A little-noticed proposal to change legislative rules filed late in the 2023 general session could have made it easier to expel Utah lawmakers from office, similar to the events in the Tennessee Legislature earlier this week. While that proposal did not pass, as it came too late in the session, the sponsor says he plans to bring the idea back next year.
On Thursday, the Republican supermajority in the Tennesee Legislature expelled two Democratic lawmakers for participating in a gun control protest at the state Capitol. The expulsions came after three Democratic legislators led chants from the House floor with protesters in the gallery last week. Republicans accused them of “disorderly behavior” and filed resolutions seeking expulsion. Tennessee state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are Black, were kicked out while, the vote to oust Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white, failed by a single vote.
There are two ways to dismiss lawmakers from the Utah Legislature. The first scenario could play out similarly to what happened this week in Tennessee. The Utah Constitution allows the Legislature to punish and remove members for “disorderly conduct” on a two-thirds vote. All that would be needed is for a lawmaker to file a resolution seeking another member’s expulsion, the same thing as what occurred in Tennessee.
The second method is for an ethics violation, which is a much more complicated process. Ethics complaints from lawmakers against a colleague require two or more members of the House or Senate to sign on. The filing must include evidence or sworn testimony admissible in a Utah courtroom. The public, too, can make an allegation of ethical misconduct.
Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, chair of the House Ethics Committee, proposed a third path. His HJR27 would give the Utah Senate President or Speaker of the House authority to convene an ethics committee to judge whether to send a member of the body packing, removing the requirement for two members to submit evidence or a sworn statement.
“What I am hoping to do is to clarify the process if there is a desire to punish a member and to have the ethics committee convene and make a recommendation,” Teuscher said. “That doesn’t mean they would have to go down that path, but they likely would.”
After an investigation, the committee could vote to censure, expel or take any other appropriate action.
During the 2023 Legislature, Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City and Sen. Mike Kennedy, R-Alpine, tangled during floor debate on a bill to ban transgender medical care for youth. Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, admonished Thatcher for his statements after Kennedy objected. Under Teuscher’s envisioned changes, it’s conceivable that Adams could have assembled a committee to possibly punish Thatcher.
Teuscher’s idea never got off the launching pad this year, coming too late in the process for consideration. He plans on bringing the proposed change to legislative rules back next year.
Past ethics investigations
Ethics complaints against lawmakers are exceedingly rare in Utah.
In 1998, then-House Speaker Mel Brown was accused of soliciting a post-legislative job from US West lobbyist Rob Jolley while the Legislature was considering telecommunication legislation. The House Ethics Committee cleared Brown of wrongdoing, but the controversy derailed his plans to run for a third term as speaker. Brown stepped down from the Legislature in 2000 but was re-elected to the House in 2006.
In 2008, Rep. Greg Hughes was accused of offering a fellow lawmaker a $50,000 campaign donation if they dropped their opposition to school voucher legislation. Hughes was eventually cleared of wrongdoing but reprimanded by an ethics committee for conduct unbecoming a member of the House of Representatives.
That same year, a House Ethics probe into then-Rep. Mark Walker was halted after he abruptly resigned from the Legislature. Walker, who was running for state treasurer at the time, was accused by Richard Ellis, his rival for the GOP nomination, of offering him a job and a pay hike if he were to drop out of the race. Walker lost to Ellis in the Republican primary.
There have been several incidents involving Utah lawmakers that could have resulted in ethics complaints but did not.
Most recently, Democratic Sen. Gene Davis was accused of sexual misconduct by a former intern. After an independent investigation by the Senate found he “more likely than not” violated the Legislature’s harassment policy, he was removed from all committee assignments. Davis resigned from the Senate last fall after losing his re-election bid to Democrat Nate Blouin.
In 2021, then-St. George GOP Rep. Travis Seegmiller was accused of shooting a deer in a residential community in rural Washington County. Seegmiller pleaded no contest to poaching-related charges and resigned from the Legislature.
Seegmiller was appointed to the Legislature after Rep. Jon Stanard resigned abruptly in 2018 after being accused of meeting a call girl for sex and using public money to pay for the hotel rooms where those trysts allegedly took place.
In 2015, Democratic Rep. Justin Miller was accused of embezzling money from then-Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams’ campaign. Miller, a deputy mayor under McAdams at the time, was fired. Miller eventually resigned.
The 2010 Utah Legislature was bookended by a pair of scandals that resulted in the resignations of the top Republicans in the House and Senate.
Just days before the start of the session, then-Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack resigned one day after he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Former Rep. Mark Walker, who had just been hired as a business development manager for West Valley City, was in the car when Killpack was arrested. He resigned from that position after just three days on the job.
On the final night of the 2010 session, House Majority Leader Kevin Garn admitted to having a hot-tub romp with a teenage girl 25 years earlier. He was given a standing ovation on the floor that night but resigned a day later.
Republican Rep. Greg Curtis got caught up in “guzzle-gate” in 2004 when he was running to become Speaker of the House. Curtis, an employee of Salt Lake County, submitted mileage reimbursements for trips to and from the Utah Capitol during the Legislature while using a county-owned vehicle. Curis claimed the reimbursement requests were an oversight.
