Most of the PIC's money came from a singled pro-voucher advocate, as reported in public PIC finance documents. And just before the November 2007 election — where citizens voted down vouchers by nearly 2-to-1 — a separate business-related PAC in favor of vouchers gave Hughes' PIC $39,000, said Hartley.

"We used that ($39,000) to pay for the last mailer we sent out," said Hartley. In any case, Hughes never twisted anyone's arm, he added. "We weren't doing any fund raising during the time period in question," said Hartley. "We had adequate funds" — around $290,000

Testimony was also taken on the third charge, that Hughes got the Legislature Fiscal Analyst office to provide a different cost analysis on what vouchers would really cost taxpayers than had been released previously by that staff office.

Jonathan Ball, chief fiscal analyst, testified but declined to talk to the press afterward. Karrenberg said Ball said that Hughes never asked for nor got any different voucher-cost figures than those that were made public. Hughes had access to a "work product" of the Fiscal Analysts Office but never asked for that work product. Other legislators also had access to that background information, and three apparently did ask for it, said Karrenberg.

So Hughes did not abuse his legislative power in that respect, said his attorney.

By week's end, Hughes hopes that all six of the ethics charges against him will be heard and the Ethics Committee will have taken votes on his guilt or innocence. He maintains his innocence of all charges and says he needs to be out campaigning for re-election to his Draper district.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com