As the several scandals in the Republican administration of Salt Lake County have unfolded over the sultry 2004 summer, one of the latest revelations is that Workman's chief public relations officer, Ted Phillips, has done work on his private advertising business in his office at the Salt Lake County Government Center.

Phillips noted he filed a conflict of interest notice with the Salt Lake County Council and has done nothing improper. Apparently, Workman and most other officials in the county were aware of Phillips' business activities and seemed unconcerned.

Yet what Phillips did, whether proper or not, is nearly identical to what former Democratic Salt Lake County Treasurer Art Monson and his deputy Lonnie Johnson allegedly did to warrant felony charges filed by Republican County Attorney Ted Cannon in the mid-1980s.

Republicans, at the time, supported Cannon's actions and saw no problem with the felony charges for activities strikingly similar to those they see no problem with a bureaucrat in a Republican administration doing today.

In other words, it seems it's a crime if you are a Democrat, but OK if you are a Republican.

Monson was charged with misuse of public resources for allegedly doing work from the treasurer's office on a construction company he owned with his son. Johnson was charged with illegally doing work for the Salt Lake County Democratic Party in the same office.

Unlike the dignity afforded Workman when she was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail and released on her own recognizance last week, Cannon made sure the television cameras were at the treasurer's office to record officers handcuffing Monson and Johnson and hauling them off to jail.

Not one Republican official questioned Cannon's actions.

After lengthy and costly legal proceedings, a jury found Monson innocent. Then, in perhaps one of the most mean-spirited acts by a Salt Lake County official, Cannon dismissed charges against Johnson so the county would not have to pay his hefty legal fees in the event he was acquitted by a judge or jury.

Although, under the law, Johnson did nothing wrong, he spent years paying off the expenses incurred by the prosecution. Not one Republican complained.

There are some Republican lobbyists and others who fear Workman is now unelectable and they are uncomfortable with Democratic candidate Peter Corroon and independent Merrill Cook. In fact, Democrat Frank Pignanelli and Republican Fred Lampropoulos were approached about undertaking a write-in candidacy. But another lesson in Utah political history is instructional here.

When Democratic Congressman Alan Howe was arrested in Salt Lake City for soliciting sex from a police decoy posing as a prostitute in 1976, the party could not persuade him to resign as a candidate. At that time, a candidate could resign and be replaced on the ballot by his or her party for any reason.

Five years later, the Legislature passed a bill sponsored by then-Sen. Fred Finlinson, R-Murray, that required a doctor's certification that the candidate was physically or mentally unable to run before the party could replace that candidate on the ballot. The Democrats followed that requirement in 1988 when they got a doctor to certify Salt Lake County Commissioner Dave Watson, who had been arrested for DUI in South Salt Lake, as medically unfit to run for re-election. Watson's ballot replacement then lost.

But Watson agreed to the plan. Howe had resisted all entreaties to step aside, so party leaders got Daryl McCarty, who had lost to Howe in the Democratic Primary two years earlier, to run as a write-in.

Stickers with McCarty's name were printed for voters to attach to the ballot and the Democratic Party Central Committee endorsed McCarty over Howe.

In the end, McCarty's vote percentage was too small to have made a difference in the race, which Howe lost by 40,000 votes to Republican Dan Marriott.

The Howe episode was disastrous for Democrats that year. Longtime Democratic Sen. Ted Moss lost to Republican upstart Orrin Hatch. Democrats lost control of the Utah House and most other races. But they somehow won the governor's seat with a candidate named Scott Matheson, father of this year's Democratic gubernatorial hopeful.

Republicans are hoping the Workman scandal won't have anything like the same impact.

prolly@sltrib.com