Friday, June 17, 2011

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial: Conflict of Interest - Utah's Laws Are Way Out of Line

The latest SCOTUS decision, holding that states can make laws banning their state legislators from promoting their own personal pecuniary interests, becomes a merely interesting academic footnote here in BassAckwards Utah

The SLTrib adds grist to the discussion mill on Wednesday's Weber County Forum topic, with a strong editorial this morning:
Interestingly, this morning's Trib editorial cites the U.S. Supreme Court case, Nevada Commission on Ethics vs. Carrigan, (those who are capable of reading and understanding should read it), which was also mentioned in Tuesday's Ogden Ethics Project blog article, in which case the U.S. High Court unanimously ruled "that state laws banning lawmakers from voting on matters where they stand to gain personally not only are constitutional, but a basic feature of American law since its founding."

Sadly however, current Utah legislative ethics rules (such as they are) contain no provisions preventing self-serving and ethically-challenged greed-heads like Utah State House Rep. Johnny Anderson from pursuing their own private pecuniary interests (and legislatively tormenting their "perceived" business competitors) while "serving" in the Utah Legislature. So, this latest SCOTUS decision becomes basically an "academic footnote" here in the bass-ackwards State of... dare we say it (?)... Zi-On.

Needless to say, we're desirous of hearing from our gentle readers on this.

Any takers?

1 comment:

althepal said...

Weird isn't it that Utah, the most one party, Taliban style state   political state in the USA, also  has the most lax ethics laws in the friggin' nation.

Go figure.

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