New witnesses added in House ethics hearing

New names appeared Wednesday on an expanded witness list for the House ethics complaints now being heard against Reps. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, and Phil Riesen, D-Salt Lake.

"This is just ridiculous," said one of the witnesses added to a list that now totals 55 names, Utah Bankers Association president Howard Headlee. "Honestly, if this wasn't so serious, it would be funny."

Headlee, who was called to testify on behalf of Hughes, said he expects to be asked whether members of a pro-voucher business coalition were pressured in 2007 to contribute to a political issues committee organized by Hughes.

Among the accusations Hughes is facing is that he pushed lobbyists to contribute to the Informed Voter Project PIC and of warning them that if they took part in anti-voucher activities, their bills could be killed by the House Rules Committee.

"I never contributed to that. I was never asked to contribute to that and I have never been punished" for not contributing to the PIC, Headlee told the Deseret News. "No one threatened anyone."

He said that at the time, voucher opponents "tried to portray the business community efforts as being forced because leadership threatened them. ... They spun that a bunch of knees were broken and arms twisted."

Another new name on the witness list for Hughes, lobbyist Jeff Hartley, said he expects to be asked about both the PIC, because he served as its executive director, and former GOP Rep. Susan Lawrence's efforts to raise money for her failed 2006 re-election campaign.

Hughes is also accused in the ethics complaint of offering Lawrence $50,000 in campaign contributions if she would switch her vote on vouchers. But Hartley, who was also executive director of the state Republican Party at the time, said that kind of cash was not available.

"I know he was trying to help her," Hartley said. "I can't say whether the conversation between the two of them ever took place or not. I have no knowledge that it did. But it would have been ridiculous for Hughes to do so because no one had that kind of money."

Hartley said the PIC's money came from a single donor, Park City millionaire Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com, and that none of it went directly to candidates. Instead, he said, it was used for mailers and town hall meetings about vouchers throughout the state.

But state records show that a group calling itself Business Leaders for Referendum 1 gave the PIC $39,000 in November 2007. Byrne had given $290,000 that year, according to the financial disclosure on file with the lieutenant governor's office.