One issue that has always mildly bugged me has been that lawmakers receive retirement benefits similar to long term state employees if they simply put in enough years at the state legislature. Currently, if a lawmaker manages to stick it out for ten years, they receive the same benefits as a full-time state employee may receive after years of service. Now, I know I take many jabs at the legislature as part of this blog – but I do respect the work that they do for the state…but I would not say that they are on the same level as a state employee who puts in 40 hours a week, every week, for 30+ years.

It appears that Senator John Valentine (R – Orem, District 14) is of a similar opinion. With SB 156, Elected Official Retirement Benefits Amendments, Sen. Valentine is basically cutting off retirement benefits to any legislator or governor who takes office from here on out.

Now, these legislators do work hard; but remember that we have a part-time legislature. Every single person up there either has a job outside of the statehouse or has retired…meaning that, in theory, they should already have some sort of safety net in place. Also remember that these legislators receive fantastic compensation for part time work (when stretched out over a year, of course). Yes, they are having to take time away from work and family to serve, but in many ways I feel that that is part of the sacrifice of public service.  Should it be a burden? No…But at the same time, I would not want people running for office simply because they want a benefits package. When lawmakers view their duty as a job rather than a responsibility, they are far more likely to be corrupt – if only because they want to make sure they can provide for their family.

Let us also remember that this will ultimately save the state money without harming the public.  As of the time of publication, no fiscal note has been published – most likely because any savings won’t be seen for decades. But consider this: so often the state asks the citizens to accept cut-backs in government services as part of mutual sacrifice, yet lawmakers never seem willing to make the cuts to themselves; this bill would at least start the process. Yes, I know that anyone voting on this bill will not be affected by it, but the principal still holds.

In the end this is a small but symbolic step to say that lawmakers have to tighten their belts too.  If they are going to ask us to scrimp and save, they should be willing to do the same.

To contact Sen. Valentine, Click Here or call 435-263-5854

Impact: 0

Need: 0

Overall: 3

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

Over the past year, there have been numerous anti-government protests across the nation, and though I have been highly critical of some of the movements, I none the less support the right for them to petition their government.

Well, it appears that Senator Margaret Dayton (R – Orem – District 15) doesn’t feel the same way.  Her bill, SB 33, Trespassing on State Lands is a knee jerk reaction to the protests we have seen because these groups had the gall to peaceably assemble to protest the government.

The bill says, in no uncertain terms, that it is a misdemeanor for a person to camp on state land for more than 15 days. Now, at first, I knew this bill didn’t pass the smell test, but I couldn’t quite figure out why; then it hit me – the capitol building also counts as state land.

Ha ha! Remember how those pesky protesters would not go away in at the Wisconsin State House? How they demanded to be heard after they disagreed with the decisions of policy makers? Remember how those pesky protesters couldn’t just be thrown into jail because they weren’t, you know, breaking the law? Furthermore, remember how they have something called a “1st Amendment Right” to be there? Well, thankfully, Dayton is trying to at least make sure that they are breaking the law in the short term so that lawmakers won’t have to deal with upset people when they are trying to pass laws behind closed doors.

Interestingly, I noticed that Idaho is attempting to pass a similar law in their state.  Near as I can tell, their most conservative lawmakers too feel that this is all-of-a-sudden an issue for them as well.  I am sure, however, that this is all just a coincidence, and not that there is a national conservative organization of lawmakers that get together to discuss what bills they feel must be passed right away.

These random lawmakers all have similar talking points – namely that cities have these types of laws, why not states? I say the main difference is that trespassing laws are inherently city and township issues, because cities and towns are primarily the government entities who have do deal with the issues of trespassing. Furthermore, cities have mechanisms in place specifically designed to avoid infringing on First Amendment rights – this is why, for example, Occupy Salt Lake was able to camp at Pioneer Park overnight…for many nights. This bill conveniently forgets to add such mechanisms; but I am sure that this was just an oversight.

This is a terrible bill born out of conservative lawmakers fears that they might actually be called out on the work they do. I am sure, at some point, someone will get arrested on this very issue, and that the state will be drawn into a long and messy court battle.  Dayton will of course gleefully take us down this road because she just hates those filthy hippies sooooooo much.

To contact Sen. Dayton, Click Here or call 801-221-0623

Impact: 2

Need: 0

Overall: -5

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

So, I am just going to say it now and get it out of the way, watching Senator Casey Anderson (R-Cedar City, District 28) propose legislation is a bit like watching clowns continually come out of a car labeled “mind numbingly bad.” Just for kicks, you could even add the word “Express.”

