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Tonight Senator Urquhart - newly-appointed chair of the Senate Ethics Committee - published this about the ethics bills we've been reading, discussing and refining. The best part:

. . . our package of reforms. I’ll start by repeating – first drafts (meaning ideas that have not been reworked by political process) are rarely perfect. Therefore, I don’t pretend that our package is perfect. The proposals will go through the process, and the specifics will be modified and improved. Please participate.

A. We contemplate asking the citizens to amend the Utah Constitution to create an independent ethics commission. Because of the Utah Constitution’s separation of powers provisions, each branch polices itself (and voters police all 3, through elections). Thus, it is necessary to amend the Utah Constitution, to allow for outside policing. This was done, for example, when the Judicial Conduct Commission was created, in order to allow citizen complaints to be considered by a group other than the Judiciary.

B. We contemplate establishing the particulars for the operation of the ethics commission along the lines of the Judicial Conduct Commission, with judges and former legislators considering complaints and making recommendations for action to the house where the member serves. I have the privilege of being 1 of 4 legislators to sit on the Judicial Conduct Commission, and I believe the process works well and is one to emulate. The key is to create a workable path for complaints to be raised and considered, so that problems can be addressed without unnecessarily ruining careers and reputations with unfounded accusations. In the political arena that is a tough balance to achieve, since a mere accusation can turn an election and, if unfounded, effectively disenfranchise voters.

C. We contemplate further tightening provisions relating to gifts, meals, disclosures, and campaign contributions. We serve at the pleasure of the citizens, and citizens want us to make a change here. So, we need to do it.

Third, the path from here to there. We’ll run these proposals through the legislative process. The process calls for criticism, critique, give and take, modification, etc. No doubt, the media will have a field day writing that the Legislature is about to explode with fights between the House and Senate and Republicans and Democrats. Sure, we’ll disagree some. And you’ll be well served by that disagreement. Hopefully, you’ll help foment some of that disagreement and discussion. Each body and party will complain that the other is moving too fast or too slow or too this or too that. But, we’ll keep it together, and I predict that we’ll take the public’s input and move the issue forward.

I'll post links to specific bills as they become available.

Disagree? Lay out your case in the comments.

3 Comments:

 dhmonson said...

Personally, I have reservations about the legislature farming out responsibility over ethics to a third party. To me, it sends the message to the public that legislators are unethical, and so they cannot handle the responsibility to deal with unethical legislators. Based on my experience that is not true, though there are some exceptions.

However, if you are going to establish an external policing body, why not also strengthen the avenues available to legislators to exercise their internal ethical compass, and then protect legislators who practice such ethical conduct by protecting them from investigation?

For instance, why not put a lawyer or two under the commission whose primary job is to give opinions on the ethics of actions that legislators are contemplating, but have not taken yet, and want advice on. Most importantly, protect legislators who take this preliminary ethical step by stipulating that if a legislator receives a "clean bill of health" from a commission lawyer before taking an action, they cannot then be recommended for an investigation or a punishment by the commission for that action (though they could be investigated if the lawyer told the legislator the action was unethical, but the legislator went and did it anyway). If the lawyer consistently gives flawed opinions in the eyes of the commission, the commission could replace him/her.

I have been told that the lawyers at leg. research more or less serve in the role of ethical counselor. But, as I understand it, no protections exist for legislators who show their ethical conduct by tapping into this resource. Further, the lawyer serving in this role needs to be answerable to someone other than the legislature. Otherwise the public perception will be that the lawyer will be under pressure to protect legislators rather than encourage ethical conduct, and so the integrity of the institution of the legislature will suffer.

Such protections will be all the more meaningful if a third-party ethics commission is created. They will re-emphasize the reality that a legislator's most valuable and important safeguard against unethical conduct is their own moral compass (as expressed by their willingness to get an outside opinion on whether or not what they want to do is ethical).

Derek Monson

1/27/2010 10:21 AM  

 Joan Evans said...

Any time you have a group of people with the power to change the lives of citizens in their community, there needs to be another group of people watching them to ensure that their decisions and actions are always in the best interests of the public they serve. Power can and does corrupt the week and/or sleezy.

This watchdog group must also have the power to make these actions public, and issue sanctions to those representatives who cheat and/or use their office/position for their own personal gain. Their existance would be worthless without that kind of power.

However, the watchdog group itself must also be accountable to the public, and to ethical rules when making issues public and/or issuing sanctions. They should also have a representative who ensures that there is a consensus among the group before actions are taken or issues are made public.
It would be wonderful if we could get a group of judges together to participate in this watchdog group.

1/30/2010 11:59 AM  

 Brad said...

I am strongly in favor of a third party group or commission to monitor the ethical behavior of the legislative branch of government.

We in Utah have had the good fortune of having ethical legislators for the most part. We have had much less need for strong ethics rules and regulations than other states. By and large our legislators have had a strong “internal moral compass”, as stated by a previous commentator. Yet there is still a need for Utah to have an enhanced system of checking and balancing the ethics of the legislators, even if it is just for their own protection. The people of Utah would have more confidence in their legislators. Legislators would be protected from the pressure of outside forces to commit unethical acts. It would help to avoid the appearance of wrong doing.

The legislators themselves should be on the forefront of strong ethics rules with a third party group to make sure that such rules are followed.

2/05/2010 8:02 PM  

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