Evans alleged that Democrats - despite the GOP's majority - are attempting to take county government back to its days of corruption. One Democrat, Councilwoman Jenny Wilson, has proposed eliminating an eight-month-old prohibition on donations from entities that do business with Salt Lake County.
"Removal of the ban is a step backwards," Evans said. "They will be putting themselves in the same back-scratching boat as before. I can think of only one reason why a contractor would give money to an official in county government - influence."
While Wilson made the proposal, the alleged skullduggery could not be accomplished without Evans' fellow Republicans, who hold a 5-4 majority.
At least one of those Republicans, Councilman Marv Hendrickson, says he won't vote to remove the ban.
"We will bring it up for discussion, and that will bring these things out in the open," he said.
Wilson's proposal, scheduled for a vote today, would allow contractors to donate $2,000 up to three times in an election cycle - a total of $6,000. It also would slash from $5,000 to $2,000 donations from individuals, who also could donate three times during the cycle.
In addition, it would cap at $10,000 total in-kind donations from political parties.
But Evans contends it's all a "smoke screen" being directed by Mayor Peter Corroon and his fellow Democrats to take the county back to the days of influence peddling.
"This is a direct contradiction to their pledge to clean up county government," Evans said. "You can't clean up county government with your hands in the pockets of those doing business with county government."
Wilson, however, maintains that keeping the ban in place leaves Salt Lake County in jeopardy.
Her proposal takes into account a New Jersey case where the courts found banning political contributions from contractors to be unconstitutional. In that case, Wilson said, the U.S. Department of Transportation withheld highway dollars from a county that had such a ban in place.
"In a perfect world, we would keep the ban on contractors," Wilson said. "We could ignore the New Jersey decision, but it seems silly to play this out in court again."
