Photo by stevendepolo on Flickr.

Tomorrow, Councilmember Tommy Wells will introduce 3 bills to reform some of the ethical problems DC has recently faced around inappropriate use of official vehicles and campaign finance, his staff announced today.

The bill on official vehicles will:

  • Prohibit DC from buying “luxury-class vehicles” and set other restrictions on vehicle types.
  • Freeze the size of the fleet at the current size and will push to reduce numbers of vehicles when possible.
  • Set more strict MPG requirements for all official vehicles.
  • Expand the use of fleet share.
  • Clarifies that DPW is in charge of all official vehicles.

The campaign finance bills will:

  • Set up reporting requirements for transition and inauguration committees, both a source of unreported contributions in the past for mayors and council chairs.
  • Ban bundling of corporate contributions, to avoid having companies use many subsidiary LLCs to get around contributions limits as Bryan Weaver explained. I’ve asked for more information on how banning bundling will address this specific problem.
  • Require any nonprofits that receive constituent service funds to have been around for 1 year, to avoid officials suddenly creating new ones that they control to either pay themselves or use the money as political favors.
  • Recalibrate reporting deadlines to account for the new, earlier primary date.

Are there other measures that ought to be in ethics legislation? What about Mitch Wander’s 3 “quick fixes” proposals?