Utah Legislature: Lawmakers, not citizens, will decide ethics rules

SALT LAKE CITY — Despite what a citizen initiative says about how an independent legislative ethics commission would be organized and run, lawmakers themselves will make that decision.

That was the clear message Monday afternoon as the Senate Ethics Committee approved a package of ethics bills.

A separate bill in that package deals with what kind of gifts and meals lawmakers may accept from lobbyists.

And senators amended that House bill so the Senate president and House speaker may give a waiver to gift restrictions so that a legislator could accept travel, lodging, food, beverage and cost of entertainment for a trip that has something to do with legislative duty.

Not only could a legislator take such benefits from a lobbyist, but the cost of those items and the lawmaker's name would be secret — not revealed at all.

House GOP leaders accepted that Senate change to get HB267 through that body. But House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, said he will move a change in House rules so that such speaker-approved trips/expenses are publicly disclosed.

"If the Senate won't agree to a joint rule" disclosing how much was spent on such a trip and on whom, "we'll do it in the House with a House rule," said Clark. "I see this as a land mine. And one I see. I step on enough land mines that I don't see up here, I'm not going to step on one I see."

Despite amendments made to the House ethics bills Monday in the Senate committee, the package is still one of the most far-reaching efforts ever in the Utah Legislature on so-called government reform.

Utahns for Ethical Government, the citizen ethics initiative now out for voter signatures, still sees loopholes in lawmakers' efforts.

Karl Snow, a former GOP state senator, was adamant as he pushed committee members to say if the UEG initiative gets on the ballot and HJR15 — a constitutional amendment to create an independent ethics commission — also makes the ballot, whether the initiative's outline on how the commission operates will be valid.

No, said John Fellows, chief attorney for the Legislature.

The state Constitution says only legislators will judge colleagues' ability to serve. And they do that through legislative rule. And internal rules can't be changed through initiative, Fellows said. In short, residents don't get a say in internal ethics rules and regulations.