GOP legislative leaders may have thought they dealt with the broad issue of ethics reform in the 2009 Legislature.
But two citizen groups strongly disagree. And Wednesday, in separate press conferences, they talked about the citizen initiative processes they are now beginning.
If either group can get the necessary 94,552 signatures of Utah registered voters by next April, their initiatives, which would create independent ethics and redistricting commissions to make recommendations to the House and Senate, would be placed before voters in November 2010.
It won't be an easy task for either group.
The Legislature itself set the signature-gathering bar pretty high. But leaders of both groups, Utahns for Ethical Government and the Fair Boundaries coalition, believe they can do it.
While members of each group may support what the other is doing, they will operate separately, leaders said in press conferences on the Capitol steps.
Kim Burningham, State School Board member and former GOP House member, is one of the leaders of Utahns for Ethical Government. He listed, point by point, areas where Utah's ethical standards are sub-par — ethical investigations of lawmakers, campaign finance, gift-taking by lawmakers and influence of special interests and lobbyists.
Legislators did pass some ethics laws last session, he said, but they were weak and didn't address the core issues, like proper conduct by lawmakers and reducing the influence of big money and special interests in shaping the Legislature's agenda.
Most legislators are honorable, Burningham said. But lawmakers, especially the leaders, are good people trapped in a bad system. Utahns, through polling and other measures, clearly want these reforms, he added.
One of the state's most popular current Democrats along with a one-time Republican political powerhouse shared a podium at the first gathering at the Capitol on Wednesday, and they affixed the first two signatures to the petition in support of the Fair Boundaries initiative. The group's goal is to allow voters to decide whether an independent commission should redraw legislative and congressional voting districts. It recently lost a legal challenge to the $1 million price tag levied on the plan by the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. The Utah Supreme Court ruled late last month that the amount, which pays for both the independent commission and a parallel effort on behalf of the state Legislature, was appropriate.
Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon along with former Republican Congressman Jim Hansen ignored their political affiliations to issue a call for a new body to take the post-census task of reconfiguring voting districts out of the legislators' hands.
"This issue is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it's a good government issue," Corroon said. "It's about allowing the voters to decide who their political representatives should be rather than the political representatives deciding who is going to vote for them."
Hansen, a former Farmington mayor, state legislator and 11-term congressman, said continuing to allow the Legislature to draw new districts every 10 years perpetuates a clear conflict of interest.
"I believe very strongly in the Legislature," Hansen said. "But they have a problem, and I've lived through three of those as a congressman, and that is when it comes to reapportionment."
Both Hansen and Corroon noted that the current system undermines political dynamism and competition within the individual districts and contributes to low voter turnout, a problem highlighted in the 2008 general election where Utah ranked second to last in the country for getting people to the polls.
House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, who recommended eight separate ethics reforms last year (but most weren't passed by the Legislature), said he's disappointed that Burningham and others won't let the Legislature work through the issue over the next few years.
"We have a bipartisan special ethics committee working this summer. I would hope the people (of Utah) would let us finish that" before jumping ahead and passing initiative law themselves.
However, Clark said, like with vouchers in 2007, when voters speak in adopting or repealing a law, he personally will accept that voice, and believes other legislators will as well. Thus, if new ethical and or redistricting laws are enacted through the citizen initiative process, lawmakers wouldn't try to repeal or significantly change those new laws, Clark said.
e-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; araymond@desnews.com