I am aware that our Legislature is part-time and that there may be instances where it would be impractical for legislators to recuse themselves from voting (e.g., a dentist not voting on medical issues, a teacher not voting on education issues).

What concerns me is when legislators are appointed to and sit on boards of organizations that lobby the Legislature and then do not recuse themselves from voting on issues dear to those organizations. These legislators are appointed to these boards after they are elected to office, and in many cases they vote in favor of the organizations they serve. Cases in point are Sen. Curtis Bramble and Reps. James Dunnigan and Stephen Clark, all of whom were appointed to Intermountain Health Care boards during their legislative tenures. There are many others with similar kinds of conflicts.

One must ask two important questions. Would they have been appointed to these boards if they were not legislators? Is the reason for their appointments to influence voting?

In most other legislative jurisdictions, even the appearance of a conflict is enough to require recusal. Why? Because even the appearance of a conflict undermines the public's trust in the legislative process.

Then, why not here in Utah? Why should we be below the acceptable standard when it comes to ethics? We need to tighten the existing conflict-of-interest statutes to eliminate this practice.

Steven DeVore

Orem