Standard Examiner Editorial: "Ethics Reform 101"

A WCF plea for all Utah media to keep up the ethics reform drumbeat

As our Weber County Forum mid-day story, we highlight the fine editorial appearing this mornings Standard-Examiner. The Std-Ex gets right to the point, and minces no words. These are the Std-Ex's minimal three elements of ethics reform for Utah legislators during the 2009 legislative session. The Std-Ex appropriately calls it "Ethics Reform 101":

• No gifts period, and that means no exceptions for meals, events, or awards. If a legislator wants to accept something offered, pay for it.
• No personal use of campaign funds — and that includes unused campaign funds.
• No quick passage from legislative service to lobbying. The “cooling-off” period should be a long while, say years. That would allow influence a former legislator might have with colleagues to wane.

The Std-Ex asks much more of our 2009 legislature, of course:

We know there are many more aspects of ethics reform to discuss. They include how many legislators can sit on an ethics panel, how the public can file an ethics complaint, the role of an independent ethics commission, how legislators file ethics complaints against each other, and potential voting restrictions on legislators with conflicts of interest on an issue.
We expect all of these issues to be debated and resolved. But we want Utah lawmakers to understand that ethics reform is not just an administrative procedure to be ironed out. Ethics reform is crucial because our Legislature has fallen into a culture of entitlement. Freebies are grabbed by elected public servants who rationalize that their public “sacrifice” entitles them to a meal, or night at a sports event.

Nevertheless, the Std-Ex's above three points represent the core of meaingful reform, in our never humble opinion. We believe the people of Utah should settle for nothing less.

The Standard-Examiner has of course been well aboard the legislative ethics reform bandwagon for many years. Numerous previous editorials on this topic have appeared on the Std-Ex pages before. Somehow, however, it seems to us that today's editorial is presented with far more precision and urgency than during the tenure of former editorial page editor Don Porter. Today's tone comes closer to a demand than to on-the-knees begging. Perhaps it's the Std-Ex's installation of the very forthright Doug Gibson in Porter's place that makes for what we perceive to be a drastic difference in editorial tone.

We hope the Standard-Examiner will not let up on this; and we hope the other broadcast and print media in Utah join in the fight, regularly hammering Utah's legislative leadership to finally -- and once and for all -- pass meaningful legislative ethics reform.

So far it seems that some in the legislature still haven't quite gotten the message that the lumpencitizens of Utah are serious about this.

We thus thank the Std-Ex for this morning's editorial and urge all Utah media to keep up the mighty ethics reform drum beat.