By Jacqueline Pitts, The Bottom Line
FRANKFORT, Ky. — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th District issued a decision Thursday reinstating Kentucky’s legislative ethics prohibition on gifts and contributions from lobbyists.
The ruling comes after an effort to overturn Kentucky’s quarter-century ban on gifts and contributions to legislators from lobbyists in a lawsuit filed in 2015 by state Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, and others. The decision Thursday reverses a previous ruling on the issue.
Kentucky’s ethics laws were enacted after an FBI investigation in the early 1990s, known as BOPTROT, which led to the indictment of several legislators for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for influencing legislation.
“Because these laws are closely drawn to further Kentucky’s anticorruption interest, they pass constitutional muster,” the ruling released Thursday stated.
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