Ethics reform slams into a big brick wall
Measures falter — despite public opinion surveys
But in the end, bills that would have required greater lobbyist disclosure, banning of lobbyist gifts to legislators or setting up independent commissions to oversee legislative ethics all died.
The gift disclosure bills died after Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, blasted the media in a Senate committee. Stephenson's rant has become infamous, spawning hits to listen to the recorded speeches on the Legislature's Web site and letters to the editor in local newspapers.
Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, had a bill that would have required registered lobbyists to name legislators who took gifts valued at $10 or greater. House Majority Leader Jeff Alexander, R-Provo, had a bill that would have lowered the naming threshold to $5 or greater. Neither bill would have banned any gifts.
But Alexander's bill was gutted in the Senate committee — and then failed to advance — while Bell's was voted down.
Legislative Democrats had a package of bills — one was a gift-ban bill by Rep. Pat Jones, D-Cottonwood Heights. The House passed Alexander's and Jones' bills, but representatives correctly predicted they had little chance in the Senate.
Most of the GOP leadership team were for it, Bell said. But influential senators, both Republicans and Democrats, were against more disclosure of lobbyist gift-giving, he said. And his bill was sent to a committee where it was killed in a bipartisan vote.
The bottom line, said Bell, is that "many senators just don't think there is a problem" in legislators taking gifts from lobbyists.
Polls show that huge majorities of Utahns want lawmakers to either give more disclosure of who is taking lobbyist gifts or ban the gifts outright. But Bell says on this issue public sentiment means little — there is a core of senators who go their own way, paying little attention to the media and/or public opinion.
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com
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