Investigations -- Timing

Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert has been pilloried for waiting to act on Richard Ellis’s allegations until after the primary election. The delay, many argue, is a sure sign of cronyism, protectionism, good old boyism, etc. If that’s the case, and it's not just the experienced realization that a politically-motivated witch hunt might be going on, then Democratic Representative Phil Riesen must be part of that conservative cabal.

On June 18^th, he and Rep. Sheryl Allen went toe-to-toe on the timing, manner and purpose of their planned ethics complaint against Rep. Mark Walker. While Rep. Allen was extremely eager to file the complaint immediately before the primary, accompanied by a splashy press release, Rep. Riesen recoiled at the political crassness. Instead, he wanted it to be less political, waiting until after the primary and doing it quietly through the ethics committee, instead of through the media. He won on one of those two points.

These kinds of things are important to know, if – as we are forebodingly told today – more, unspecified ethics allegations are to come (say, shortly before the general election?). There’s always the chance that politics are involved in politics.

Rep. Riesen, thank you for the restraint on the timing issue. I support organizations policing their members, whether that’s a bar association, a team, a family, or a legislature. But, as we see here and in so many other contexts, the concept of innocent until proven guilty has no meaning in election cycles and the media. Thus, it is important that members of an organization approach the organization’s disciplinary process with restraint – which usually means out of the public’s eye, until the disciplinary body reaches its conclusion, which, then, can be released along with the allegations; otherwise, the disciplinary process itself can become a tool for significant abuse.