Attorney General Patrick Morrisey can conduct taxpayer-funded telephone town halls around the state - so long as he doesn't use his name in pre-recorded robocalls inviting people to participate and does not conduct the town halls within 60 days before any elections, the state Ethics Commission ruled Thursday.
This summer, the attorney general's office entered into a $77,000 contract with Tele-Town Hall LLC of Arlington, Virginia, to conduct up to 35 telephone town halls on consumer protection issues, with each session capable of hosting up to 20,000 participants.
In his request for an advisory opinion, Morrisey noted he has conducted telephone town halls previously, but has not resumed the meetings under the new contract pending a ruling by the Ethics Commission.
On Thursday, commissioners - particularly Commissioner Betty Ireland, a former secretary of state - raised a number of questions about how the telephone town halls operate.
"Is the vendor affiliated with any political party?" Ireland asked. Ethics Commission counsel Theresa Kirk responded that she did not know, but said the contract was approved by the state Purchasing Division.
(According to the company's web-site, Tele-Town Hall provides a number of categories of services, including those for businesses, political candidates, public officials and non-profit organizations, among others.)
Ireland also wanted to know the source of the phone lists for the robocalls and whether the lists target any particular political affiliations. Kirk said, according to the request for an advisory opinion, the lists are general numbers for landline phones in specific geographical regions of the state, and have no qualifiers such as party affiliation or registered voters.
"The elected state official's office paid this vendor to provide these lists?" Ireland asked.
Kirk responded, "My understanding is to dial this many numbers [simultaneously] takes some pretty advanced technology."
"I'm imagining these are like robocalls, going out to thousands of people at one time," Commissioner Terry Walker said.
According to a previous contract the attorney general's office had with Tele-Town Hall, the system dials more than 55,000 phone numbers simultaneously, and those who answer hear a prerecorded message inviting them to stay on the line for the live town hall meeting.
In the request, Morrisey told the Ethics Commission that persons who answer the robocalls would hear his prerecorded message, identifying himself by title and name, and inviting those who want to participate in the town hall meeting to stay on the line.
Commissioners, however, concluded that Morrisey - or whoever does the recording - may only refer to the attorney general's office and cannot refer to Morrisey by name, citing the new Trinkets Act, which prohibits public officials from using their name or likeness in taxpayer-funded advertising.
The opinion states that town hall meetings, whether in person or via telephone, are permissible so long as the overriding purpose is to provide information to citizens and not to promote the public official, particularly in election years.
To that end, the commission's ruling bars Morrisey from having telephone town hall meetings within 60 days of any election. The opinion cites a 2014 ruling, which upheld the practice of legislators using state funds to send informational letters to constituents - but held that such letters may not be sent within 60 days of an election, to avoid the appearance they are being used to promote the legislators' reelection bids.
Commission Chairman Robert Wolfe said Thursday's advisory opinion is another example of how difficult it is to draw the line between official communications and self-promotional advertising of public officials under the new Trinkets Act.
"We're going to be getting into a lot of different things about what is appropriate and what's not when you're communicating out of your public office," he said. "The Trinkets law is getting down to where we're being asked what size letterhead is appropriate."
Also Thursday, the Ethics Commission:
n Ruled that a state department cabinet secretary and staff may organize and plan a 2016 regional conference to be hosted by the state, but it may not solicit contributions from state businesses to underwrite the costs of receptions and social outings during the event.
Under the Ethics Act, public officials may only solicit funds for charitable organizations and purposes.
n Was advised by Rebecca Stepto, the commission's executive director, that lobbyists who register for the 2016 legislative session will be given identification badges without their photographs, since the office's computer software that produces photo ID badges is no longer functional.
With two-year cycles for lobbyists' registrations, most of the more than 400 registered lobbyists registered last year and have valid photo IDs, she said. Only about 30 new lobbyists are likely to register for the upcoming session, she added.
Stepto said that rather than buy expensive software, she's looking at having the Division of Motor Vehicles or another state agency produce the ID badges in the future.
Reach Phil Kabler at
philk@wvgazette.com,
304-348-1220, or follow
@PhilKabler on Twitter.