This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If Utah state Rep. Johnny Anderson were instead a member of Nevada's Legislature, he would be banned from so much as debating a bill that he is prepared to introduce, and vote for, in the Utah House. The U.S. Supreme Court ratified that fact just the other day.
But Anderson serves in the Beehive State. So he is outside the reach of both the Nevada law and Monday's forceful, and unanimous, Supreme Court ruling that found state laws banning lawmakers from voting on matters where they stand to gain personally not only are constitutional, but a basic feature of American law since its founding.
Anderson is the owner of a for-profit day care center, and is the paid executive director of the Utah Private Child Care Association. In that capacity, he is steamed about the many nonprofit child care centers, many of them sharing space with public schools, which he says unfairly compete with his business. In his capacity as a state legislator, he is proposing that the state change the rules to undo that situation.
If that is not a conflict of interest — plainly illegal in, as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, "virtually every state" — then no such animal exists.
The case is Nevada Commission on Ethics vs. Carrigan. In it, Sparks City Councilman Michael Carrigan tried to undo Nevada's Ethics in Government Law, which he had been found to have violated by voting in favor of licensing a casino — The Lazy 8 — promoted by a longtime friend who also served as his campaign manager.
Carrigan said such a law was a violation of his First Amendment rights of free speech. The Supreme Court said Carrigan was full of it.
A lawmaker, Scalia wrote, does not own his or her vote, but holds it in trust for the people. He ticked off a long list of laws and rules, from coast to coast and from 1791 forward, that prohibit members of Congress, legislatures and councils, as well as judges, from voting or ruling on matters in which they have a personal interest.
Utah was not among them. That means that there is no legal impediment to Anderson's plan to draft, introduce, argue for and vote on a bill that will, if passed, be of undeniable benefit to his personal financial situation.
It is also a bill that would undermine the current system in which schools and nonprofit organizations join to provide child care facilities for families who very much need them at prices that are within reach, doing harm not just to them, but to the entire community. Just so Anderson can make a buck.
In civilized states, this is called a prohibited conflict of interest. In Utah, it's called business as usual.