BLUNT SAYS ETHICS BILL STILL `HAS SOME FLAWS'

Secretary of State Roy Blunt, the state's election official, says a new ethics bill that recently passed the Missouri General Assembly is "a giant step forward" but still "has some flaws."

"I'm especially disappointed that the bill failed to establish contribution limits," Blunt said during a brief stop at Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport Monday afternoon. "And there are a couple of other changes I'd like to see in the future," he said.

Blunt said Monday that he was focusing his attentions on a possible gubernatorial campaign for 1992, but would not make a final declaration until "later this year."

Meanwhile, Blunt is urging Gov. John Ashcroft to sign the ethics bill, which creates a new ethics commission. The bill was passed on the session's final day May 17, and the governor has until July 14 to decide whether to sign or veto the measure.

Under the bill, the ethics commission would receive any allegations of misconduct by public officials. The panel would relay the complaints to retired judges for investigation and special prosecutors could be appointed to pursue cases.

Although Blunt, a Republican, has not formally declared his intentions to seek an office higher than secretary of state in the 1992 election, he participated in a discussion as a governor's candidate last weekend in which he discussed education tax money during a meeting of the Missouri Associated Press Managing Editors.

Other GOP candidates for governor include State Treasurer Wendell Bailey and Attorney General William Webster. Democratic candidates include Missouri Lt. Gov. Mel Carnahan and St. Louis Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Jr.

Blunt said he had advocated campaign contribution limits during the last legislative session and has sought limits since 1986.

"I think it will be a banner day for Missourians who believe in cleaning up government to see a Missouri Ethics Commission created," he said. "This new bill gives the ethics legislation passed last year most of the major overhaul it needed." However, he said there were certain provisions of the bill that could stand correction by the legislature next year.

He said the legislature needs to reconsider a provision in the bill that sets forth the method of selecting retired judges as investigators of ethics law violations. Blunt said he was concerned by the provision that uses the judges on a rotating basis. Under the bill, a judge who has investigated one case would not be reassigned to another case until the entire list of judges had been exhausted.

"I see this as a potential roadblock for the commission to carry out its investigatory powers," said Blunt. "There could be too many inconsistencies in investigations and it does not allow for judges who are most interested in pursuing cases to be most active in the process.

"I propose that the legislature change the provision to give the ethics commission more power over the selection of investigators instead of relying on random assignment."

Blunt said although the bill did have flaws those flaws could be overcome by legislators next season. "The bill has a strong foundation upon which we can build a powerful framework of ethical conduct for public officials," he said.

"During my past two campaigns for statewide office, I've set maximum contribution limits from a single source for our campaign at $5,000" he said.

"Since all of my potential opponents in this effort have taken contributions from a single source in past campaigns of more than $20,000, and some considerably more, we will not have an overall limit of contributions in this campaign," said Blunt. But we will play by some fundamentally different rules."

Blunt has pledged not to accept contributions from any contractor who receives non-bid business from the secretary of state's office. He also said he would not accept more than $100 annually from any employee of state government and that state employees would not be solicited for campaign support at their workplace by representatives of Missourians for Roy Blunt.

"We're going to have plenty of money to run our campaign without brow-beating state employees or high-pressuring people who do business with the state," Blunt said.

He added that his campaign would limit PAC contributions to no more than 10 percent of total contributions and that he would have no campaign committees except those identified as belonging to Missourians for Roy Blunt.