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Bob Bernick Jr.: Legislators shouldn't use staff for political gain

Bob left out one of the critical facts: Senator Urqhardt's wife is a paid staffer for Bailout Bob.

Its one thing to be political and support one candidate over another - you can't take politics out of politics - that i can respect even if I disagree.

But its immoral to sell your office and its corresponding power so that your wife can keep her job past the convention on a pretense.

What's the matter Senator, are your billable hours too low this month to pay the mortgage?

I'm really disappointed to hear about Sara Urqhardt. She is a good person, and from what I have read the indictment of the gentleman accussed of a ponzi scheme is sound.

Let me throw out an idea. We pay legislators $80k a year and then make them report every penny their family earns and post it publicly.

Let me tell you, if the people of Utah knew all the financial arrangements our Utah legislators had they would vomit! An accountant Senator is elected to Senate leadership and suddenly he lands several big contracts with firms that have legislation before the Senate.

I've generated a list of these types of conflicts before. They are wrong and the simple way to fix them is to have the light of day shine on them.

Paying them full-time may not be the right answer but we need to think along these lines. We need to shut down incentives for corruption.

There is political corruption in Utah, no different really than every where else. I've always thought that the was an ethical gap in Utah politics and business, and it is funny to think people think they are more ethical than people elsewhere. Ain't so.

The most egregious example of "staff" being used for political purposes is the Speaker's Chief of Staff, Chris Bleak. Greg Curtis considered Chris his personal "henchman", using him to do some of his dirty work, and involving him in the pathetic Mark Walker scandal and fiasco. Why should a full-time staffer whose salary is paid by Utah taxpayers be involved in political "stratgegy sessions" like the ones Curtis held at Mimi's Restaurant with the likes of Mark Walker, Steve Hunter and other lobbyists in the days leading up to Walker's ethics investigation?

I didn't see a word about Jim Matheson here. His entire congressional staff is hard at work keeping their boss in office.

JMT... FYI, legislators are not paid anywhere near $80K a year. Even with money designated as "expenses" added in they're lucky to get $20K. House members get less than that, Senate members a little more. Irrelevant to the discussion, of course, but just wanted to clarify that.

The article is limited on specific examples of controversial legislative audits. Bernick is right that the grounds for conducting many legislative audits COULD be interpreted in terms of political motivations. But instead of using his personal lens to interpret the GROUNDS for audit requests, it would be more compelling, meaningful and reasonable to conduct an analysis of all recent legislative audit reports and show whether the office's REPORT FINDING regularly concur with the premises of audit requests made by a particular party's legislators (and disagree with another party's). My hunch is that the Office of the Legislative Auditor General's professional objectivity would be supported. Bernick, however, only offered his personal observation and didn't sustain it with any pattern of evidence.

Education receives a huge chunk of the state budget. Shouldn't the state conduct audits to ensure that monies are being used efficiently and that objectives are being met? Since when did we start criticizing the legislature for trying to make improvements to public education in Utah?

Sara Urquhart is just like her pathetic husband. Their unethical and corrupt conduct doesn't surprise me nor would it surprise me to learn that those who voted for him did so knowing who their neighbors were and just how unethical and corrupt they were since those who voted for him are likely to have the same kind of ethics.

Corrupt politicians!! You're kidding!!!

It's already against the law to use State resources for your campaign.

This includes using State Employees (when they are on the job getting paid by the State and not your campaign). That's why Rocky Andersen was fined back when he was in office for distributing campaign related email using the State email system.

It's not only 'unethical' but 'illegal' to use State resources for your campaign. State funds, computers, letterhead, etc (including PEOPLE being paid to do the STATE's business and NOT your campaign's business) should NOT be used for your personal campaign or any political party. They work for the STATE... not your party or your campaign.

Taxes collected from the People supporting both or neither party pay State Employee salaries. These funds should NOT be expended and used to advance any individual politician's career or any specific political party's agenda.

The law is already there. The problem is getting the political machinery to prosecute often enough to get politicians's attention and make sure they know they will get caught and prosecuted when we find people using State resources for their personal campaign.

and legislators wonder why there's a citizen's initiative for ethics reform.

if you're really, really rich, vote for republicans. they'll keep your taxes low.