Elected office is a sacred trust, and few things are more destructive to that trust than the appearance of impropriety. Such impropriety can go a long way toward eroding public confidence in their leaders. This is the reason we find the recent decision of outgoing Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes to appoint himself to the inland port board to be profoundly troubling.
This new board, which will regulate the recently approved inland port in Salt Lake City, will consist of 11 members appointed by various state and local political leaders. One of those leaders was Hughes. Unlike the others, Hughes decided to appoint himself to the board.
In doing so, Hughes touted his “institutional knowledge” about the port and called his appointment “appropriate,” thereby downplaying concerns from constituents who recognize the clear conflict of interest this appointment represents.
Hughes has announced that he is not running for his legislative seat again, and he casually joked that his workload “will be lightening up a little bit” once he steps down, so this appointment could simply be interpreted as a way to fill his idle time. Regardless of his reasons, elected officials should not be able to appoint themselves to another public office. We don’t believe that is the intent of legislation allowing some elected officials to have appointment power over various boards and commissions. Hughes has abused his power.
Unfortunately, what he did is legal under current Utah law. But it shouldn’t be.
That’s why, if elected, we will be proposing a new law in January to prevent any elected official with appointment power from appointing themselves to any public office. That is how Utah government should be run. That is what we stand for.
Amazingly, no current legislator — Republican or Democrat — has spoken up against what Hughes did. They are too tied to a system that lacks adequate checks on the power of elected officials to do what Hughes did. Utah needs those checks.
That’s why we’re running with the United Utah Party. We need a fresh voice on Utah’s Capitol Hill. We need legislators who aren’t resigned to the status quo as are Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature. We need legislators who will reform the government to make these kinds of actions illegal.
Our proposal to end the opportunity for self-appointment is only one of the reforms we will institute once we take office. We also want to pass legislation that imposes term limits on Utah’s elected officials, creates stricter campaign finance limits to prevent large donors from buying legislators’ votes, allows non-partisan elections in county government to reduce the role of partisanship in county government, as well as other reforms.
Elect us and Utah citizens will get a new approach to government — one that checks the power of politicians and tilts government power back towards the citizens. We are a fresh approach to government that Utahns want and Utah government sorely needs. Utah voters want a change, and we’re ready to give it to them.
United Utah Party state legislative candidates: Michele Weeks, House District 51; Hal Miller, House District 64; Stephen Walston, House District 41; Alex Castagno, Senate District 9; Bjorn Jones, House District 32; Eric Chase, House District 61; Hillary Stirling, House District 57.
