For example, in Salt Lake County, the scandals of the past year have produced new ethics laws.

Will these new measures prevent unethical behavior in county government? No. Did the post-Watergate reforms of the federal government end corruption in the federal government? (That's a rhetorical question.)

It also is demonstrably true that ethics reforms sometimes backfire with unintended consequences. The abuses of the independent-counsel law in the post-Watergate era are an example.

Nevertheless, that does not mean that ethics reforms are pointless. In fact, acting Mayor Alan Dayton deserves credit for proposing the ethics package, and the County Council earned a pat on the back for passing it. Often, scandal gives impetus to reforms that should have been enacted in any case, which is what has happened here.

High on the list of the new reforms are two which should check the influence of special interests on county government. One prohibits contractors who do business with the county from contributing to county campaigns.

Another caps individual campaign contributions at $5,000 for countywide races and $2,000 for County Council seats that are elected by district. In this, Salt Lake County becomes one of the few Utah governments to enact one of the bedrocks of campaign-finance reform. The first was the town of Alta. Another is Salt Lake City, which caps an individual's donations to mayoral candidates at $7,500 and to City Council candidates at $1,500.

State government, by contrast, has no caps on individual donations. A sugar daddy could attempt to buy a statewide office or a legislative seat for a candidate and the only limitation would be that the candidate would have to disclose the donations in election filings.

There are other good-government planks in the county reforms. Lobbyists will be required to register, and all departments of county government will be encouraged to keep meetings and records open to the public.

None of these reforms will mean much if the public, political parties and news organizations are not vigilant. Records aren't useful if no one reads them. But the adversarial nature of the political process gives opposing parties an incentive to keep an eye on each other. That can be abused, but, in general, sunshine is better than secrecy.

One reform that did not pass is term limits. That failure actually was a good thing, because term limits can rob governments of experience and institutional memory. Besides, voters can impose term limits at the ballot box.

Ultimately, you can't legislate ethics. But a little encouragement doesn't hurt.