Utahns elected Bennett to the Senate the first time in 1992. That campaign opened with an expensive battle for the Republican nomination between multimillionaires Bennett and Joe Cannon. Bennett won the office, but ended up owing himself $1.6 million in campaign debt.

In the past two years, Bennett has recouped about $580,000 of that in donations from people or organizations that may have business before Congress.

It is not surprising that people would want to help Bennett out. He is the chief deputy majority whip, meaning that he is a top member of the GOP Senate leadership behind Majority Leader Bill Frist and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell.

Bennett also is a member of two powerful committees - Banking and Appropriations - and is chairman of the Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.

The people who have given money to help him retire his campaign debt to himself include bankers, corporate executives and lobbyists. While experts on campaign finance law say this all is legal, we believe it would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone in Bennett's position who has received such gifts to treat his benefactors the same as he would any other constituent.

Gifts are bound to affect the recipient's judgment. It's just human nature. That is why we believe that someone in Bennett's powerful position, a position of public trust, should not accept those donations.

The Senate already is derided as a club for millionaires, and people worry rightly that only politicians with large personal fortunes can afford to run for that office. If senators are seen to loan millions to their campaigns, then recoup those costs from donations from people with business before the Senate, that cannot be good for the ethics of the Senate or individual senators or the integrity of the federal government.