Monday, February 11, 2008

My colleagues from the D-News put a lot of work into ferreting out every potential conflict of interest at the Utah Legislature, and a pat on the back to them for doing it.

But I'm afraid that in this case the forest has a conflict of interest with the trees.

Here's my beef:

Utah law -- and pretty much every other conflict of interest law in the country -- defines a conflict of interest as when a policymaker receives a direct financial benefit as a result of an official action.

I ran into this problem when I spent weeks leading up to the session studying the conflicts legislators have and decided that it gets a lot trickier than it has been made out to be. In short, all conflicts are not created equal.

For example, does Sen. Jon Greiner, an Ogden police chief, really benefit financially because he sponsors more laws that cops will enforce? If so, what is he supposed to do in the Legislature? And what about Rep. Richard Greenwood, who is a former highway patrolman?

Does Rep. Sheryl Allen, the administrator of the Davis Education Foundation, really benefit from legislation to tighten reporting and auditing requirements after alleged and actual embezzlement at the Davis and Weber foundations (as outlined here)?

Compare those cases that are characterized as conflicts, with the recent Tribune story about current and former Utah lawmakers cashing in on charter school contracts and you get a good illustration of the ethical shades of gray we’re dealing with. here

So good job to the DNews for putting the time into this. But it seems that calling some of these cases "apparent conflicts of interest" and casting the net so broadly doesn't really do much to shed light on the actual conflicts of interest that go on at the Capitol.

-- Robert Gehkre