I have  already told you Anderson’s brilliant idea to arrest cops for enforcing federal law, and his awe inspiring ideas on making it more difficult to pay our bills as a state.  In that tradition, I would like to inform you of his latest work of legislative craftsmanship by informing you of SJR 11, Joint Resolution – Informal Poll on United States Senate Candidates.

To put it bluntly, this piece of crap is a grand bit of legislative masturbation if I have ever seen any.

Get this – if this resolution were to pass, the state would have to create a way for state lawmakers to voluntarily participate in a poll to determine who (as a body) they feel would be the best senator for Utah.

Yes, we would spend state tax payer time and money to allow lawmakers to participate in what amounts to a popularity contest.

I just have to ask how this possibly serves the needs of the citizens of the State of Utah? Like, at all?

Anderson is proposing this bill for one of two reasons (or possibly both – lord only knows what is going on in his head at this point):

1) Anderson really wants to go back to the good ol’ days when state legislatures picked senators, as opposed to when the 17th Amendment was added to the Constitution, placing that power in the hands of the people – because he can’t change the US Constitution, he would like to do the next best thing and just pretend – if only for a day.

2) Anderson wants a way to influence the general public to vote for senators by giving whatever candidate one the added “endorsement” of the Utah State Legislature. However, I dream that this tactic would backfire terribly given most peoples attitudes towards the legislature at any given moment.

Regardless of the motive, this bill is beyond stupid. Every “small government” Republican should vote against this bill because it expands government and truly does nothing for the people.  Not one citizen will benefit from this resolution (except the person running for office that gets the endorsement I suppose).

Seriously senator? Is this really what you came to Capitol Hill for? Was this how you dreamed you would serve the people? If so, you really need to ask yourself how you think you are going to achieve those goals…cuz’ buddy, right now you ain’t cutting it.

To contact Sen. Anderson, Click Here or call 435-263-5854

Impact: 0

Need: 0

Overall: -5

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

I don’t want you all to think that I am biased towards Representative Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D – Salt Lake, District 24) simply because she happens to have ranked number 1 last year for best representing my interests…or because she just so happens to be my actual representative on the hill; but the honest truth is, I am biased towards her because, well, she is kinda awesome.

I point to HB 274, Adoption Amendments, as an example of her ability to run unabashedly progressive bills that (gasp) line up with the values of many Utahns.

Now, lets not beat around the bush on this one – this bill would allow homosexual couples to adopt children…but before the far right brings out the torches (which they will anyway), the major stipulation is that the child must already be living with a legal parent.

Currently the law is very specific in saying that the person seeking to adopt the child must be married to the legal adult – Chavez-Houck wishes to extend this out to say that the legal parent has the right to choose who can adopt their children regardless of the legal status of their relationship.

And, in many ways, this is why the far-right should fully agree with this bill. For years we have heard about how important parental rights are and how the state has very few rights to interfere with a parents ability to parent.  Well, I would argue that choosing who can and can not make decisions such as medical treatments and education options is the ultimate exercise in parental rights. As a parent, I should not have the state deciding who should or shouldn’t be able to adopt my child.

Of course, I am presuming that lawmakers will use that logic when voting on this bill…yeah, I can dream.

This is a good bill that does little more than allow healthy and happy families thrive.

To contact Rep. Chavez-Houck, Click Here or call 801-891-9292

Impact: 2

Need: 4

Overall: 4

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

It is rare when I agree with Representative Curtis (R – Clearfield, District 14); so on those rare occasions that I do, I feel it is worth noting.

With HB 124, In-State Tuition for Veterans, Oda is saying in no uncertain terms, thank you, to the men and women who serve (or have honorably served) our country by offering them in-state tuition to our state colleges and universities even if they do not meet normal residency requirements. The best part is that this bill would even extend residency status to active personnel family members as well.

I am grateful that we as a state are willing  to dig a little bit deeper to show our appreciation for the sacrifice these soldiers have shown.  We may disagree about the merits of the conflicts we are fighting, but bills like this show that we as citizens know there is a huge difference between the politics of war and the on-the-ground realities of war.

Kudos to Representative Oda for proposing this bill. It may cost us more, but I say it is a price worth paying.

To contact Rep. Oda, Click Here or call 801-773-9796

Impact: 2

Need: 3

Overall: 2

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

There is always a cute dance that takes place at the start of every legislative session, where we get to see just how mean, crazy, out of touch, or (gasp dare I say it?) reasonable newly elected or appointed legislators are.  Well, I am sorry to say that Representative Steve Eliason (R-Sandy, District 45) appears to be falling on the “mean” side.

