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Utah needs tighter controls on campaign funding

I don't remember the exact quote or even who said it. One of our Founding Fathers made a statement that our government was for a moral people.

In Utah we rarely have sexual escapades, and you don't see too many legislators going to jail for fraud, etc. We do have issues like this.

With Marty Stephens he did something far worse than stash away a few hundred thousand dollars. He ran for Speaker of the House three times. That did more to take away power from the average joe than anything else. It changed power in the House from a system that favored merit over seniority among rank and file legislators and gradually shifted it into a hard corp seniority system.

It was so ironic that Marty Stephens ran against Mel Brown, who wanted to be Utah's first three-term Speaker of the House. Marty said it was wrong. So, wrong for Mel, right for Marty. Current Speaker Greg Curtis campaigns for Speaker that he will only do it for two-terms, now he is backing off that promise and doing it for a third-term.

And we are shocked over legislators and their conflicts of interest. For a moral people!

My, my... How about legislators not being allowed to even vote or lobby other legislators on issues of their major donors. The most simple mind can see that power and influence is bought and sold at the expense of our nation and our state. Most every issue from medical insurance and the high cost of health care to out of control tort cases and waste of tax dollars is tied to the buying and selling of politicians. Will it ever change? Not a chance.

Sorry, Bob, but it looks like the 10th Circuit has just recently decided that political speech actually is protected by the First Amendment, so you might be disappointed in your wish to curb our free speech rights. More to the point, history shows that your call for curbs on campaign contributions is useless or worse. The money finds its way into the process, one way or another, and when people like you start demanding more curbs on contributions, we get more independent issue ads, which tend to be nasty, and which no one can control. I'd personally rather let people donate whatever they want, and then just require transparency, so that I can know just who is contributing to a candidate. That way, our citizens actually get to retain some of their freedom, and the process can have real reform.

....I thought the election for Governor was in 2008 and then in 2012. Where does the D-News keep getting this "2010" date from??

I hope the voters of Sandy are not swayed by all the cash that Greg Curtis has, and they get a new representative. Curtis needs to move on. Two terms of his House of Representatives leadership has been two terms too long.

The only reason why we can't officially call it "corrupt" is because they have purposely blocked any processes of accountability and control.

This actually may be worse than bold-faced corruption, since these fat-cat legislators have a puffed up sense of their individual moral high ground...it's just appalling to watch, and horrible to suffer under.