The Utah Legislature is trying to be a little bit more ethical. It's a welcome shift from years past, when legislators have claimed that keeping or swapping campaign cash or accepting $49.99 gifts was as ethical as they were going to get.
Nevertheless, there has been some improvement, initiated by legislators' real fears that a citizens ethics initiative -- if it gets on the ballot and is passed this fall -- will impose a level of ethics they don't feel comfortable with. Such levels include a complete ban on gifts and an ethics investigation procedure that does not hinder public access to the investigation.
That brings us to Senate bills 136 and 138, sponsored by Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem. Valentine is the sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 3. SJR3 establishes an ethics commission and details how complaints can proceed. Not surprisingly, SJR3 is a very weak measure crafted, in our opinion, more to protect lawmakers rather than uncovering ethical violations. Our concern today is with Valentine's companion measures, SB136 and SB138. Both are deliberate efforts to make sure the media, and the public, are hindered in their access to ethics investigations.
SB136, if passed, amends the state open-meetings law so that the ethics commission investigates complaints behind locked doors. SB138, conversely, makes sure that any documents related to an investigation that fails to get four votes in the commission are forever banned from public scrutiny. Unless four out of five ethics committee members agree that an ethics complaint moves forward, the matter dies a very silent death.
Although the legislative majority doesn't realize this, you cannot have strong ethics in government without an open government. Exempting a legislative ethics commission from the Utah open-meetings statute is by itself unethical. We agree with Linda Petersen, president of the Utah Foundation for Open Government, who says that at the very least, legislators should release ethics investigation findings after a commission is finished.
Valentine's trio, SJR3, SB136 and SB138, are feeble half-measures. We wouldn't even be getting this ethical gruel from lawmakers if there wasn't the possibility of stronger ethics initiatives in the future. We urge readers to sign the Utahns for Ethical Government petition to get the citizens ethics reform initiative on the ballot. Voters can sign the petition online at http://ueg.utahpetitions.org/
Related link: This column is a topic of discussion at Weber County Forum.
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