Student ethics committee created

In January, around the time the 2009 Utah Legislature session was about to start, Weber State University junior Adam Gardiner was approached about starting a project. "I was approached by the head of the Richard Richards Institute," Gardiner said. "He asked me if students would be interested in doing a little project he had in mind which was to take a look at current ethic violations and ethic codes at the Utah Legislature and reform their codes to make them more ethically acceptable." That conversation led to the creation of the Weber State University Student Ethics Committee (WSUSEC). The committee consists of eight students, four democrats and four republicans. "What they did was look at the issues before the legislature, the 2009 session, some of the bills that passed and did some research on other states and their ethic reforms" Nancy Haanstad, the Department Chair of Political Science said. "And then they made their own recommendations for ethic reforms." The group of students put their findings from the research and their recommendations into a 26-page paper. "The recommendations they have in here are to benefit the credibility to the public if they have in [the report] are to benefit to the credibility to the public if they have that kind of transparency," Haanstad said. "I think that it will help a lot with the apathy that makes a lot of people feel like there is no point in voting or participating that it is just dirty politics." Since the research and interviewing had to go with the 2009 legislative session, the students had to get as much done as they could within the 45 days the legislature meets. Interviews included contacting the 16 legislatures, 10 of them agreed to interviews and a group of 5 students interviewed the members that were split evenly among the republicans and democrats. "I interviewed quite a few law makers and that was very neat to get their personal insights that you don't get from the media," Gardiner said. The report gives recommendations for four issues: Independent Ethics Commission; campaign finance; lobbying, gifts and meals, and redistricting. According to the report, recommendations include having seven members appointed by the governor, minority and majority leaders of each house, and the supreme court chief justice for the Ethics Commission. Other recommendations include not accepting any gifts given to the legislature from lobbyists that are over $10 in value. "Our whole goal was to get our recommendation into the hands of legislation and the public and have the public say 'this is a great idea, we think the legislature should do these recommendations'" Gardiner said. Haanstad said that the Legislature asked that two of the recommendations for the independent redistricting commission and the independent ethics committee be taken off the agenda for the Governor's Commission. The process is ongoing. On June 30, the group of students met with Lt. Gov. Gary R. Herbert and Governor Jon M. Huntsman and presented their recommendations. The WSUSEC has two opportunities coming up. One is a presentation for the Governor's Commission on September 24 at WSU. The other chance will be at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. "This project is a cornerstone of an ongoing project," Haanstad said. "We anticipate that students will continue to do research on different areas of politics and that this is the first of many." As another way to get WSUSEC's voice heard, Gardiner, who is currently working for Congressman Rob Bishop, has passed on a copy of the report to Bishop. "Hopefully we can get national offices to look at it too." The full report can be found on the Richard Richards institute website at weber.edu/polsc/Richards_Institute.