Sutherland Institute - Ethics Reform Initiative

Sutherland Institute Newsletter 1/14/2010

SUTHERLAND INSTITUTE FORMALLY OPPOSES ETHICS REFORM INITIATIVE

Sutherland Institute hosted an Ethics Forum on Thursday, January 14, in an effort to increase awareness of specific provisions in the ethics reform initiative proposed by Utahns for Ethical Government (UEG).  Sutherland opposes the proposed initiative.

Following brief presentations by UEG spokesmen Kim Burningham and David Irvine regarding the 21-page initiative, Sutherland President Paul Mero presented a series of questions to them in an effort to clarify and shed light on particular aspects of the proposal. 

“We agree with Sutherland Institute on the need for ethics reform in Utah,” Burningham said.  “We disagree on the particulars of how it should be done.  Sutherland is just being nit-picky about the tiny details of what we’re proposing.”

Burningham said the initiative is more concerned with the process of dealing with ethical issues in the Utah Legislature, and that Utah is “at the back of the pack” in the United States in terms of independent ethics commissions.

Mero concurred that ethics reform is needed, but that Sutherland disagrees with the premise and particulars of UEG’s approach.
As part of the forum session, Sutherland released a detailed analysis of the UEG proposal.  Conduct Unbecoming: A Critical View of the “Government Ethics Reform” Initiative can be read at www.sutherlandinstitute.org.

“The reasonable opinion that power and money are corrupting influences is far from the unreasonable opinion that any person with power or money has been corrupted or behaves in an unethical manner and deserves to be treated as a second-class public servant,” Mero wrote in the analysis. “Perhaps the Initiative’s authors might consider renaming its effort ‘The Independent Prosecutors Office of Utah Legislators.’”

Questions posed by Mero during the forum focused on the constitutionality of the initiative, its practical applications, definitions of terms, and implications. 

An archived recording of the forum including all of the event’s proceedings can be found at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ethics-forum.

Sutherland Institute’s full analysis of UEG’s proposed initiative can be found at http://sutherlandinstitute.org/uploads/A_Critical_View_of_the_Government_Ethics_Reform_Initiative.pdf.

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