Today’s Deseret News looks at the inevitability of conflicts of interest the come from having a part-time state legislature. Here are a few excerpts:
As a citizen member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission several years ago, Becker said he pushed new conflict of interest rules for commissioners. “If you had any interest” in a pending commission action, “you had to declare it, and then you left the room. You didn’t discuss the change with anyone, you didn’t debate it, and you didn’t vote on it. Those tough rules served us well. And I think similar rules could serve the Legislature well,” Becker said.
Becker is a nonpracticing attorney who heads a local city planning/environmental consulting firm. He lists all his firm’s clients on his legislative conflict of interest form. And he believes other legislators can do the same thing, especially attorney/legislators.
“There may be a rare — and it would be rare — instance where (an attorney/legislator) can’t list a client because of attorney-client privilege. But by far most of the times they can.” That’s because it is no secret who a lawmaker/attorney represents, their names may be on court documents or readily known within the legal community.
Yet no practicing attorney/legislators list those clients on their disclosure forms.
“These job-related connections (of all legislators) can affect a legislator’s financial or personal situations, and certainly can impact their judgment” on an issue before the Legislature, Becker said.
Becker lists on his form all of his planning clients — a rarity in the Legislature. From certified public accountants to dentists to lawyers and engineers, many legislators who carry clients refuse to name those clients. No lawmaker/attorneys list their clients on their forms, although they say when they have a conflict, they verbally declare it before they vote without naming their clients.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Hooray for St. Ralph!