Ethics reform advances marred by petty politics

As final votes are being taken on a package of legislative ethics reform bills, I say again good work to the Republicans and Democrats alike who worked so hard to get this done.

It was not easy.

There is no doubt in my mind that this progress on ethics, conflict of interest, lobbyist gifts and other measures would not have happened if the Utahns for Ethical Government citizen initiative petition were not out there, putting lawmakers' feet to the fire.

Still, when new laws and rules are made that will help the public feel better about how their legislators operate, it's progress and should be praised as such.

That said, we saw another unfortunate example this past week of how Utah legislators — like other politicians around this world — act when they really don't like something and feel threatened by it. They circle the wagons and knock citizens onto their backsides.

A House committee killed a bill that would have placed campaign contribution limits on legislators and other state office candidates. Instead, the House voted to require more public reporting of, but no limits on, contributions.

And a bill passed that will allow the Utah Republican Party, or other opponents of the UEG initiative, 30 days to identify petition signees and lobby them to remove their names.

If the state GOP can get enough signatures removed in a few of the required state Senate districts, the initiative could be forced from November's ballot.

I know that when you get to make laws, you get to make laws that help you, your party and your political buddies.

But legally having that power and exercising that power are two different things. Just because you can do it doesn't make it right.

This past summer I covered many of the meetings of the Governor's Commission on Strengthening Utah's Democracy.

The group, originally named by former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., came up with several good recommendations on making Utah's democratic process better.

The big recommendation was to limit donations to statewide races, like the governor's, to $20,000 over four years, state Senate races to $10,000 over four years, and state House races to $5,000 over two years. Utah is one of only five states that has no contribution limits.

GOP legislative leaders, even the House GOP caucus, originally endorsed those limits.

The bill also had an automatic inflation kicker, so those amounts would increase over time.

A study by the Deseret News of 2008 legislative race donations found that few donations would have been turned away under those limits.

So even the relatively liberal recommendations would not have limited legislators' fundraising.

Not good enough.

Lawmakers still killed the measure — and in doing so basically ignored the commission's work.