State Rep. Chris Bruce, a Republican from Kuna who also serves on Kuna’s City Council, says he has seen it happen. A whistleblower flags that the mayor or a city council member is doing something illegal or corrupt, but he or she doesn’t have anywhere to turn. The city’s police chief reports to the mayor, and in some cases, the county prosecutor may have a close working relationship with city leaders.
A 2014 law gave the state’s attorney general the authority to prosecute elected county officials accused of violating state law, but it didn’t mention city officials. The new bill “just adds city officials to that as well,” Bruce, one of the bill’s sponsors, told members of the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration committee during a Wednesday public hearing at the Capitol.
“This just gives (whistleblowers) the ability to go outside their realm of doing things, to ask the AG to look into it for them,” he said…