Two measures, SB102 and HB101, would more closely regulate disclosure of gifts to legislators.

Sponsored by Sen. Greg Bell, SB102, calls for the lobbyist gift disclosure threshold to be reduced from $50 to $10.

Rep. Jeff Alexander's HB101, widely supported in the House, would set the disclosure limit at $5 for gifts and $50 for meals, and require more reporting.

The public is increasingly dissatisfied by what they perceive as inappropriate relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists, Bell said.

"The public is asking us to be open and transparent about what we do," he said. "There is a perception that lobbyists have an inordinate amount of influence because of these expenditures."

Within half an hour, SB102 was dead and HB101 was neutered.

But not before Sen. Howard Stephenson, a Draper Republican, launched into an attack on the media for driving the Legislature to what he sees as disclosure extremes.

"We are giving an irresponsible media more fodder to demonize the Legislature," he said. "We are giving them too much fodder to destroy us."

The media consistently paints lawmakers, he said, "as crooks on the take."

Stephenson, the only sitting legislator who is also a registered lobbyist, said, "The problem is ethics in the media, not ethics in the Legislature. . . . We have a media that is about making money."

Sensational reporting frightens away candidates for office and is a threat to representative democracy, Stephenson said, noting a recent Salt Lake Tribune profile of Rep. Carl Duckworth that he said was mean-spirited yellow journal- ism.

"The media has to pursue its prey like a swarm of killer bees, using snide innuendo and invective to attack their prey."

Stephenson later acknowledged that the quote was not his. It is from an address by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Gordon B. Hinckley made at the 1990 General Conference on "Blessed Are the Merciful."

Hinckley's precise words (aimed at "critics in the media" who attack government and other leaders) were: "They are prone to take a line or a paragraph out of context and pursue their prey like a swarm of killer bees. They lash out with invective and snide innuendo against those who have no effective way of fighting back or who, in the spirit of the teachings of the Master, prefer to turn the other cheek and go forward with their lives."

Stephenson first tried to increase HB101's disclosure limit to $100 on gifts and meals, adjusted annually based on the consumer price index.

But Bell, a member of the committee, complained, "this would bring shame on the Senate if we pass this out. It would look like a cynical effort to raise the limit."

Stephenson compromised, reducing the limit for disclosure to $50 - which already is in current law. But under the amended bill the amount would be adjusted upward annually in line with inflation.