If there is one thing our Utah State Legislature is good at, it is talking out of both sides of its mouth.

Take, for example, HB 87, Billboard Revisions, as proposed by Representative Melvin Brown (R-Coalville, District 53).

It seems that every year we hear the legislature complain about how there is too much government interference with the state, yet they (as the state) are all too eager to interfere with local governments when they do something that they don’t like.  The big example last year was Wayne Niederhauser’s bill that was a knee-jerk reaction to Salt Lake City attempting to stop McMansions in certain neighborhoods (more on that coming up in another post). This year, Brown is the one attacking Salt Lake City after Mayor Becker pushed to cap the number of electronic billboards in his city. Now the billboard companies didn’t like this much, but Mayor Becker stood firm.

Oooh, also, funny story: in his last election, Brown received $689 in campaign contributions from Reagan Signs – the sign company primarily affected by such a ban.

The decision to limit advertising in a municipality is the municipality’s decision – not the states. But Brown, apparently attempting to appease a donor, has thrown that idea out the window.  Utah legislators don’t want the Fed’s telling them what to do, but they are more than happy to dictate certain minutia to the cities.

This is a unnecessary and hypocritical law that was designed to please the interests of campaign donors and not the citizens of Utah.

To contact Rep. Brown, Click Here or call 435-647-6512

Impact: 2

Need: 0

Overall: -4

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To view other bills in the 2012 Bills to Watch series, Click Here