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Legislative leadership is bought and sold on the Hill
By Kim Burningham
Jul 23, 2010 (Salt Lake Tribune Editorial)The best leadership results when people of high integrity demonstrate an impressive example of skill. Followers are eager to have such people take the lead. Unfortunately, in many instances leadership instead has been bought by favoritism, family relationships and money.
The Utah Legislature has had all kinds of leaders. Some of these rose to the top through excellence. Others have risen to the top by other means. When such is the case, the people pay the real price.
One former speaker of the Utah House, Greg Curtis, served in that position for two terms using strategic placement of money to assure election.
Curtis amassed a bank account in excess of $300,000 largely contributed by lobbyists. According to Bob Bernick Jr. in the Deseret News (Jan. 8, 2008) Curtis “gave much of his campaign donations to fellow GOP house members…hopefully, endearing them to vote for him as speaker one more time.”
Sen. Sheldon Killpack was a leader in the Utah Senate before his resignation was prompted by a drunken driving charge. Many expected that he would run for a leadership position again. He gathered nearly $200,000 in contributions, coming heavily from lobbyists. As the 2008 election approached, Killpack contributed to many fellow senators or candidates who were up for election including $5,000 to Dan Liljenquist; $5,000 to Steve Urquhart, $3,000 to Mark Madsen, $5,000 to David Hinkins, $5,000 to Carlton Christensen, $3,000 to Alan Christensen, $10,000 to Carlene Walker, and $5,000 to Scott Jenkins. Alliances cemented by money have become commonplace in the Utah Legislature.
House Speaker David Clark intends to run again for speaker. May that explain why Clark is currently giving donations of money to potential Republican members who will later vote for their leader? Or is he simply generous? (In any event, he’s not spending his money; it comes from lobbyists and special interests.)
Even before the primaries were held, Clark had started peddling dollars to potential members of the House. Clark’s June 15 financial report indicates that since the first of the year, he has received more than $120,000, the majority from special interest groups. He has contributed between $1,000 and $3,000 to at least a dozen other men who were running for office.
The candidates were located throughout the state from Logan to Murray and from Draper to Kanab. Most of them have never served before, and for some reason Clark was eager to help them get elected.
Some recipients cover the bases. They accept donations from legislators who may end up vying against one another in election competitions. For example, Kenneth Ivory, who is running for office in the West Jordan area, accepted a $3,000 contribution from Clark, but also accepted a smaller contribution of $250 from “Friends of Carl Wimmer.” Wimmer has been mentioned as a potential challenger to Clark.
Verifying all the giving that has taken place from potential leaders to legislative candidates is not yet possible. Wimmer, for instance, reports zero campaign expenses or contributions. Although most legislators did file a report of campaign expenditures due on June 15, several others (usually highly visible legislators like Wimmer) report no campaign expenditures.
I doubt those reports are true. Likely they are accepting contributions or sharing money through political action committees. Such committees are not required to submit reports with the same frequency as candidates. This may be a deliberate effort to circumvent the current campaign reporting law.
Because of the Utah legislative session’s brevity, and also because the leadership assigns legislators to committee membership, legislative leaders control much of what happens in the Legislature. Where lobbyists supply money, and leaders use that money to increase influence, much power is transferred to a few leaders and the lobbyists who influence them.
Leadership candidates dismiss suggestions about “purchasing votes” by arguing that they are friends helping friends. Perhaps. However, the insidious nature of these transactions is that the recipients of leader largesse then are hooked — they dare not cross the givers of money, lest the spigot be turned off.
“Party discipline” comes at a real price to the public interest, especially where donors’ private agendas come up for a floor vote. Curtis made a very public show of absenting himself from discussions about a deal involving the St. George airport which stood to earn a good deal of money for his employer. He didn’t have to be in the room; everyone knew what he wanted — and the price of opposing him.
The current system is just another conduit for lobbyist money to control the process. (Note: The statistics cited in this article are all registered on the public web sites. See .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Go to the tab, “Public Search” and browse under “Candidates and Office Holders.”)
Contributions from one legislator to another cited above are not illegal under current Utah law. The law needs changing. The safest approach would be to prohibit such exchanges of money. The Utahns for Ethical Government initiative petition does precisely that. If would-be leaders want to help their friends, they should do so from their own wallets, not somebody else’s.
Leadership should be earned by capable performance, not purchased.
Kim Burningham is a former member of the Utah Legislature, chairman of the Utah Board of Education and chairman of Utahns for Ethical Government.
