Ethics complaints will not be filed

The ethics wars in the Utah House may be over — at least until after November's elections.

A conservative House member told the Deseret News Monday that no ethics violation will be filed against Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan.

Meanwhile, a moderate House member said that no allegations of ethics violations will be filed against any member of House GOP leadership.

Both sides said complaints could be filed if more information in either incident — Mascaro's contact with a female intern or hints that a GOP leader could have agreed to help find "bribe" money to keep one Republican out of the state treasurer's race — is found.

"I don't see anything happening with Mascaro, unless something more from either side (in his case) comes up," said the conservative, who spoke on condition that his name not be used. "And I don't think we'll see any (complaints) from the other side, either," he added — meaning any action against GOP leaders.

"I think that is accurate," said a moderate House member involved in behind-the-scenes discussions.

But the whole tenor of the fights — public and private — has left bad feelings on both sides.

Rep. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, is one of the Republicans who signed an ethics complaint against former Rep. Mark Walker, R-Sandy. Walker resigned his post, making the allegation moot.

Allen says that the ethics process in the Legislature "doesn't work."

She wants significant reforms — mainly by taking preliminary ethics complaints and investigations out of the sphere of lawmakers themselves. She suggests that an independent ethics commission be set up, much along the lines of how the Judicial Conduct Commission handles complaints against judges. Such bills have been introduced before, but never passed by lawmakers.

"It's too early to tell" if there will be legislative ethics reforms in the 2009 Legislature, she said. "But we should do it."

Walker, who ran for state treasurer this year, was accused by the other GOP candidate, deputy chief treasurer Richard Ellis, of offering Ellis a "bribe" — Ellis could keep his deputy job in a Walker administration and get a huge pay raise, more than $50,000 a year, if Ellis didn't run.

Ellis quotes Walker as saying that he'd talked with "someone" who could make the raise happen — strongly hinting that GOP House leaders who were supporting Walker could appropriate the extra money for the treasurer's office. Neither Ellis nor Walker named any GOP leader.

But an attorney for the five House members who requested an ethics investigation of Walker said that House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, should be investigated. Curtis denies he had any conversation with Walker about raising Ellis' pay. Walker lost the GOP treasurer primary in June to Ellis and resigned his seat — thus ending the Legislature's ethics investigation. Two independent prosecutors are still looking at any criminal activity by Walker; their investigation should be done within a month.

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