Hughes to introduce ethics bill in Utah Legislature

State Rep. Greg Hughes, cleared of ethics violations just before the Nov. 4 election, says he will introduce a bill in next month's Legislature that would set up an "independent" inspector general's office in Utah government that would handle legislative ethics, as well as other complaints against state employees.

GOP legislative "leaders may not like it," Hughes, R-Draper, said Monday. "But I'm going to run it and see what happens."

House GOP leaders have already announced a multi-faceted "ethics reform" program that they want their 53-member Republican House caucus "to own as their own issue" — as one House GOP leader recently told the caucus. And an IG office is not part of the leaders' plan.

Incoming speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara — while praising GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s ethics' program for the executive branch of government — made it clear that lawmakers themselves would handle any ethical questions in the legislative branch of government.

However, Hughes said Monday that he believes all of state government would benefit from an "independent" inspector general's office.

The new official "would investigate any claims of waste, fraud or unethical conduct" in state government, said Hughes, who adds that 35 other states have an inspector general in one form or another, as does the federal government.

The IG "wouldn't only look at the Legislature, but at all of state government," said Hughes, who still feels the political pain of the accusations brought against him by three Democratic members of the Utah House. While cleared by the House Ethics Committee of any wrongdoing, the committee did issue a letter of reprimand against Hughes over some of his actions in defending/pushing the pro-private-school voucher issue in 2006 and 2007.

In his own case, Hughes said that an inspector general's office could have quickly moved to reject the Democrats' complaints against him — and that because the IG would be an independent, not a political body like the House Ethics Committee — such a rejection would have cleared his name as the ethics committee could not.

In several states, said Hughes, the IG's office budget is a small percent of the states' overall budgets, so legislators or governors or other powerful bureaucrats could not harm his operations by cutting his individual budget.

"An IG truly is independent, not beholden to anyone, and so the public" has trust in his rulings and actions, Hughes said.

Anyone could make a complaint to the IG, Hughes said. And the person doing so could publicly talk about such a complaint.

"But if the IG didn't act, or found no cause to investigate further, then the (legislator, executive branch member or office) could be cleared quickly — not like the accusations that came against me a month before the (Nov. 4) election," Hughes said.

Hughes said the current legislative ethics investigation process must be changed, because it clearly harmed him politically, even though he did end up winning re-election to his Draper district.

Hughes said he doesn't believe Clark and other GOP leaders will let him be the new House Rules Committee chairman, a position he may well have been in line for if not for the ethics charges filed against him.

"I was found innocent, but I'm still paying a (political) price," Hughes said. And a truly independent inspector general office may well rectify that in the future, he said.

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