Utah lawmakers 'gifted'

Lobbyists gave Utah legislators an average of $1,113 each in personal gifts last year — free Utah Jazz tickets, college football tickets, dinner cruises, golf, nights at the theater, jewelry, trap shooting, meals at fine restaurants and such.

Deseret Morning News graphic   Gifts to legislators

Lawmakers probably received even more, but due to loopholes in Utah law, gifts coming from groups not currently lobbying are not required to be disclosed. So, for example, the Taiwan government flies some legislative leaders to Asia every two years without public filings.

Even among gifts that are disclosed, exactly who accepts what is largely a mystery.

Laws require specific legislators and their gifts be identified only if they accept items worth more than $50 in one day from a lobbyist. Most gifts are divided into smaller amounts (sometimes with lawmakers paying part of the cost to avoid revealing their names).

Because of that loophole, it is not possible to identify who received 86 percent of the total value of gifts from lobbyists last year.

Sen. Patricia Jones, D-Cottonwood Heights, is among those who question why such a system persists. She wonders, "(How) does a lobbyist gift serve my constituents? And there is no good answer. We'd like to think that a gift doesn't persuade someone's vote. But, in fact, it can."

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. this week will issue an executive order banning all gift-taking in the executive branch of state government. In a Friday interview, Huntsman, a Republican, said he won't tell the legislative branch what to do but added: "If (the Legislature) is truly a representative body, then (lawmakers) will want to respond to what the public is saying."

And polls show over time that a super-majority of Utahns want their legislators to not take lobbyist gifts.

A proposed gift ban has been introduced in the Legislature, but few expect it to go far.

So, likely remaining when lawmakers adjourn Feb. 28 will be a legislative system that gift-exchangers say they dislike because it tends to construe lobbyist meetings (which would continue anyway) as a form of vote buying; poorer lobbying groups hate because they cannot afford to compete for lawmaker access; and lawmakers who take no gifts disdain because they say it tarnishes the system and them with it.

Gifts for access