Utah Legislature: House approves ethics reform bills

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah House on Thursday passed most of the major ethics bills to be considered this session, including a proposed constitutional amendment that would set up an independent ethics commission.

However, in debate over HJR15 it became apparent that should Utahns adopt the commission amendment in November, only lawmakers themselves could say how that commission operates.

And that idea is severely criticized by supporters of a citizen initiative that, while dealing with a number of ethics concerns, seeks at its core an independent ethics commission. The Utahns for Ethical Government initiative details how the commission would be set up, as well as its standards and operations.

Kim Burningham, chairman of Utahns for Ethical Government, said, "I believe that the state Capitol is 'our house.' That is, it belongs to the citizens." But legislators are trying to take that away, he said.

"The Constitution provides that the people can make rules on legislative ethics by initiative. This is an important check and balance, providing for citizen watchdogs for legislative abuses. The amendment sponsored by (House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara), "if I understood the comments made in the debate correctly, will do away with this sacred right where the people govern their own house and make rules regulating the conduct of their own legislators."

But Clark and lawmakers from both parties disagreed.

Clark said putting an independent ethics commission into the state Constitution "enshrines it" forever, and it can't be repealed by the Legislature alone, as it could be if it was just in law, as the initiative would do.

A companion piece of legislation, SJR3, would put into legislative rules how the commission sought by the Legislature would operate. The resolution is expected to have a committee hearing Monday.

And the amendment/rule combination is at the heart of the current debate, because it appears that such a combination would take citizen initiatives out of any changes to the ethics hearing process, and could have even deeper consequences. For instance, it calls into question whether any legislative rule dealing with conflicts of interests, code of conduct or any other matter, could be changed by citizen initiative.

Even some Democratic representatives who earlier had questioned the amendment/rule tactic were on board Thursday.