Call for ethics targets Stumbo

[BridgeTheGap]

FRANKFORT — Greg Stumbo, Kentucky's new House speaker, has been paid by a variety of businesses with interests before the state legislature, including coal mines, banks and law firms, disclosure forms and securities records show.

Now that Stumbo runs the House of Representatives — with power to help decide which bills succeed and who gets public funds — an ethics watchdog said he must avoid any actions as speaker that would benefit him personally.

"This is a great opportunity for Greg to show us that his progressive side can overrule the financial interests he has with some of these companies that want things from him," said Richard Beliles, chairman of the non-profit Common Cause Kentucky.

During his stint as the Democrats' House majority leader, from 1985 to 2003, Stumbo was criticized for using his Frankfort office to benefit financially back home in Prestonsburg.

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/651797.html