By proposing HB 285, Repeal of Higher Education Tuition Assistance Program, Eliason is attempting to remove a job creator in our state…and I don’t quite know why. Heck, I even tried to find any news-clipping or blog post that might explain this bizarre move. Nothing.

So I have to presume that Eliason is coming from a budget hawk, starve the beast, mentality where any government spending is bad government spending. Even if such spending is good for the state.

The Higher Education Tuition Assistance program is specifically designed to help low income students pay for the high price of college; where the only barrier to their education is not a lack of ability, but a lack of funds. The program, presumably, helps dozens, if not hundreds, of students receive a college degree – a degree that will allow them to receive higher paying jobs…by extension helping the state economy.

As of the time of posting, no fiscal note was attached to the bill, so I can’t tell you exactly how many dollars go to students.  But I have to believe that every single one of those dollars is an investment in our state and our citizens. By trying to reverse this bill, Eliason is trying to reverse course for our state.

To contact Rep. Eliason, Click Here or call 801-673-4748

Impact: 2

Need: 0

Overall: -3

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

One of the reasons I have always liked Representative Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D – Salt Lake, District 24), is that she has always fought to expand the rights of voters in Utah.  She has been a strong advocate for modernizing our democracy while still holding true to is roots.

I point to HB 119, Study of Signing Petitions Online as a prime example of this.

As you might of guessed, the bill would require the Lieutenant Governor (the executive branch official in charge of elections in Utah) to study the possibility of  allowing petitions to be signed electronically.

The bill stems from the 2009 Fair Boundaries and Utahns for Ethical Government’s separate, but valiant, attempts to ensure they had enough signatures to place their respective initiatives on the ballot. As you may have guessed, they both failed as you probably have not seen any independent panels discussing district boundaries or unethical behavior.

One main reason both electronic petitions failed was due to the fact that the laws simply have not kept up with modern times – even though electronic petitions, an many ways, made it harder to commit fraud by signing false names.

Houck is attempting to catch our legal system up with this little portion of our democracy – and rightly so. Utah could be a leader in citizen participation with the passage of a bill such as this, and I strongly encourage the legislature to at least allow the Lt. Governor to see if it is a viable solution to creating a modern democracy.

To contact Rep. Chavez-Houck, Click Here or call 801-891-9292

Impact: 3

Need: 4

Overall: 3

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

I must admit that I originally was not going to write about SB 107, Possession of Graffiti Paraphernalia for one main reason: I have very mixed feelings about the bill. However, after members of the online group Anonymous targeted (for some unknown reason) the Salt Lake City Police Department’s website in protest of this bill, I figured I should chime in.

First things first, it is clear that Senator Karen Mayne (D –  West Valley, District 5) is coming from a point of frustration on this one.  Graffiti continues to be a chronic problem in the urban areas of the state, and prevention is almost a herculaneum task. The problem is that graffiti is a symptom of bigger issues, so simple law-making isn’t enough.

In desperation, Mayne is proposing that we target the materials used to create graffiti in an attempt to slow the proliferation of tags in the community.

Here is where I take issue with the bill.  The bill can’t cut a sharp enough line between discouraging the act of tagging and simply possessing the materials that can be used to tag.  The legal term “intent” must, therefore, be included in the bill so that we only arrest those who “intend” to tag.

Of course, we can never know someones “intent” at the time of arrest or, in theory, ever.  Indeed, this was the main reason why Anonymous protested the bill.

But intent is a common phrase in the law – and it should be.  If you posses drug paraphernalia, the odds are high that you intend to take illegal drugs; get drunk and then sitting in your car (even when the keys are not in) shows that you intend to drive – the list goes on and on.

Now, Anonymous (using the crutch of pop culture) compared this to pre-crimes in the movie Minority Report; however if this is their main protest, they have clearly missed the mark - exposing how this will create “raids at 6 am over spray paint” and “end in corporations selling miniature drones to police offers chasing 13 year old’s.” The tradition of prosecuting intent dates far back in our legal history.  I am concerned not about police knocking down doors, but of officers abusing the law to put people away that they don’t like, even for a night (a far more realistic scenario).

It is not that something should not be done to address the issue of graffiti, but I think it would behoove us all to focus on the disease rather than the symptom.

To contact Sen. Mayne, Click Here or call 801-968-7756

Impact: 2

Need: 1

Overall: -1

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

I have come to a conclusion: Representative John Dougall (R-American Fork, District 27) has no idea how cause and effect, prevention, or general common sense, works.

Why else would he be proposing HB 298, Motor Vehicle Safety Inspection Amendments? A bill that, based on his own arguments in the media, is a bad decision.

