GOP cries foul over Riesen vote

Utah Republican Party leaders are crying foul over state House Democrats blocking a full hearing on ethical charges brought against one of their own — Rep. Phil Riesen, D-Milcreek.

"It just shows the hypocrisy of the Democrats — and their claims of running on ethical reform this year," says Salt Lake County GOP chairman James Evans, a former Republican state senator.

Wednesday morning, the House Ethics Committee voted 4-4 on a motion to hear full witness testimony against Riesen. The four Democrats on the committee voted against moving forward for the secret testimony; the four Republicans on the committee voted to proceed. Unable to reach a decision, the complaint against Riesen died.

State Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Holland said the state party had nothing to do with the House Democrats' vote Wednesday.

"I heard about it for the first time, at any level, only minutes ago," Holland said several hours after the vote. "I don't know if that (Ethics Committee) vote will be good or bad" for the candidacy of dozens of legislative Democratic candidates who are running on an ethical reform platform this year.

"We decided two years ago, after some of the shenanigans in the 2006 elections on (private school) vouchers that we'd run an ethics reform campaign in 2008," said Holland, who added that for more than a decade, a number of Democratic legislators and candidates have been pushing the issue, even as most GOP legislators ignored it.

Evans says Utah Democrats can't be allowed to hoodwink voters on ethics — running campaigns questioning Republicans' ethics and then voting not to even hear testimony on Riesen. "It is the Republicans who have been consistent" in the recent ethics hearings by remaining in favor of full hearings, said Evans.

The four Republicans on the Ethics Committee voted for a full hearing on the complaints made against Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper. After a week of secret testimony, the Ethics Committee cleared Hughes of any wrongdoing, although there were some partisan 4-4 votes in those results. It would have taken at least a 5-3 vote to move on to disciplinary discussions on Hughes, and the committee never got that majority vote on the six charges leveled against Hughes.