The 2006 Utah Legislative session is over. Tom and I went to the capitol last night for about 45 minutes during the last 5 hours of the session. The place was “a-buzz” with citizens and legislatures alike. Supporters of various bills maintained a vigilant presence up until the final vote.
Here is my inital attempt at a personal “hits and misses” bills list (which bills I like and which I didn’t) of this year’s session:
Hits:
HB90 Criminal Penalty Amendments, Rep. Litvak – Passed
HB181 Education Funding, Rep. Urquhart – passed (the part about increased funds in some areas)
Food Tax Bill – passed with the amendment that 2% on unprepared food (groceries) will be cut, saving consumers $70 million.
Misses:
SB70 “Envirocare Bill”, Sen. Stephenon – Died (Governor’s veto remains in place)
SB80 “Toll road” bill, Authorizes the state to enter into “public-private partnerships” to build toll roads – passed (A “miss” because the money from the roads will be used to build more roads)
SB97 Student Club Amendments, Sen. Buttars – Died
HB85, Abortion bill, Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-Ogden, allows a judicial bypass option in certain circumstances. In those cases, however, doctors are still required to notify a girl’s parents before ending her pregnancy – passed
HB181 Education Funding, Rep. Urquhart – passed (I view the part about teacher merit pay as a “miss” and also lack of decreasing class sizes)
HB304 Voiding Transactions Against Public Policy, Rep Christensen – Died
HB327 Public Employer Benefit Plans, Rep Christensen – Died
HB393 Public School Club Amendments, Rep. Tilton – Died
Legislators giving themselves a $10/day pay raise beginning next January
This is not a complete list, by any means, but one that addresses the issues I followed most closely. My “misses” list is much longer than my “hits” list. Today’s Deseret news has a consolidated list of “Winners and Losers”.
I have stated before in this forum that I feel our legislators did not make good use of our time by virtue of the fact that there were bills on morality (not a governemnt issue, in my opinion), very little time spent on discussing and passing legislation for human services, avoidance by the legislators to hear public testimony from both sides of many issues (ignoring those who were prepared to testify in opposition to bills), and way too much time is spent in debate. By the latter, I”ll give an example: As a result of my observations of the House on Wednesday, and by viewing live session videos and archived session videos, there is too much time wasted by allowing legislators to stand up and make statements like “I think this is a good bill and I support it”, or “I think this is a bad bill and I don’t support it”. There is no need to make statements like that unless they preface a persuasive side of an issue. Stating support or non-support is not debate.
It has been interesting for me to follow this year’s session. The unresolved bills will be addressed in special sessions which I am sure to follow and on which I will provide reports and commentary.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 