An outbreak of ethics

California lawmakers are about to go all ethical on us.
Soon to be introduced is a fistful of bills to reform how they do business. To suggest the proposals will not change reality may be cynical, but it's also reality. Government isn't your high school civics class.
The latest outbreak of good-government hand-wringing springs from the public relations fallout of having two state senators putting themselves on indefinite leave -- some might reasonably call these paid vacations -- while they fight criminal charges. One, Rod Wright, having been found guilty in January of perjury for lying about where he lives, and the other, Ron Calderon, under federal indictment on 24 counts of corruption. Both are Democrats and both deny culpability.
Not that the Democrats have cornered the unsavory behavior market. Republican State Sen. Tom Berryhill of Twain Harte is challenging the finding of an administrative law judge that he illegally

coordinated with county Republican committees by steering campaign money to brother Bill Berryhill's Assembly campaign in 2008 (Bill Berryhill is out of public office having lost his race to represent the 5th Senate district -- essentially San Joaquin County -- to Cathleen Galgiani in 2012). In other words, Tom Berryhill was laundering money. It didn't happen, Tom Berryhill's attorneys say. Uh huh.
The reforms Democrats propose won't stop everything -- not the lying about living in the district you claim to represent, not the taking of money in exchange for votes, not the secretly shifting of campaign money -- but the legislation could plug a few holes. Among the things being proposed are:

• A ban on fundraisers at lobbyists' homes
• Lowering the current $440 limit on the value of gifts officials can receive from a single source
• Barring officials from receiving gift tickets to concerts, sporting events and other kinds of entertainment
• Increasing the frequency of campaign finance report filings

Not that these are bad ideas, but lawmakers always seem to cluck-cluck about reform after a few of them have been caught with their hands in the public cookie jar. And they wonder why public skepticism about their work for the public's good edges inexorably toward cynicism.
If the pols, be they in Sacramento or Washington, really want the public to believe they mean business about political reform, then they need to put teeth in their reforms. For example, if you're convicted of a felony, you're gone. If you're under felony indictment, you're gone at least until the matter is adjudicated, and if you've continued to receive your salary while on leave, every cent of it must be repaid -- from the point of indictment until conviction -- and then you're gone. If you're caught laundering campaign money every cent has to be repaid into the campaign fund of your opponent from your personal bank account.
It was Jess Unruh. the legendary California Assembly speaker, who gave a rather succinct political rule for his legislative colleagues' dealings with lobbyists. Said "Big Daddy" Unruh (this being a highly sanitized version): "If you can't drink their booze, take their money, sleep with their women and then vote against 'em, you don't belong in politics."
Those perhaps were simpler times and Unruh's rule perhaps naïve on its face, but if we could at least enjoy that level of political ethics it would be something.