DeLay could be wishing he were a Utah politician

With the indictment this week of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on one charge of conspiracy involving money laundering in funneling corporate donations to Texas legislative races, one has to notice how such a thing would be perfectly legal in Utah.

In fact, Utah has a history of such lax laws governing political corruption, campaign finances and official misconduct that even when something clearly unethical happens here, the actions are not illegal at all.

For 100 years, it has been illegal in Texas for corporations to give money to Texas legislative races. DeLay, a very smart politician, knew if Republicans could get control of the state Legislature, they could redraw the U.S. House districts in the state, making them more favorable to Republicans, and get more seats from Texas. In turn, that would shore up the relatively small majority that Republicans held in the 435-member U.S. House.

I won't go into all the details, but a Texas grand jury charges that DeLay and others set up a political committee that got Texas corporations to give around $200,000 to the national Republican Party, which in turn made donations back to the PAC, which then gave it to GOP legislative candidates.

Republicans did win control of the Texas Legislature in 2002, redrew the U.S. House district lines (you may recall that the Democratic legislators twice actually fled Texas in an attempt to deny a quorum and slow down this process), and in the 2004 elections, Republicans gained something like six more GOP seats in the Texas delegation to Congress.

Such charges and shenanigans could not have happened in Utah.

That's because businesses can give all the money they want in state legislative races. You don't need to launder anything.

In fact, a late-2004 study by the Deseret Morning News shows that by far most Utah legislators get the lion's share of their campaign funds (a few got 100 percent) from special-interest groups, mainly businesses and/or associations that have issues before the Legislature year in and year out.

DeLay wouldn't have been indicted in Utah; he would likely have been praised as an effective leader.

But even when sleazy things happen here, there are often no legal consequences, maybe not even any political fallout.

The best examples of this, perhaps, were the actions of former Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini.

While saying she had done nothing wrong, Corradini (a Democrat) agreed with a bankruptcy court to repay a large sum of money to the court in proceedings involving a firm she was once associated with.