Misleading e-signature rule
July 10, 2010In response to the Lieutenant Governor’s announcement yesterday of a rule purportedly allowing electronic signatures on initiative petitions, UEG Chair Kim Burningham denounced the announcement as “misleading the Utah public and media outlets who announced the rule without having actually read it.”
For the LG’s office to announce that e-signatures would be allowed effective immediately and then to state in the rule itself that they will be allowed only when witnessed by a petition circulator is to “take away with the right hand what has been announced with the left hand,” added Dixie Huefner, UEG Communications Chair. Alan Smith, UEG attorney, referred to the announcement and content of the rule as “double speak.”
The primary purpose of electronic signatures is to allow a supporter of a citizen petition to sign electronically using the internet when the person does not have access to a paper petition. To require that a paper petition circulator verify the electronic signing by witnessing it to confirm its authenticity defeats the whole purpose of electronic signing. It also runs counter to the current ability of a paper petition circulator to both sign a petition and then verify the authenticity of his or her own signature on the same packet. Many other official and commercial transactions use e-signatures without the need for a witness. For instance, when you pay your taxes via email, no one needs to witness the signature.
The “interim rule,” announced yesterday by the LG takes effect immediately—prior to any comment period. As such, it presumably constitutes “an emergency rule,” prompted by a unanimous opinion of the Utah Supreme Court that electronic signatures are valid for purposes of a candidacy for public office. The Utah court also noted that electronic signatures may be less susceptible of fraud problems than are paper signatures.
Burningham asserted that “once again, the LG’s action demonstrates the lengths to which state officials will go to thwart UEG’s ongoing petition drive to place an ethics reform initiative on a future general election ballot.” UEG is continuing to collect signatures to meet an August 12th deadline. UEG’s previous e-signatures have already been rejected by county clerks under a ruling from the LG’s office, an action that UEG is currently preparing to contest in court.
UEG also intends to challenge this latest rule as an unauthorized exercise of authority by the LG.
Legislative Code of Conduct
June 21, 2010Today Utahns for Ethical Government is releasing to the media a copy of the memorandum it sent to the Joint Senate and House Interim Ethics Committee. The memo was sent in anticipation of the Ethics Committee’s June 23rd meeting, at which the Committee will be addressing how to strengthen and improve its current code of conduct. UEG Chair Kim Burningham has been invited to present UEG’s suggestions in person at the June 23rd meeting. He will be accompanied by UEG Executive Committee member and drafting attorney David Irvine.
Said Burningham, “Many portions of the current code are widely recognized as so vague as to be unenforceable. If the Legislative Ethics Committee is intent on improving the code, we believe that it should take our suggestions seriously.” Added Irvine, “Adoption of UEG recommendations would help to build public trust in our Legislature, assuming, of course, that the code is then rigorously enforced and that appropriate and skilled training of the Legislature is conducted.”
“UEG is pleased that the Legislative Ethics Committee is interested in improving the code of conduct and we are happy to contribute our suggestions to the Committee,” stated Dixie Huefner, UEG Communications Chair. “We want to be supportive of their effort while also continuing to move forward with our own ethics reform initiative and our August 12th signature gathering deadline.”
The memorandum follows.
Memorandum
TO: Joint Senate and House Interim Ethics Committee
FROM: Utahns for Ethical Government
DATE: June 4, 2010
RE: Suggestions for Revisions to the Legislative Code of Official ConductIn response to Senator Urquhart’s invitation for public comment on revisions to the current code of conduct, we offer a number of suggestions that we believe deserve consideration. We recognize the difficulty of capturing the appropriate balance between broad principles and explicit prohibitions and hope you will work diligently to do so. We feel strongly that the current Code is inadequate and recall that the House Ethics Committee itself found some of the provisions of that Code impossible of enforcement.
As a preliminary matter, UEG believes that caps on campaign contributions and certain restrictions on solicitation of contributions are needed and would go a long way toward assuring the public that special interest money is not dictating legislative outcomes. We have assumed, however, that the Interim Ethics Committee may believe that these issues belong in the Government Operations Committee, where campaign contributions were taken up during the last legislative session. Therefore, we have not made suggestions about campaign caps in this memorandum although we are not dropping our interest in such matters. We continue to see campaign finance reform as directly relevant to the ethical operation of the Utah Legislature.
The wording below, relating to changes to the current Code of Official Conduct, may be capable of refinement by legislative counsel, but we hope that the intent is clear and reasonably specific.
A few of the terms (e.g., family members, personal advantage, personal benefit, paid lobbyist, person, control person) may require subsequent definitions for clarity.
- No legislator shall engage in employment as a paid lobbyist while serving as a legislator or for two years after leaving office.
Such prohibitions would have the salutary effect of reducing the risk of engaging in the kind of employment that would “destroy or impair” independence of judgment of sitting legislators. It specifies the kind of activity that is most likely to be perceived as compromising one’s ability to exercise independent judgment. It is narrower than the current code provision prohibiting employment or activity that would impair independent judgment, yet also more explicit. It recognizes the reality that part-time legislators naturally bring employment experience and knowledge that make totally independent judgment impractical and unrealistic.
- No legislator shall accept employment as a consultant, advisor, attorney, or employee of a paid lobbyist.
Same rationale as above.
- A legislator shall not use confidential information acquired as a result of legislative status to gain a personal advantage for the legislator or the legislator’s family members, nor shall a legislator use the legislator’s office for such personal advantage.
- A legislator shall not accept a gift, as defined in [code provision]* from a paid lobbyist.
- A legislator shall not accept any campaign contribution that is given, explicitly or implicitly, with the expectation of a return governmental favor by the legislator to the contributor.
- Legislators shall not be control persons in a corporation (including labor unions and nonprofits) while serving as legislators unless legislative status was not a contributing factor to the appointment and does not serve to provide the legislator with any personal advantage or profit.
- A legislator shall not threaten or exact retribution for a person’s failure to comply with an inappropriate request or demand by the legislator that exceeds the legislator’s legitimate scope of legislative authority.
- A legislator is expected to obey the civil and criminal laws of the state and shall not engage in any illegal conduct that reflects negatively upon the legislator’s fitness to serve as a representative of the people.
This would obviously require exercise of judgment by those given responsibility to judge the conduct. A parking ticket would probably not reflect upon a legislator’s fitness to serve, while multiple, unpaid tickets over a long period of time might so reflect, as evidence of disrespect for the law, unless there were extenuating circumstances.
- A legislator shall not attempt to discourage, by any means, the investigation or prosecution of any civil or criminal matter within the jurisdiction of another branch or level of government.
- A legislator shall not use government facilities or employees in furtherance of a purely personal interest.
- A legislator shall not attempt to unduly influence documents or opinions, including analyses and audits, prepared by public bodies and public officials in conjunction with any issue that is or proposed to be the subject of statewide initiative or referendum.
- A legislator shall not suggest that a lobbyist further the personal interest of the legislator or the legislator’s family members, by, for instance, suggesting that the lobbyist hire any of those persons.
- Legislators shall disclose any potential or actual conflict of interest on any legislation or legislative matter as provided in [code provision]*.
- Legislators shall not use their campaign money for personal use, as provided in [code provision]*.
- Legislators shall not give funds from their own campaign fund to other legislators, public officials, candidates for public office, political parties, or charities but shall keep the money for their own campaigns, as intended by the contributors.
- Legislators may seek an advance opinion from the Independent Ethics Commission with respect to any conduct that might be considered unethical. A written opinion from the Commission, when issued in advance of the conduct and which determines that the conduct is not a violation of the Code, would provide immunity from a complaint lodged against the legislator with respect to the specific facts addressed in the written opinion.
- A legislator who violates the Legislative Code of Conduct shall be guilty of an ethical violation and subject to procedures provided for in legislation or legislative rule and remedies as determined by the Legislature.
We think it is important to state explicitly in the Code that Code violations are ethical violations. The Legislature’s current code also refers to the criminal code section which provides that a violation of the Code constitutes a class B misdemeanor.——-
We support continuation of the substance of provisions requiring legislators to follow the procurement code process, as specified currently in (j), (k), and (3)(a).
——-
In this memo we have not attempted to suggest improvements to the related statutes enacted during the 2010 session—statutes regarding conflicts of interest and disclosure of assets, personal use of campaign contributions, and restrictions on lobbyist gifts. We do not think that these separate statutes are adequate as currently written. We assumed, however, that specific content related to these matters could be omitted from the Code of Conduct as long as the appropriate code citations are incorporated in the Code of Conduct. We further assumed that the Interim Ethics Committee would view the content of these statutes as outside the immediate scope of its concerns.
Thank you for the invitation to provide input. We would be happy to meet with members of the Committee and its staff to discuss and clarify any of the above recommendations. In a future memo, we would also be happy to offer our analysis of any relevant statutes, at your request.
* [code provision] refers to statutes passed during the 2010 session of the legislature relating to personal use of campaign contributions, disclosure of assets, and restraints on gifts from lobbyists, as the case may be.
Propositions Compared
March 2, 2010How do UEG’s propositions compare with those of the Legislature? Read this very informative document to find out.
Fiction vs. Reality
January 23, 2010Confusion and obfuscation abound on the subject of ethics reform. Read this document to separate fact from fiction.