Interesting and informative Deseret News article this morning, reporting on the latest developments regarding the Utahns for Ethical Government (UEG) citizen legislative ethics initiative petition drive, which we've been hawking here on Weber County Forum for the past few months. Bob Bernick Jr.'s lead paragraphs provide the gist:
Want to know more about the citizen legislative ethics initiative?Utahns for Ethical Government — the initiative sponsors — and legislators who oppose the measure are sparring through online conversations, allegations and responses.This morning's story provides links to two initiative opposition memos, one of which links doesn't work. For the benefit of our gentle readers, here are functioning links to the Hillyard document, and the Fowlkes document respectively. We're sure that those of you with a taste for obtuse legal jargon and chain of of consciousness rambling will find these papers to be much to your liking.
You can read the 25-page petition online at utahethics.org.
At that site you can also read a response from UEG over what it calls "misinformation" that has been "taken out of context" from the petition itself and from seven public hearings held around the state to get residents' input.
Meanwhile, at least two legislators — Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem, both attorneys — have written their own legal analysis of the initiative, pointing out what they say are numerous unconstitutional, illegal or otherwise problematic elements in the proposed new law.
For those of you however who like it short and to the point, we encourage you to read the UEG's 25 issue point and counterpoint brief, as it appears on the UEG webpage page linked above, and which we'll present to our WCF readers in easily-digestible pdf (and printer-ready) form. We believe this document handily covers all the major points.
What's obvious is that initiative opponents are attempting to obfuscate and confuse the issues. As you'll discover from a reading of the above-linked pdf document, it really ain't so complicated as the initiative opponents would lead you to believe.
And for those Emerald City/Weber County residents who've been anxiously waiting to put your signatures on an actual UEG petition, we're delighted to this find further pertinent information. According to information which we've gleaned from the UEG website, petitions await your signatures at the two following centrally-situated Ogden locations:
Joyce Wilson (Weber County)What are we waiting for, WCF readers?
979 27th
Ogden, UT
801-941-1613
Ogden-Weber UniServ (Weber County)
939 25th St
Ogden, UT 84401
801-399-3746
Let's all put our ethically-challenged legislature's feet to the fire, and make plans to sign the petition this week.
