Virginia has done nothing to address the lack of enforcement power of its ethics agencies despite scoring in the bottom 10% of all states in the S.W.A.M.P Index. It is important that state ethics agencies have the power to independently investigate, hold public hearings, and issue subpoenas, reprimands, and fines. A toothless ethics agency cannot serve the public well. Michael Deal’s podcast interviewing Ms. Shah, President and CEO of the Coalition for Integrity and discussing the Coalition’s work to change dismal state of VA ethics is now live: http://democracy4change.org/virginia-among-the-worst-states-in-the-union-in-terms-of-ethics-and-transparency/
