You asked for a section-by-section analysis of HB 6594, An Act
Concerning Municipal Ethics, Municipal Whistleblower Protections and the
Investigation of Municipal Corruption.
SUMMARY
The bill requires municipalities and special districts to establish
an ethics commission and adopt the code of ethics contained in the bill. Towns
(48 listed in the Blue Book) and districts that have exercised their statutory
authority to establish a commission do not have to establish another but they
may have to adopt the model code if its provisions are stricter than those in
their existing code.
The bill extends to
municipalities the whistleblower protections and procedures currently
applicable to corruption, unethical practices, or law violations by state
agencies.
The bill eliminates a
requirement for the chief state's attorney or a state's attorney to include in
any application for a grand jury to investigate allegations of municipal
corruption reasons why (1) other normal investigative procedures that were
tried failed or (2) normal
procedures are unlikely to succeed or are too dangerous to use. It also
eliminates the grand jury panel's duty to find in these cases that other normal
investigative procedures have failed, reasonably appear to be likely to fail,
or appear too dangerous to try. Continued at this website: