Federal investigation of legislature demonstrates need for LCO 304 (subpoena power)

Daily Ructions is continuing their reporting on the federal investigation into corruption in the Legislature's administrative arm:

A federal investigation of corruption at the state legislature had bureaucrats scrambling last fall to obtain legal representation for the Legislative Commissioner’s Office (LCO) and, weeks later, the Executive Director of the Office of Legislative Management (OLM) after Attorney General George Jepsen “declined to represent” the legislative offices...

Documents obtained by Daily Ructions reveal that those bureaucrats have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep information from taxpayers about the actions they are taking to protect the interests of their agencies and themselves at significant public expense.

You can read the rest of Kevin Rennie's story here.

I'm glad Rennie is following this, but I'm also glad that Rep. Al Adinolfi and Sen. Joe Markley introduced this session's legislation -- LCO No. 304:

AN ACT CONCERNING INVESTIGATIVE SUBPOENAS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

That the general statutes be amended to authorize a state's attorney to issue a subpoena compelling a person to appear and testify or produce property necessary and relevant to an investigation into the possible commission of a crime.

Even if this legislation only applied to legislators, I'd be thrilled. Following the Donovan scandal, the legislature has demonstrated the need for someone to police them. Why leave the policing to only federal investigators? State investigators should also have the tools to go after corrupt politicians.

Tim White