2009 Legislature serious about government reform

Just about every Utah legislator is talking ethics reform these days.

And incoming Utah House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, is taking an interesting step — he will give a newly reconstituted House Ethics Committee the power to hear, amend and approve or kill the 30-odd ethics bills in the 2009 Legislature, which starts in just two weeks.

This is a unique opportunity for bipartisanship in what was, last summer, a deeply divided House.

Then there were ethical charges and countercharges between Democrats and moderate Republicans and the GOP conservatives who traditionally run the House.

The 2008 elections cost former House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, his seat — the first defeat of a sitting speaker in more than 40 years.

And GOP senators dumped their top two leaders — former Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, and former Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, in their leadership elections.

The questions of official conduct played a role in Curtis' defeat at the polls and Valentine's and Bramble's fall from grace among their own Republican colleagues.

Clark's idea is to make the House Ethics Committee, which historically is split four Republicans and four Democrats, into a standing committee. Previously, House Ethics met infrequently, only to hear, in private, formal ethics complaints brought against a sitting representative by at least three House colleagues.

Traditionally, membership on the dozen or so House standing committees, by rule, is divided up proportionally — each standing committee reflecting the percent of Republicans and Democrats found in the 75-member House.

Thus, the majority Republicans can quite easily move bills they support through the Legislature's public hearing process for votes on the floor of the House. The 2009 House will have 53 Republicans and only 22 Democrats.

Allowing a standing committee to be a four-four split means the minority Democrats will have much more power in reviewing and passing ethics bills.

GOP leaders say that is appropriate, since such bills deal with the reputation and internal ethical standards of the whole Legislature — and Democrats have as much responsibility in that area as do Republicans.

To guide (some may say control) the new Ethics Standing Committee, Clark appointed to the committee three members of GOP leadership, ensuring committee members either don't get too crazy with reform or to push the reforms that the GOP House caucus really wants.