HB 298 would eliminate the requirement that automobile owners have to pass a safety inspection in order to drive on Utah’s roads…let that sink in for a moment.  Now, I would at least wrap my head around the concept that a far-right, anti-environment lawmaker may want to do away with emissions inspections…but safety? Really?

Dougall’s justification for this bill is that we have reduced deaths on the road and that people don’t repair their cars anyway until they are forced too come inspection time.

So, your argument is that we have fewer deaths, so getting rid of safety standards would…reduce that…somehow? By that logic Dougall should propose a law increasing the amount of alcohol in “Utah beer” to national levels – after all, we have fewer alcohol related incidents in the state, so adding that back in shouldn’t cause a problem.

The second point is equally perplexing. I know that people tend not to fix mechanical problems such as poor breaks and dangerously cracked windshields until the state forces them to. But I guess Dougall is missing the point that issues such as these DO GET FIXED.

I mean, does Dougall honest want to be on roads where people have bald tires, worn breaks, and broken tail lights?

This logic originates from the Land of Conservatism, where people always have money to fix things and no one struggles to get by.  In this same land people magically just take it upon themselves to do things even when the path of least resistance is far easier and it is much less work to simply ignore problems…until they blow up in your face.

Conservatives like this fundamentally don’t understand the role of regulation.  Regulations such as these force people to do things they are not normally inclined to do.  We don’t impose laws like safety requirements on cars because the DMV gets a kick out of making citizens struggle (despite what people like Dougall might think), we impose regulations because failure to do so puts you, me, and everyone else on the road in danger. Regulations such as these are a requirement for living with other human beings that have as many faults as you do.

This bill, if it were to pass (and I hope it does not), would be putting peoples lives in danger in a very real way. Remember, with this law in place, you may have a perfectly running car, but that does not mean that the person who side-swiped you  because their unsafe car ran a red.

To contact Rep. Dougall, Click Here or call 801-708-5170

Impact: 3

Need: 0

Overall: -5

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

I am deeply concerned with the utter disdain Representative Kraig Powell (R-Heber City, District 54) is showing towards the citizens of Utah. I have already written about his desire to remove people from the voter file – and now I am sickened by his push to make policy making a closed door affair.

Yes, Powell’s HB 226, Closed Meeting Amendments, is a direct attack on the peoples right to participate in this representative democracy.  In one paragraph, Powell is single handedly taking our democracy back to the dark ages.

Dramatic? I don’t think so. To quote from the bill:

A closed meeting…(may take place if) discussion of legislative action by a public body, whether the legislative action is pending, proposed, potential, or previously-passed, if the public body believes that conducting the discussion in a closed meeting is preferable to conducting the discussion in an open meeting;

What does that mean? It means that if the members of a body (say legislative committee, commission, or city council, for example) want to close their doors to the public because they feel it is “preferable” to actually having to deal with the public to pass a law or statute, they would be able to close the meeting.

Now, up to this point, there have been very reasonable and very specific reasons why a body may close its meetings – most focusing around confidentiality of individuals or organizations. This bill would mean that we could close a meeting because the members of the body preferred not to deal with the public on an issue.

Of course policy makers want to be able to close the doors whenever they pleased! That messy general public that always seems to stick its nose into its own business – demanding that they understand what is going on in their government and other such nonsense.

Look, I sit on one of these boards that could potentially take advantage of this bill and shut the doors to the pubic. Yes, that board has shut the doors on occasion – but it wasn’t because we felt it was “preferable” to dealing with the public; rather we felt that the topics being discussed were of such a delicate nature that we had to strategize our approach before making a public statement.

The public being involved in the democratic process can be a messy one, but God damn it it is an important one. If committees are allowed to shut the doors whenever they pleased, they will be closing the doors on holding our elected officials responsible and opening the door for corruption and fraud.  It is imperative that the public be able to sit in on uncomfortable meetings where policy is being discussed because it is the public that will be affected by the decisions our representatives make.

This is a despicable bill whose mere existence is a mark of shame on this state.

To contact Rep. Powell, Click Here or call 435-657-0185

Impact: 5

Need: 0

Overall: -5

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

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

Post Script: Powell has claimed that he has proposed this bill to prove a point and that he has no intention to advance the legislation. If true, I have to ask why he is willing to waste taxpayer time and money on an admitted “message bill.” I, as a concerned citizen, bristle at the mere thought that this could receive a legitimate shot at becoming state law because, time and time again, our legislature has not hesitated to attempt to take away our right to know what is going on in our legislative process (read HB 477).

Powell’s body of legislation include bills that remove voters from voter files…and for opening caucus meetings.

So, this bill is either terrible policy, or a mean spirited joke. Powell either does not know or does not care about how raw of an issue this is for those of us to care deeply about open and honest government.