Legislators say gifts make up for sacrifices

By Bob Bernick Jr.
Deseret Morning News
Published: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 8:35 p.m. MST
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Senators killed one legislative ethics bill and so drastically changed another that its sponsor didn't want his name on it during a Wednesday committee hearing that turned into a media-bashing event.

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, himself a registered lobbyist, gave a nine-minute tirade during the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, calling the local media and reporters various names.

Stephenson blamed the press for Utahns saying legislators shouldn't take gifts from lobbyists paid to influence them.

An early January poll for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV by Dan Jones & Associates found that 68 percent of Utahns want more disclosure of lobbyists' gifts to lawmakers — the main goals of both SB102 and HB101 — while 76 percent of Utahns want lobbyist gifts to lawmakers banned all together.

But the committee voted 5-1 to kill SB102, sponsored by Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, which would have lowered the dollar threshold for lobbyists to report gifts to legislators.

Stephenson, with the approval of Sens. Curt Bramble, R-Provo; Darin Peterson, R-Nephi; Brent Goodfellow, D-West Valley; and Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, then substituted House Majority Leader Jeff Alexander's HB101 with a new bill that would have raised the lobbyist gift-giving reporting threshold from $50 per gift to $100 — just the opposite of the bill's intent.

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Bell, the lone vote against gutting the bills, said actually raising the reporting level — when Bell's and Alexander's bills would have lowered it — "would bring shame on the Senate."

Stephenson then changed his motion to take out the $100 reporting level, keeping the current $50 reporting level, and the much-changed HB101 then passed out to the Senate floor.

Alexander was not pleased, commenting several times on the committee's actions and saying he didn't want to be sponsor of the bill any more.

In explaining the sacrifice made to serve in the Legislature, Peterson choked up with tears as he said he missed the smell of his beautiful wife's hair and the companionship of his six children as he had to spend 45 days away from them during the general session.

He said he would never do anything to besmirch his family's good name — implying that the media reporting on public lobbyists' reports harm's the Legislature's image.

Stephenson blasted the news media as "irresponsible" in trying the "demonize" and "destroy" good legislators. He said the media lack ethics while commenting on the ethics of legislators.

The public lobbyist reports are used to "crucify" legislators who have done nothing wrong, said Stephenson, who called it appropriate to spend downtime attending Utah Jazz games or eating a $100 meal with lobbyists as solace for "those empty evenings" away from their families and businesses.

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