Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

The front-page headline in the Anchorage Daily News on Friday proclaimed, “Gift of kidney to ailing lawmaker against the rules.”

Don’t reject the transplant just yet.

I don’t see anything in the state ethics law approved last year that would prevent a person from donating every organ in his or her body to an ailing lawmaker.

Most of our legislators looked the other way for years while some of their colleagues collected money from companies lobbying the Legislature. It was a time of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Now, in the wake of the corruption scandal, some people are seeing, hearing and speaking about problems that don’t exist.

Such is the case with the alleged legal obstacle to having a legislative staffer donate a kidney to Nome Rep. Richard Foster.

The new law says a “compassionate gift” to a lawmaker who faces a tragedy or a health crisis can not be worth more than $250.

Giving a kidney is worth more than $250, the argument goes.

So how much is it worth? $1 million? $5 million? Might as well put a dollar value on your first-born child.

As the credit card purveyors tell us, there are some things money can’t buy.

Kidney donors have to sign papers saying that no one is paying them, so this is not a matter of dollars, whether the limit is $250 or $250 million.

The state ethics law approved last year requires that “the value of a gift shall be determined by the fair market value of the gift, to the extent that the fair market value can be determined.”

The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 made it illegal to buy or sell human organs. Since it is illegal to buy or sell a kidney, the gift of a kidney can not have a “fair market value.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Iran has the only government-controlled market in the sale of kidneys, though the practice also takes place in nations like Pakistan and the Philippines, where it is illegal.

If and when Congress changes our law, there will be a fair market value for a kidney. At that point, donating one to a legislator would violate the $250 limitation.

Until then, the Select Committee on Ethics should concentrate on matters of substance. It could start with the decision by lawmakers to ignore the public meetings rules they require local governments to follow or the difficult question of how Alaska lawmakers should handle their conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, Rep. John Coghill and 10 other legislators are supporting House Bill 317, which would entirely remove the limit on compassionate gifts to lawmakers, an act supposedly deemed necessary because of the kidney problem.

The House State Affairs Committee plans a teleconference hearing on this bill Tuesday at 8 a.m.

Coghill’s sponsor statement says that Joyce Anderson, administrator for the ethics committee, believes the limit on compassionate gifts “did prevent a legislative staffer from donating an organ to another legislative staffer or legislator and it prevented either from donating frequent flyer miles to the other.”

Unlike kidney transplants, a fair market value can be established on frequent flyer miles.

If the real point of HB 317 is to allow donations to ailing legislators of airline miles and other gifts during a health crisis, then lawmakers should focus on this issue and leave the transplant debate out of it.

Last year the House unanimously approved the amendment to establish the $250 limit on “compassionate gifts.”

The thrust of the current bill is that legislators went too far. Perhaps they did, but raising the limit is a better approach than doing away with it entirely.

And if the lawyers insist that change is needed to allow the noble act of a kidney donation, then the Legislature can exempt organ donations, recognizing them as priceless gifts.

Dermot Cole can be reached at cole@newsminer.com or 459-7530.