A.G.'s office may probe Hughes

Later Wednesday, Riesen and two House Democrats, Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake, and Neil Hansen, D-Ogden, filed a lengthy ethics complaint against Hughes. It repeated the Lawrence charge and basically claimed that Hughes strong-armed lobbyists to make contributions to his pro-voucher political issues campaign, browbeat lobbyists not to support GOP candidates who were challenging him, Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, and Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, (Hughes won his GOP nomination, Donnelson and Tilton lost), and warning lobbyists who didn't play along that their bills could suffer in the House Rules Committee, where Hughes is the current vice chairman and could become chairman if he wins re-election this year.

Hughes denies all the charges and says he's hired an attorney to request a retraction from KSL-TV for using the word "bribe" in early news reports about the complaint.

Hughes' attorney, Thomas Karrenberg, said in a press release the House ethics committee will begin its review Oct. 9.

McGee told the Deseret News on Thursday that concerned legislators who back her formal complaint considered, at one time, including in the current complaint that the House Ethics Committee reopen the dismissed complaint against former Rep. Mark Walker, R-Sandy.

The ethics committee dismissed the Walker complaint, without actually investigating anything, after Walker resigned from the House in June. Walker was not seeking re-election. He instead ran as a Republican (with backing from many GOP legislators) for the open Utah State treasurer position. He was challenged by current chief deputy treasurer Richard Ellis. Ellis beat Walker in the June GOP primary, but only after Ellis charged that Walker tried to keep him out of the race by saying Ellis could keep his current job and get a large pay raise if Ellis let Walker get the GOP nomination.

In a previous complaint against Walker, a bipartisan group of House Democrats and Republicans charged that Walker had received assurances from someone in the House "who could make it happen" — could ensure an increased budget for the treasurer's office so Ellis could get a $50,000 a year raise if he didn't run against Walker.

McGee said she and a number of other House members "were very disappointed" that the ethics committee wouldn't look into who that other Republican House member could be (if, indeed, it actually happened) — as such an action would be a violation of House ethics, as well.

"But we decided not to include (the Walker-collusion charge) in this (Hughes) complaint," said McGee. "However, we do want the ethics committee to fully investigate (the Hughes complaint) no matter what happens" with Hughes' election Nov. 4 or his status as a sitting legislator, she said.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff decided not to investigate Walker himself (Shurtleff had endorsed Walker in the treasurer's race), and instead asked two county attorneys, one a Democrat, another a Republican, to look into any criminal violations in that case. That investigation has dragged on over the summer and no charges have been filed, or no statements about charges not being filed.