Maine elected officials are squeaky clean when compared to the antics of government officials in Rhode Island and other states to our south and west. Nevertheless, there's housecleaning that must be done in the Legislature, where for the umpteenth time, lawmakers are considering a mild but essential series of ethics reforms that will strengthen the wall between their private interests and their public obligations.

While we may not have the political corruption problems of other states, Maine has a poorly defined set of rules regarding legislative conflict of interest and the exercise of undue influence by lawmakers. Those rules need to be tightened up so that state residents can be assured that their legislators are acting in the public interest.

One bill, which appears likely to pass, would expand financial disclosure requirements for lawmakers and their families. There's trouble, though, for another, more substantive, bill that would constrain lawmakers' ability to participate in making legislation that affects their livelihood or personal circumstances. That bill has run into the powerful and perennial resistance of legislators who like being able to do whatever they please in the Statehouse, even if it runs counter to the public interest.

Should lawmakers be able to sponsor and lobby for bills that benefit their employers or their own businesses? No, but right now they can -- a situation that allows them to confuse special interests with the greater public interest. Should lawmakers be allowed to appear in their professional, private capacity before agencies whose budget and operation they oversee as part of their Statehouse duties? No, but right now they can -- a situation that allows them to wield inordinate and inappropriate power over agencies from whom they may be asking favors.

Maine lawmakers know the difference between right and wrong. They also know that there are lawmakers in their ranks, both past and present, who have taken advantage of the loose regulations governing legislative ethics. That's why their resistance to ethics reform strikes us as so disappointing. They haven't refused to clean up their act because their act doesn't need cleaning up. They have refused to clean up their act because it's easier not to.