Strong editorial in Saturday's Salt Lake Tribune, calling for ethics reform in the 2009 legislature. The SLTrib editors start out by drawing a bead on Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, who's already in the lead in the State Legislative Perks Sweepstakes, with $1,500 already "pocketed" in 2008, according to this year's 1st quarter lobbyist disclosures, now on file in the Lieutenant governor's office. Fifteen-hundred bucks is of course chump-change compared to the $135 thousand in freebies his other legislative colleagues have collected and/or consumed since the beginning of the year. As the Trib editors point out, the current legislature is on a sound trajectory to "eclipse" last year's record of $279 thousand in legislative freebies and perks. The editorial then lets loose with this verbal volley:
Opinion polls indicate that nearly two-thirds of the public can no longer stomach a Legislature that eats, drinks and makes merry on the lobbyist dime, then too often does the bidding of the companies and organizations that underwrite these affairs. And it's safe to say the majority is sickened by a Legislature that cashes campaign contribution checks, from donors expecting big dividends. And a Legislature that repeatedly fails to investigate conflicts of interest by its members, then forces them to vote even when they admit a conflict exists.Editorials such as this are of course a perpetual rite for Utah newspapers; yet Utah voters typically ignore all such editorial admonitions, and continue to vote for the same corrupt crowd, despite stirring pleas from editorial boards across the state. And lacking political vulnerabilty at the polls, the "same old crowd" naturally thumbs its nose at ethics reform, with each passing legislative session.
The committee should recommend a complete ban on gifts of any sort to lawmakers and their families. Holding a public office entitles you to a salary, a per diem and the right to represent the people who elected you, nothing more.
It should recommend campaign finance reform, including a ban on corporate donations, strict limits on individual contributions, and an end to the shameful practice of allowing lawmakers to keep what's left of their funds when they resign, retire or lose an election.
And it should recommend formation of an independent ethics commission to investigate conflicts of interest and other cases of questionable conduct involving lawmakers, instead of leaving lawmakers to police themselves.
That would be the ethical thing to do.
Being the curious type, we navigated to the Lieutenant Governor's site, to take a gander at the April 7, 2008 disclosures mentioned in Saturday's editorial. Finding the necessary information isn't easy. In order to track individual legislators who received lobbyist gifts and perks during the first quarter of 2008, an Utah citizen has to go to this page, initiate a search, and view the quarterly report of each individual lobbyist (499 of them in all) one by one. What the Lieutenant Governor's Office would do, if it sought to be in more than bare compliance with the Lobbyist Disclosure Law, would be to provide a means for individual citizens to cross-link lobbyist disclosure data by the names of their individual legislators. The Lieutenant Governor's Office doesn't do that, unfortunately, for reasons which are all too obvious to the cynical among us.
Bully to the Salt Lake Tribune for Saturday's strong editorial. We doubt however that the voters of Utah will ever turn out the crowd of trough-slurpers and gift-grabbers who presently occupy seats in the state legislature, until complete lists are generated, cross-linked and indexed (or made searchable) under each individual legislator's name. Until more easily digestible information is available to lumpenvoters, its likely that fine editorials like the one above will continue to fall upon deaf ears.
Before closing, we invite any readers with a little extra time on their hands to go to the above link, initiate a search and drill down. There's plenty of tantalizing information there, such as the 2/13/08 date, wherein lobbyist Rey Butcher dropped $700 in "dinners" on state legislators Valentine, Curtis, Bramble, D. Clark, Lockhart and Hickman at the Alta Club.
And be sure to check out the performance of Ogden City's lobbyist Robert Jolley. He's a Big Spender just like his boss - Boss Godfrey. According to his own self-submitted reports, he merrily greases the palms of dang near every important senator and representative in the legislature. Dinners seem to be his specialty; golf is evidently a sideline.
Tedious as this research source is -- it truly is an eye-opener. Try it.
Comments, anyone?
6 comments:
One would think that this would be worth a spot on the evening news. But "news" like this is not reported and instead we get the latest on the voting of American Idol. Thanks for the link!!
My own preference would be a "not so much as a cup of coffee" law, banning sitting legislators from accepting so much as a cup of coffee from anyone with business pending before the legislature, or who may reasonably expect to have business pending before the legislature.
The "not so much as a cup of coffee" standard would remove the great stress our elected officials [municipal, County and Legislative] apparently feel having to decide what is allowed and what is not, having to parse the rules carefully ["Hmmmm, the greens fees at Posh Resort are $95 a round, way over the $50 reporting limit, but if my lobbyist buddy buys me two nine hole rounds at $47.50 each, does that mean I don't have to report them?"]. We can save them all that angst with the "not so much as a cup of coffee" standard.
Of course, it would also be a good idea to recognize that legislative life in Zion is now so significant, and legislative responsibilities are not limited to the six week term and special sessions. We should recognize that being a good legislator is a full time, year round job, and pay them accordingly. That would do two things for the public:
1. We could then require that legislators NOT have another job, that the legislature be their full time employment for the duration of their terms. So the parade of part timers who are actually real estate agents or car salesmen or developers or nuclear plant developers for most of the year, and legislators only briefly in order to forward their full time job interests, would end. Or at least be significantly reduced. "Want to sit in the legislature, Real Estate AGent Doe? OK, but you have to quit your real estate job if you win." "Want to be a state senator, Chief Greiner? OK, but you have to resign as police chief of Ogden if you win. Being a legislators is now a full time job with full time pay. You can't do that and be police chief too." And so on.
2. And since we are going to pay them a full time salary for full time work, we can legitimately ban their taking "so much as a cup of coffee" from lobbyists or others with business before them. And we should.
It is rather crazy, for example in the Ogden City Employee Policy manual, employees are not permitted to accept gifts while in the work place or in doing businees in their job with the city. But it's perfectly okay to have elected officials ie; the Mayor give city funds as incentives, or look the other way on code enforcements for the pigs who contributed to his campaign.
Double standard? I believe so.
I am frankly aghast that the affections of our state legislature can be bought for so little.
Maybe it's a really good cup of coffee.
There must be something in the water......
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