The rule is to be posted online Sept. 1, kicking off a 30-day public-comment period.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the board on Wednesday that the state can expect to be sued if lobbyists continue to hand out information to legislators in the chamber and committee room areas while others may not.

Private citizens would be relegated to the main entrance of the West Building, where the Legislature is meeting while the Capitol is being renovated.

Attorney Brian Barnard, who represented several groups that successfully sued the state after not be allowed to hand out leaflets during the 2006 Legislature, said he agrees. The lawsuits filed by his clients led to the new rule being drafted.

"Everybody needs to be treated equally,'' Barnard said. "If lobbyists can be in that area and lobbyists can hand something to a legislator in that area, then everybody else should be able to. ... We've got discriminatory treatment and we've got unequal access in that forum.''

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, and House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, said they feared it would be disruptive to have such activities by private citizens.

"It's not just the noise associated, but trying to move between committee rooms,'' Curtis said."If it's just packed with people, that's going to disrupt the process.''

He said lobbyists typically are "not standing out there leafleting.''

Lobbyists usually send notes in to individual House or Senate members while they are in session requesting a chance to speak for particular legislation. That option is also available to members of the public.

Last session, many lawmakers were unhappy when advocates for resumed funding of a dental program for the poor elderly and disabled handed out pictures of decayed teeth outside the House and Senate chambers and committee rooms.

Shurtleff said the new rule would prohibit those "folks milling around there with pictures of bad teeth'' though we're still going to have all kinds of lobbyists passing out their literature.''