Lawmakers gave final approval Friday to landmark legislation that would create an independent ethics commission with no sitting legislators on it.
SJR3 would change legislative rules and take effect as soon as it is enrolled in official form, with no action required by the governor.
Sen. John Valentine's legislation would establish a five-member commission made up of retired judges and lawmakers and set up procedures for how it will function.
The Senate said no thanks Friday to an amendment that the House inserted the day before.
At issue was how much information should be shared between this complaint-screening panel and the House and Senate ethics committees, which ultimately receive the information if allegations are found to have merit.
The resolution would require complaints to first be filed with the chairman and vice chairman of either the House or Senate ethics committees, to be checked for technical compliance. If all is in order, the complaint goes to the new commission, which proceeds to investigate the allegations in grand-jury style, behind closed doors.
Two companion bills also passed to keep those procedures and deliberations secret and related documents off-limits to the public, aimed at protecting the reputations of accused legislators if allegations turn out to be frivolous or lack evidence. Those deliberations remain private unless the accused lawmaker asks to have them released in order to clear his or her name.
The House amendment required that notification of the dismissed complaint be sent to the appropriate ethics committee leaders.
Valentine worried that it would give legislative ethics leaders "unrestricted access" to the entire complaint.
"We really wanted the commission to be independent of the Legislature and this would have diluted that independence," he said.
The House agreed to abandon the amendment Friday and SJR3 won final approval.
Utahns for Ethical Government -- backer of a comprehensive ethics reform initiative -- already questioned that independence, because the legislative ethics committee chairman is the first to screen the complaint.
"In other words, the Legislature is the gatekeeper for what the commission can investigate," the group's Web site, www.utahethics.org, lists among the reasons SJR3 is "same song, different verse."
