

- From Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter's Inauguration Address (January 7, 2011)