Blue in Red Zion is back for its sixth (!) installment of the Bills to Watch series.

This year BiRZ is going to be reaching out and working with various other websites to ensure that as many people as possible find out what is happening on the hill. Stay tuned for the details, but needless to say, legislators may run, but they certainly can’t hide.

Last year, I also introduced an improved scoring system. This system seemed to work very well so I am going to bring it back for another round. Here is a recap:

All bills will be given three scores: impact, need, and overall.

Impact will be scored on a scale of 0-5. A score of 0 indicates in my not-so-educated opinion that the bill will have little to no impact on the “average” Utahns life; conversely, a score of 5 would mean that the bill has a very large reach that affects most (if not all) of the population.

Need is scored on a scale of 0-5 as well. A score of 0 implies that I feel that the bill is not needed at all, but is (most likely) a message bill that is not designed to address any real issue; a 5 indicates that I feel that this is urgent legislation that needs to be passed to ensure a “better” Utah (again, in my own eyes).

So, as an example, a bill that would, say, designate a state hand gun would receive an impact score of 1 and a need score of 0. A bill to raise taxes to fund schools would receive an impact score of 5 and a need score of 5.

The final metric is the elusive “overall” score. This score ranges from -5 to 5 and is my reflection on the bill overall.  A score of -5 means that I think it is a horrible bill and should be scrapped before it even makes it out of the gate; a score of 5, as you can probably deduce, means that I feel it is vital that the bill is passed as soon as possible.

With 2013′s bills just around the corner, stay tuned to find out what bills you need to watch!

If you have any bills you would like for me to consider writing about, please feel free to contact me at curtis.haring@gmail.com or message me on Twitter at @blueinredzion.