From Deseret News archives:
Ethics panel to hold hearing on Hughes
It also decides to keep the public, press out of meetings
In the process, all but two committee members voted to close the hearing to the public and press. The committee even voted not to allow at least one media representative, a Salt Lake Tribune editor, to argue that the meeting be kept open.
An ethics hearing against Rep. Phil Riesen, D-Salt Lake, charged by Hughes and other GOP lawmakers that Riesen broke ethics rules by leaking the Hughes complaint to the press, will be held later — perhaps next week, perhaps later.
Hughes and Riesen both deny all charges lodged against them.
One Hughes accuser, former GOP Rep. Susan Lawrence, testified in private Wednesday afternoon. She declined to comment when she came out of the closed hearing late in the day.
However, Hughes' attorney, Thomas Karrenberg, said Lawrence testified that she never intended for her complaint against Hughes to be made public or be turned into a formal ethics charge. (Hughes and his attorney were allowed into the closed-door sessions and are not sworn to secrecy, like committee members and staff are.)
Lawrence reportedly stood by her letter, signed and addressed "to whom it may concern." That letter is part of the formal charge against Hughes and alleges that Hughes in 2006 offered her up to $50,000 in campaign funds if she would vote for private school vouchers, or at the very least walk off the House floor and not vote on vouchers at all.
Hughes' attorney said Lawrence said she didn't believe an ethics complaint against Hughes was appropriate, in part because the Legislature's ethics definitions are so vague as to be meaningless.
Karrenberg said listening to testimony "there is no way this conversation" between Lawrence and Hughes "could be considered a bribe, no way."
The formal hearing against Hughes is no surprise. Hughes himself asked that the hearing be held and be held and concluded quickly "to clear my good name."
Hughes told the Deseret News he's heard his hearing could last two days to three weeks. The committee scheduled hearings at least through next week.
Before the hearing was closed, Hughes said: "Bluntly, I don't have 21 days of bad press left in my political career. I have to get this over with (before the Nov. 4 election). I have to prove my innocence in the public, quickly.
"My campaign is on hold. All my brochures that are now in the can are worthless."
Both Hughes and Riesen didn't get what they both wanted — open ethics hearings. Testimony will be taken in private.
