The good old boy network is alive and thriving in Utah politics. We're talking about the cozy web of entrenched Republican lawmakers, lobbyists and others who have become comfortable with being in power, are loyal to each other, and may have engaged in unethical and possibly illegal acts to protect each other.

Case in point: The recent rehiring of Robert Brems as president of the Utah College of Applied Technology. It was just two years ago that Brems was forced to resign from that same position under a cloud. A state auditor's investigation revealed that Brems had knowingly presided over an illegal use of state funds and the falsification of employee time cards to build a parade float for the Utah County Republican Party at the Mountainland Applied Technical College, a UCAT campus. Who asked the school administration to use public resources to build the float in the first place? Republican Sen. Curt Bramble.

Of course, that is unethical. A state-funded school shouldn't be bearing the cost in labor and materials for a political party's float. A state senator shouldn't even ask for such a thing to be done, particularly when that legislator was the Senate majority leader with power over that school's funding.

Someone had to take the heat, however, at least temporarily. The Utah State Board of Regents, which had oversight over the UCAT president, conducted an investigation and Brems was forced to resign. Bramble, who instigated the float request, emerged unscathed. Nor did the Senate Ethics Committee even investigate the matter. Who was co-chair of the Senate Ethics Committee? Curt Bramble.

Brems didn't stay out of his position for long. Current UCAT Board Chairman Tom Bingham, who is also a lobbyist and donor to Republican lawmakers, engineered a shadowy coup in which current UCAT President Richard White was forced from his job to make room for Brems to come back. Trouble is, Bingham and others on the UCAT executive committee broke the law by not publicly disclosing the names of the finalists or opening the process for input from the whole UCAT board and the public before announcing Brems as their choice.

Who will hold Bingham and the rest of the UCAT board accountable for this violation? Two years ago it was the Board of Regents. That won't happen this time. The Legislature passed a law in 2009 stripping the Board of Regents of oversight powers over the UCAT president and board, who now essentially govern themselves. Who is the chairman of the Senate Education Committee that passed the bill to free the UCAT board from Board of Regents accountability or oversight? Curt Bramble.

Is this how Utah government should work? We don't think so. We call on the governor and the Legislature to initiate a public investigation of the handling of this whole affair. We want the following questions answered:

» Why wasn't there a public ethics investigation two years ago into the role of Sen. Bramble in the float scandal?

» Was Rob Brems promised that if he resigned and was quiet about the details of the float scandal, he would be able to get his old job back before too long? If so, who made that promise?

» Did the UCAT board arrange for the new law to be passed at least partly to be able to engineer the ouster of White and the reappointment of Brems without oversight by the Board of Regents?

» Why didn't the UCAT Board follow state law on the reappointment of Brems?

In the meantime, Gov. Gary Herbert should put Brems' reappointment on hold until the investigation is completed, both by the executive branch and by the Legislature. That would only be in keeping with the governor's stated standards of ethical behavior. The governor was recently quoted in the media as saying, "We want to have transparency with regard to ethics." This is his chance to demonstrate whether he means it.

Ultimately, it is up to the people of Utah to pass strong ethics reform and to vote for candidates, regardless of their party, who will not engage in this questionable behavior. Real reform happens at the ballot box. Without it, the impunity and arrogance with which the good old boy network violates good ethics and the law will continue.

Richard Davis and Larry Brown are, respectively, chairman and vice chairman of the Utah County Democratic Party.