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.
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.
Hillyard's analysis can be found at: www.senatesite.com/Documents/2009/EthicsDraftMemo.pdf, while Fowlke's work can be found at: utahpolicy.com/featured_article/rep-lori-fowlke-analyzes-ethics-initiative.
No doubt other online analyses will become available as the debate over the initiative picks up over the next 12 months.
In a memo titled "Setting the Record Straight," UEG supporters say they debunk 19 specific misstatements now argued by initiative opponents.
UEG leads off with the argument that Democrats and others who want to weaken the GOP control of state government are behind the initiative.
It is true that the initiative is supported by both former GOP and Democratic legislators, and by former GOP Gov. Olene Walker, as well as political independents as the UEG memo states.
But it is also true that a number of the initiative supporters were active in repealing the Legislature's private school voucher law in 2007, a bill that was supported by most legislative Republicans and signed into law by former GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
GOP leaders say anti-voucher backers, emboldened by their victory at the polls two years ago, now seek — via the strict ethics proposal — to beat back conservative agendas in the current Utah Legislature.
Some GOP legislators say UEG's real goal is to paint initiative opponents so darkly as to defeat them in the 2010 or 2012 elections.
One House Republican says he believes UEG wants to gather enough signatures by mid-November to get the initiative before the 2010 Legislature. There it would likely be defeated by conservative GOP lawmakers. And UEG, like anti-voucher advocates did in the 2008 legislative elections, could then use that vote to defeat conservative lawmakers in the 2010 election — when the ethics initiative would be on the ballot.
Even though 85 percent of Utahns currently support the initiative (a Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows), if Utah GOP leaders can turn the ethics initiative debate into a partisan fight — Republicans vs. Democrats — their chances of defeating the initiative at the ballot box will greatly increase.
UEG chairman Kim Burningham, a former GOP House member, denies any ulterior motives, saying his group just wants proper ethical behavior by Utah lawmakers, something legislators and residents alike should seek.
And, he says, because legislators have proven they won't adopt strict ethical rules themselves, it's fully proper for Utahns to do it for them through the initiative process.
In a broad sense, moderate GOP legislators and Democrats opposed the voucher bill in the 2007 Legislature, while conservative Republicans passed it into law (by only one vote in the House).
That led to the bitter and expensive battle over the repealing referendum (which was passed by Utah voters 62-38 percent in November 2007).
UEG supporters want help in gathering the 95,000 signatures required today from the same organizations — like the Utah Education Association and the PTA — who successfully fought against vouchers two years ago.
However, there are also some new groups active in the ethics petition drive, like the Utah Chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons, who didn't participate in the voucher fight.
As of now a group of GOP legislators is the main force standing against the ethics petition, although GOP Gov. Gary Herbert just this last week came out against the initiative.
GOP state chairman Dave Hansen says he personally opposes the initiative and believes the governing committees of the Utah Republican Party will oppose the initiative at a later date, as well. And others may join the anti-ethics initiative movement in the days ahead.
The anti-voucher fight of 2007 cost nearly $8 million when the pro-voucher and anti-voucher spending was added up.
It's difficult now to see who would bankroll such costly efforts over the ethics initiative.
The board of the UEA (the main public teacher union) has voted to support the UEG petition. That opens the way for the National Education Association to stand with the UEA, as it did in the anti-voucher fight. The NEA poured around $3 million into Utah in 2007.
Pro-voucher supporters in 2007 also took large amounts of funding from education reform groups, and nearly $3 million from one individual.
Will the NEA and those pro-voucher groups/individuals want to spend millions of dollars over a Utah legislative ethics fight in 2010, when it doesn't deal directly with public education?
Will local lobbyists or business who seek GOP majority support in the Legislature donate to an anti-initiative campaign?
Answers to those questions will likely wait until UEG either gets its initiative on the ballot (the deadline is April 15), or fails to get the number of signatures required.
e-mail: bbjr@desnews.com