Comments about ‘Utahns strongly back reforming ethics rules for state lawmakers’

You have got to be kidding! It took the election of a Republican to try to bring some semblance of sanity to congress. Perhaps it would take the election of a few Democrats to do the same thing in Utah. There is, after all, a reason for a two-party system. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The article indicates that if the ethics initiative passes some legislators may not seek re-election. GOOD!!!! These are probably the ones we don't need in office. It was never intended by our Founding Fathers that political office would be a career. Maybe some of our National Legislators should not seek re-election as well. The "obstructionism" that has gone on regarding the health care debate is wrong.

They brought it on themselves.

I think the public really started getting mad at the legislature about the time the voucher debacle happened. Then it became charter schools. Then we found out that several legislators were either running charter schools or ran a business building charter schools. Either way they were benefitting financially from the bills they were running.

The public has said time and time again that all we want is properly funded schools were our kids can learn. Yet time and time again the legislature has tried to bring down our schools and teachers. I just don't get it.

I guess being fed up and finally standing up for what we believe in is the only way to get the legislature to listen.

Too bad because they have a tough session ahead of them and now no matter what they do, the ethics debate is going to get most of the attention both inside and outside of the legislature.

Before you jump on, read the initiatives. Just as Obama wasn't the Messiah, these proposals are not the cure for all that ails Utah politics.

if the legislature pushed hard to pass meaningful ethics reform, rather than trying to do the bare minimum just to make this issue go away? Unfortunately, doing the "bare minimum" is their stock in trade, with funding for our public schools being the prime example.

If the Founding Fathers did not want politics to be a career then why is is that term limits were NEVER put in the Constitution at its inception? Jefferson spent most of his adult life in political office . Why is it that we now make the Founding Fathers out to be some sort of demi gods? They were just men who did the same thing politicans do today.If you actually look at the history most of the Founding Fathers were career politicians and not these "Guided by God " Saints people tend to make them out to be today

No cure all. There are incremental steps. When a powerful body operates with a tin ear there is a reaction. It's taken years to get this far. Look at the numbers--support for reform is real.

Notice the difference.

The people of Utah support this ethics change.

The Utah legislator does not.

so we spend how much taxpayer money to put laws into place just to tell our "public servants" how to be ethical and honest?

'Ridiculous, so we spend how much taxpayer money to put laws into place just to tell our "public servants" how to be ethical and honest?' - 9:34 a.m.

I agree, this is a 'no-brainer'. But just as we have laws against murder and new anti-bias laws in SLC to protect people's jobs due to a persons orientation (and if you've gone through puberty, odds are you HAVE a orientation) we also must create and enforce ethics laws in Utah.

If they were not needed, why does Utah legislator fight it?

Politicians want to accept unlimited money, use it for whatever they want, in whatever way they want, with no accountability.

Utah taxpayers (the real ones, not the lobbying group run by Sen. Stephens - yes Virginia, Senator Stevens is a lobbyist AND a senator.) I was saying - Utah taxpayers want meaningful ethics reform. We want to take our legislature off the auction block. Legislators, being the auctioneers as well as bartered goods, feel differently.

Being against "ethics" is like being against "world peace". Ergo, everyone is in favor of ethics. No story there. But people need to read the language in this 21-page proposal. Hitler would have been proud. It actually switches the burden of proof to the accused -- which both the Utah Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have said is unconstitutional. And it provides that taxpayer funds will be used to pay private attorney's to defend the accused legislators. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my money going towards roads and schools, thank you very much.

Nothing in the first comment has anything to do with career politicians. That commenter was addressing the utility of having a two-party system - to bring balance to legislative actions. As things currently stand in Utah, there is no balance, and the ruling majority party has no need (nor desire) to involve the minority party in important decisions. We Utahns recognize the flaw in operating this way within the District of Columbia, but we are slow to recognize it here on the Hill. Furthermore, it is not just that our legislature does not believe that the public should demand ethical behavior from them; they do not even have the ability to recognize that they are doing anything unethical. One must remember that "ethics" are relative - what may be ethical to you may not be so to me. To the majority party, anything that strengthens their power to control the legislature is ethical, even if it means supressing public knowledge of an event, position, or behavior by one of their own that might be considered to be unethical by a reasonable person.

Vouchers, nuclear waste, Jazz tickets, being able to personally use your leftover election funds.

Nah we don't need any ethics reform.

Still with everybody being for ethics & world peasce, our leaders have yet to accomplish either.

You might be right. It might be a poorly written law. However, there is no accountability for our legislators. The get re-elected no matter what. This is our only recourse to idiotic utah votes. Yes, I am a utahn, mormon, white, heterosexual, mostly conservative. But I do have problems with my people voting only republican. Otherwise, why would people like Buttars and Stephens keep getting in office?
Ethics reform law is our only chance of getting a say in our politics in Utah.

RE: Read the Initiative | 10:17 a.m. Jan. 20, 2010

That would be nice if the money were going to roads and schools, but if that were happening, why do our roads and schools suck so much?

Because the legislature isn't acting in the best interests of the populace, they're acting in the best interests of themselves and the corporations that bribe them.

Energy Solutions is all I need to hear to know that we need ethics reforms.

"With ethics scandals in 2008"

For example...?