Our self-interested Legislature will likely never toughen up Hawaii’s ethics laws governing public officials.

The next-best thing is to strictly enforce the ethics rules we have, and it’s good news that the state Ethics Commission and its new executive director, Les Kondo, seem intent on doing just that.

Kondo drew a line in the sand during this year’s legislative session when he told lawmakers they couldn’t accept free tickets to a dinner hosted by a prominent Democratic power broker.

Furious legislators responded with a much-ridiculed and ultimately failed bill that would have allowed them to accept or even solicit virtually unlimited travel and meals and other gifts worth up to $200 from just about anybody seeking to influence their actions.

Kondo recently stood his ground by shooting down an expensive dinner that well-heeled special interests planned for Hawaii lawmakers attending the National Conference of State Legislators in San Antonio.

Sponsors that included the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce, Outrigger Enterprises, Hawaii Medical Service Association, Island Insurance, Coca-Cola and the law firm of Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel canceled the dinner after Kondo advised that the value of the meal exceeded the $25 legal limit on gifts legislators can accept.

It’s about time we reined in wealthy private interests from using expensive freebies to gather and indoctrinate lawmakers in a way lower-budget opposing interests can’t.

Kondo opened another front in the ethics battle when he determined that private-interest members of task forces and working groups formed by lawmakers to help shape policy can’t lobby the Legislature on the subject of their working group — the same rules that govern members of other state boards and commissions.

"How dare he tell us we can’t do that," said state Sen. Rosalyn Baker.

Lawmakers argue that the working groups and task forces provide them valuable expertise that would be constrained by ethical prohibitions on lobbying.

But the membership lists of some of the groups look more like campaign donors dividing up the spoils than experts.

For instance, the task force that ignited the dispute — a working group on urban development established by Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz — required inclusion of the Hawaii Building and Construction Trades Council, the General Contractors Association of Hawaii and "any other interested stakeholders or entities, including but not limited to developers, architects, and contractors."

There was little required representation from the significant segment of the community that favors less development rather than more, in itself a compelling reason for more ethical scrutiny of these shadowy working groups that exert so much influence on legislation.

Some lawmakers want Kondo’s head, but hopefully ethics commissioners and the public will have his back in a welcome crackdown on loose ethical practices in our state government.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.