The Salt Lake Tribune reported today about a package of ethics bills being presented at the Legislature. There are four bills, and according to the Trib, there’s a group of GOP representatives who are leaning more toward more disclosure than banning of things like gifts.
But the distribution of the bills touched off a series of “what if” hypothetical questions from House members, and a general desire among GOP senators to report more gifts rather than ban them altogether, said Senate President Michael Waddoups.
“We’re inclined to think that disclosure is a better thing than prohibition, because prohibition tends to turn well-meaning acts into criminal acts,” said Waddoups.
I tend to like that idea, as I think if you ban gifts you are just encouraging them to be handed under the table. I definitely think you can’t stop gifts, dinners, sports tickets, those types of things, so it’s better to just put them all in the light of day than to ban them outright. I personally don’t care if a senator or representative accepts tickets to a Jazz game from EnergySolutions as long as I KNOW they accepted them, how many times they accepted them, and more.
One of the bills would ban gifts from lobbyists, including tickets to sporting events or golf fees, that exceed $10. Meals are not capped. But would have to be reported if the value exceeded $15, unless they were offered to a larger group of lawmakers.
Again, let’s apply the KISS rule here: Keep it simple, stupid.
Make the rule that if a legislator accepts a meal for $14.96 at Chilli’s (except Sen. Waddoups, because that’s a bar and he’d dare not be seen at a seedy place like that) then they report to the public exactly what they ordered, how much it cost, date, time everything. If Senator Joe Blow orders chicken club tacos and a diet coke, then report just that on the record and let the public decide what that means to them.
