State Ethics Commissions

Ethics commissions are used by many states to oversee state laws on ethical practices in government. How they are structured and what roles they play varies widely between states.

Some ethics commissions have broad authority over ethics in government, including campaign finance and lobbying regulation. Some share authority over areas like campaign finance and lobbying with other entities, like the secretary of state or other commissions. Others focus solely on governmental ethics. Some ethics commissions also have rulemaking authority, whether the power to pass substantive ethics rules and regulations or a limited power over administrative and filing procedures. Other common commission duties and powers include providing advisory opinions on ethical issues, administering ethics training to public officials and investigating ethics complaints.

Different government officials and employees may be overseen by separate ethics commissions. States often have separate executive and legislative commissions. Furthermore, in some states ethics commissions do not oversee legislators and legislative staff. In those states, internal ethics committees within the legislature serve that role.

Commission membership and structures differ from state to state. Common differentiators include who appoints commissioners, the number of commissioners, what qualifications commissioners must meet and the length of commissioners' terms.

This webpage contains two tables. The first table covers which powers and duties are given to each state's ethics commission. The second table summarizes the structure of each state's ethics commission. These tables are limited to information provided in statute and do not reflect any further duties that may be granted to commissions in regulations or legislative rules.

For more information on ethics commissions, please contact us using the email icon on this page.

NCSL provides statutory resources for informational purposes only. This does not constitute legal advice.