Maybe Utah lawmakers have seen the light and simply want to hold themselves accountable.

Or maybe they're hearing footsteps, as members of Utahns for Ethical Government pound the street gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to institute far-reaching legislative ethics reform.

Motivation aside, one has to view a proposed resolution that cleared the Legislature's Interim Ethics Committee last week as a positive step toward ethical governance.

The measure, if approved by the Legislature, would establish an independent five-member ethics commission with subpoena powers. Composed of retired judges and former lawmakers, the commission would serve as a grand jury of sorts, gathering evidence, holding hearings and screening complaints filed against sitting state lawmakers. The bill would also allow private citizens to lodge ethics complaints against legislators.

It would be a better bill if the ethics complaint process were more transparent, if commission members were not handpicked by legislative leaders, and if the commission sat in actual judgment of accused lawmakers instead of just screening complaints and making recommendations to legislative ethics committees.

The commission would operate secretly. Complaints would be sealed, a gag order would be imposed on all participants and commission meetings would be held behind closed doors. And a complaint wouldn't be made public unless, and until, it were forwarded to either the House or Senate ethics committees for formal adjudication. Punishment could include censure or expulsion from the Legislature.

Still, it's good medicine for a sick system, similar in some ways to the independent ethics commission composed of citizens that the UEG's ballot initiative would establish.

But, without the rigid code of legislative conduct that's part and parcel of the ballot proposal, the commission proposed by the Interim Ethics Committee is not a cure for unethical government.

The ballot initiative includes a gift ban, limits on campaign contributions, a prohibition on spending campaign funds for personal expenses and other key provisions that would hold the Legislature to a high standard. It is supported by 35 former state lawmakers and former Gov. Olene Walker, but opposed by the Utah Republican Party and legislative leaders, who can't seem to see the handwriting on the wall.

Lawmakers should adopt all of these common-sense proposals contained in the initiative into law, or risk having the electorate do it for them.