Hughes vehemently denies he did anything wrong, saying that Lawrence simply misunderstood his efforts to bring her into conversations with pro-voucher advocates. Hughes also denies any wrongdoing on the other five counts.

For some, the Legislature has become a place where right and wrong, ethical and unethical, are seen as through a glass darkly. Good people may not make good decisions if they are forced into a warped reality. If you see the world as us against those who don't stand with us — and stand with us all the time — then you may see the world as some in the Utah Legislature do. But it is not a very trusting world.

Some conservative GOP legislators who voted for vouchers in 2007 (all Democrats and only a handful of moderate Republicans voted against vouchers) saw a clear challenge to their authority when a citizen referendum sprang up.

After Utahns voted against vouchers by nearly 2-to-1 in November 2007, conservatives just wanted to move on.

The last thing GOP leaders wanted was to bring the voucher fight up again in the 2008 election. Worse would be to bring vouchers up via serious ethics complaints against one of their own — Hughes, who helped lead the pro-voucher fight and organized a political issue committee in the spring of 2007 to fight for vouchers before citizens.

On the front page of the Wednesday edition of the Deseret News was a story about how former Rep. Mark Walker, R-Sandy — a poster boy for the young, conservative Republicans— has offered to plead guilty to a class B misdemeanor in his own ethics/bribery scandal in this year's state treasurer's race. On Page B1 was a story about the Hughes ethics hearings. It was not a good day for legislative GOP incumbents — just three weeks before the elections.

The bottom line is this: The Walker, Hughes and Riesen ethics process has proved to me, and, I'm guessing, others, that the Legislature can't handle its own ethical challenges. Some kind of outside ethics complaint/review process is needed.

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Deseret News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com.