Tackling ethics, alcohol reforms

A rash of ethics reform bills will be put out for debate in the Utah Legislature next week.

But as is often the case with legislative reform, it's two steps forward, one step back, as House GOP leaders now say they won't get what they originally proposed — a ban on many gifts now given to legislators.

"We're moving toward full disclosure of gifts, instead," said House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, R-Layton, who is coordinating ethics reform in the 75-member House. "And even these (leadership) bills may be amended before we're done.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., in announcing his own ethics/political reform study commission two weeks ago, said Utah has some of the most lax government ethics and campaign laws in the nation, and reform must come.

Last year lobbyists gave lawmakers $170,000 in gifts, including expensive Utah Jazz tickets and meals, reports show. In 2007 they gave around $250,000.

In addition, while House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, said last month that the House Ethics Committee — split 4-4 between Republicans and Democrats — would hear all ethics bills, it now appears the ethics bills will be sent to one of the regular standing committees for public hearings, a committee that is two-thirds Republican.

"If the Ethics Committee heard the (ethics) bills, if Democrats didn't like them, (the bills) could be dead," Garn said. "It's a concern."

House and Senate Democrats have already said they want to push ethics reform further than Republicans want.

House and Senate GOP leaders will propose their own ethics bills, none of which have yet to be publicly released.

Senate Majority Assistant Whip Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, who has pushed reform bills in the past, said he will sponsor the gift disclosure bill. It will require every gift over $10 to be reported with the legislator's name but will not ban any gifts.

"This may make little difference inside" the Legislature, Bell said.

"But I really do hope" that full gift disclosure "brushes up the public's opinion" of the Legislature, said Bell.

Still, he can't say how many of the leadership's ethics bills will pass, or in what shape. "We are getting real pushback" from some senators who don't want the changes, he said.

Garn and Bell outlined the basic direction each leadership bill will take: