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OUR VIEW: Utah House nixes spending limits
Standard-Examiner Editorial, March 5, 2010We’d describe the latest effort by the Utah House’s majority party to strip away campaign spending limits as weaselly, but it would be an insult to compare weasels to campaign cash-grubbing pols.
Suffice it to say that earlier this week, House Bill 329 was sufficiently gutted to allow Utah to remain one of the handful of states that allows candidates to beg, borrow and gobble campaign cash without limits. The Utah House’s vote to change HB329 is a direct slap in the face to the Governor’s Commission on Strengthening Utah’s Democracy, which last year recommended spending caps.
This is why the Utah Legislature should not be trusted to enact ethics reform: Rep. Craig Frank, R-Cedar City, a member of the governor’s commission who had supported the campaign limits, publicly changed his mind and urged the House to reject limits.
Frank said the issue was one of freedom of speech. That must be news to the 45 states that have campaign limits, as well as our federal government, which also has campaign cash limits.
House Republicans also claimed that HB329 was flawed in its language and had to be changed. They point to new reporting rules involving electronic filing as evidence the bill is still ethics reform. If that’s the least that can be done, we guess HB329’s changes could be construed as “ethics reform.”
However, legislators had a chance to adopt the commission’s recommendations. Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, proposed capping donations at $40,000 for parties, $10,000 for state offices, and $5,000 for legislative offices. Needless to say, King’s proposal was defeated.
The legislative leadership is doing everything it can do to defeat legitimate ethics reform in this state. The fate of HB329 is just the latest example. It will be a travesty if the citizens legislative ethics initiatives fail to qualify for voter approval this fall. We urge people to sign the petitions. Information is at http://www.utahnsforethicalgovernment.org/index.php/ueg/petition/
If the Legislature’s leadership defeats this grassroots effort to promote decency in government, we really have to ask ourselves, why do we keep electing these people to high office?