Why did Utah have an unseasonable snowstorm in March?
That's because the Utah State Legislature has kept all calendars secret.
Beehive state legislators shed tears in the just-concluded legislative session, passing one bill after another as their primary objective, or as an aside, seizing some document, official process, document and removing it from public view. did.
The bill most of us noticed, SB240, would retroactively allow Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes to keep the official calendar secret. After a state judge said it shouldn't. At the same time, lawmakers also allowed all other government employees, state and local, to conceal their comings and goings and who they meet with while carrying out their official duties. your business.
Meanwhile, SB211, backed by the personal sponsorship of Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz, would, among other things, create a new state bureaucracy for parched states to look elsewhere for new water sources. Founded. And all the work, research, negotiations and expenditures for its creation were kept secret.
No future issue is more important to Utah than our water supply. In other words, there is no other issue that requires more public scrutiny.
Maybe Adams and Schultz don't want us to see how loudly other states will scoff at them when Utah asks them to buy water.
Other bills would have blocked information about endorsement contracts signed by state university student-athletes and contact information for public officials.
This trend of increasing secrecy among elected officials, aided and abetted by Governor Spencer Cox, is something Utah voters should rise up to oppose at every opportunity.
Salt Lake City Council has its own problems keeping things open
Meanwhile, the Salt Lake City Council has shown that there are also problems with conducting public works in a public manner. But through the other end of the microscope.
Council members unanimously passed a new policy last Monday that drastically limits public comment opportunities at council meetings, without prior notice, discussion or opportunity for public comment.
One can feel some sympathy for the members of Congress who have suffered a lengthy tirade from visitors demanding parliamentary action on issues outside the city, such as calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
It may be reasonable to limit the amount of time such public comments can be addressed at board meetings. So is claiming that such comments focus on issues that are properly before the City Council, such as police, streets, and zoning.
But adopting this new policy without notice, “just because we can,” in the unwise words of City Council President Victoria Petro, is an unacceptable disregard for the public's role in local government. .
The council needs to redefine its policy on how to accept public comments. And this time, we're involving the public in the process.
Good news from Congress: What Congress didn't do.
The Utah State Legislature's 2024 regular session brought a lot of cause for concern and even alarm. But there was also good news.
Most of the things the legislators didn't do.
What remained on the cutting room floor was a really bad bill that would require a 60% vote for voter initiatives that require new spending or taxes, and would eliminate the ability of cities to conduct elections with ranked-choice voting. It took the state away from the highly successful Universal. Postal voting system.
Another bill that fortunately spared the sausage factory's survival is the developer of the proposed gravel pit in Parley's Canyon, and other bills that may be built in its wake. The plan was to go through the authorities and allow bulldozers to build the building.
Lawmakers wisely rejected two attempts to ban the display of pride flags in the state's classrooms. And the Senate rejected a bill that would have allowed local school districts to have unlicensed and untrained chaplains in their schools.
“If we open this door, we literally won't be able to control who walks through it,” South Jordan Republican Sen. Lincoln Fillmore accurately said about the pastor bill. “If this bill passes, I think we’re going to really regret it when we see the results.”
surely.
Utah Republican shows disdain for democracy by ruining another election
Utah knows how to run elections. Voting by mail provides ample opportunity for voters to thoughtfully participate in the process.
The Utah Republican Party, on the other hand, prefers to fix what isn't broken, and instead of holding a state-run primary like most states (and the Utah Democratic Party), the Super Tuesday presidential primary is a statewide election. It was conducted as a series. The party caucus meeting turned into chaos.
At least a working computer, considering the party has raised $300,000 by asking campaigns to vote, $50,000 from each of the six candidates on the ballot. Some people may think that it is possible.
However, those who showed up at high schools and community centers were unable to register. I couldn't vote. Often, after hours of frustration, they simply gave up and went home, reducing the number of good, loyal Republicans with a voice in the process.
One wonders if that wasn't important.
A significant number of influential Utah Republicans continue to favor a caucus/convention system over primaries, which intentionally limits the number of participants and biases the results to the far right of the party. It is.
Consider that former President Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by just 17 points in Tuesday's Utah caucuses. This is one of his smallest margins across the 15 Super Tuesday states. (Excluding Vermont, which Haley won)
Utahns will always wonder if Haley might have done better in Utah, or even won, if all Republicans had had a say, not just a few true believers. right.