Conflicts of interest come with the territory

It's one of the Utah Legislature's great dichotomies: The institution's strength — part-time lawmakers — is also its weakness.

The 104 part-time legislators bring with them real-world knowledge and experiences — ranchers, bankers, teachers, firefighters, attorneys, dentists, homemakers, dairymen, millionaire business owners, working stiffs.

But with all that also come conflicts of interest: teachers voting for education funding, bankers deciding loan regulations, Realtors pushing zoning bills, ranchers asking for tax breaks on farm equipment, and on and on.

Conflicts of interest are naturally everywhere, says House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake. And no one wants a full-time Legislature: Great wisdom can come from members who live, work and struggle in their daily lives.

"But we don't deal with conflicts of interest very well," said the veteran Salt Lake lawmaker, mainly because many legislators are too vague in listing potential conflicts on their conflict of interest forms, and then they don't mention any conflicts during debate and voting.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, doesn't think the system needs to be fixed. "I feel like it's worked very well," he said. "It's up to the voters to decide whether a particular legislator is up here for the wrong reason or the right reason."

Besides, Valentine said, "as long as you have a citizen legislature, you're never going to have enough rules to be able to say you cannot do a particular thing because you have a conflict. There's always a way around a rule."

Utahns' views

A Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll conducted just before the 2006 Legislature convened shows that by far most Utahns want their part-time lawmakers to declare if they have a conflict of interest.

Pollster Dan Jones & Associates found an overwhelming 93 percent of Utahns want conflicts publicly declared.

Jones also found strong support — 88 percent — for having legislators recuse themselves from voting on bills on which they have a conflict of interest, the early-January survey shows.

Finally, 78 percent of Utahns favor the idea of having newly elected legislators take an ethics training class before serving.

Tony Musci, president of Utah Common Cause, said that overall Utah's conflict of interest rules "are inadequate."

Many legislators' conflict forms "are exceedingly general — they lack the specific information" that citizens need to know to make a decision on whether the legislator is acting in their best interest or his best interest.