Demos issue 4 proposals for ethics reform

An independent legislative panel; a one-year lobbyist revolving-door prohibition; a ban on expensive gifts; and no personal use of campaign funds.

Those four so-called "legislative ethics reforms" were put forward by a group of Utah Democratic legislators and legislative candidates Tuesday on the front steps of the Utah Capitol.

Sen. Pat Jones, D-Holladay, said most legislative Democrats have for years pushed any number of ethical reforms in the Legislature — and since 2003, 18 such bills have failed, killed by the majority Republicans.

"This has been the worst year in Utah history" for legislative ethics, Jones added. Pushed by media members to expand on that statement, Jones and Reps. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, and Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, both cited the recent ethics hearings on Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper. Moss and Morgan both sat on the House Ethics Committee, which cleared Hughes of the six charges, and 30 individual complaints, lodged against him by three other House Democrats.

Several of the votes on Hughes' actions were split 4-4, the four Democrats on the committee voting to find Hughes guilty, the four Republicans on the committee voting to acquit. The split vote meant no charges, and Morgan said an independent ethics panel "must happen." On other counts against Hughes, all eight members voted to acquit. The committee did issue a reprimand letter against Hughes.

"Ethics bills often find a sudden death in the Rules or other committees," said Jones, who herself has seen several ethics bills she's sponsored die in recent general sessions.

GOP leaders in the House and Senate now say they favor action in the 2009 Legislature on several ethics fronts. (Several House GOP leaders point out that they have voted for such measures before, and the bills have passed the House only to die in the Senate.)

"But these (Republicans) are Johnny-come-latelies. I ask Utahns to ask these (legislators) to show proof" where they have supported ethics reform in the past, Jones said. Since many ethics bills were killed or otherwise blocked by the majority Republicans, "why should they change their ways?" she asked.

But, in fact, GOP Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, has sponsored a lobbyist gift-ban bill in the Senate the past two years. And both times his bill died in part because a Democratic state senator didn't show up to the committee to vote for or against it.

"Not all Democrats have been on board," Jones said when reminded of those votes. How will she and other Senate Democrats get ethics bills past both GOP and Democratic opposition in the Senate? "By using our strength and power," she replied.