Tag: Utah

State

How Do They Do It?

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Most of the our elected leaders in the state government come from the ranks of retirees, homemakers, business owners, lawyers, and other similar professionals who have a high degree of control over their own schedules. There are a few exceptions however such as Kory Holdaway who is an educator.

As I gain more information and perspective on the word that our legislators do during the session I wonder how an educator could possibly serve in the legislature considering that the session takes 6 out of the 9 months that school is actually in session. Admittedly I don’t know if Rep. Holdaway is a classroom teacher or an administrator and I could see an administrator being able to pull this off, but I wonder how anyone who is not self-employed or has an extremely flexible profession can ever hold such an elective office – are they simply limited to offices such as city council which can be filled largely during evening hours?

Tags legislature, questions, Utah

State

Legislative Guide

I just picked up a copy of The Utah State Legislative Guide for 2009. It has a bunch of information that most people never think about (like the seating assignments for the house and senate) and then some information that could prove very valuable despite the fact that many people never think about it – such as committee assignments for each legislator.

I have never before seen such a guide (perhaps they existed in previous years, but I don’t know) so I will see if it proves useful for me. I just wondered if anyone else had ideas of how to make use of the guide during the legislative session.

I’m discovering that it’s almost aggravating to work this close to the state capitol during the legislative session without actually being there. I may have to take a day off and go up on the hill.

Tags 2009, government, Utah

State

Daily Updates from Rep. Edwards

Post author By David
Post date January 27, 2009
No Comments on Daily Updates from Rep. Edwards

What an exciting promise from my state representative, Becky Edwards, she intends to blog every day of the session.

We certainly have a lot of work ahead of us and I’ll be blogging each day of the session and sending out an official legislative update each Friday of the session.

(emphasis added)

Because she is new to blogging I won’t fault her if she misses a day but I look forward to regular updates. How many people can hope for that much communication from their representative? (At least 20,000 here in her district if they will take advantageof it.)

Tags Davis County, House 20, Utah

State

Score One for Buttars

I was surprised this morning to see an article that showed Senator Buttars in a positive light.

Eric Ethington and Elaine Ball, founders of the grass-roots, service-oriented Pride in Your Community, stopped Republican Sen. Chris Buttars in his driveway on Saturday morning to share some home-baked bread and conversation.

Buttars invited Ball, Ethington and two other gay activists inside his home for what turned into an hourlong chat about Equality Utah’s Common Ground Initiative, a collection of Democratic-backed bills that would provide some legal protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Utahns.

"I don’t think we were expecting such a warm welcome," Ball said. "It was nice to be invited in."

The bread-and-Buttars discussion chipped away some stereotypes on both sides.

"That group has been hostile to me for many years," Buttars said Tuesday. "They said, ‘Hi,’ and it was easy to recognize they weren’t there to argue or to condemn me. They were there to talk."

I’m sure the senator is very happy to see an article that does not cast him in a bad light.

Tags media, Salt Lake Tribune, Utah

Local State

Legislative Accountability

Post author By David
Post date January 5, 2009
2 Comments on Legislative Accountability

John Florez has a good perspective on what constitutes True government accountability and the forces that work against citizens from receiving the benefits of that accountability. I thought his comparison of the legislature to a corporate board of directors was very apt. My thoughts were sparked by the following statement:

This year, with new legislative leadership, might be a good one to spend more time holding oversight hearings on how effective certain state departments are in solving the problems they were created to resolve — their legislative mandate. . .

For legislators to start asking the tough questions to hold state departments accountable puts their political seat at risk because they threaten and have to fend off special-interest groups that benefit from maintaining the agency status quo. Therefore, it’s critical that legislators, in very real ways, know the public will support them when they hold oversight hearings regarding agencies’ effectiveness and demonstrate what returns taxpayers are getting on their investment. For legislators, those are tough calls but vital in keeping our government working in the public’s interest.

Oversight hearings would provide the openness and accountability in our government that we all want.

Bureaucratic momentum is a powerful force and tends to discourage any real accountability. The first priority of any institution is survival, not the fulfilling of any legislative mandate. Because of that, government bureaucracies have become very adept at promoting their own survival and continuation. In fact, they have learned how to turn failure and ineffectiveness into a tool for budgetary and institutional growth. Bureaucrats have long practice at befriending legislators and promoting their perspectives so that those legislators will be disposed to grant them their budgetary and policy requests. The fact that government jobs are considered to be a very safe area of employment is a testament to how effective their survival tactics usually are.

Despite all these advantages for institutional continuance, I see a glimmer of hope. If legislators will actively seek to cultivate their relationships with the group of voters that they represent they can preempt the ability of any special interest groups to unseat them for asking tough questions when holding real oversight hearings.

Constituents can show that they will support their legislators by being vocal in requesting real accountability and in vocally supporting their legislators through the legislative process. If they do so the legislators should have confidence that they can ask tough questions and demand accountability without fear that doing so will cost them their seats.

As constituents it is to our advantage to focus our efforts on those who represent us. If we voted for our representatives we should have done so because we believe in what they are said they would do, and if we did not vote for them we should be letting them know what we want from our representative. Many politicians say that they intend to represent those who opposed them as well as those who voted for them, but if we do not communicate with our representatives, whether we voted for them or not, they are not able to accurately represent us.

I have found that my efforts are much more rewarded by contacting my representatives, whether I voted for them or not, than if I spend my time shouting into space about what the legislature as a whole should be doing.

Tags civic participation, Deseret News, House 20, legislation, Utah

culture State

Who Should Adopt?

The debate over who should be allowed to adopt a child is a sensitive one. We have a system which tries to provide the best situation to children in need of good families, but there are more children than available families under the current definition. I think it is natural to be skeptical of the idea that we should let unwed partners adopt because that opens a door for some very unstable situations which are not beneficial to the children involved. The gay community (those that are interested in this particular issue) consider this to be discrimination because in this state all gay couples are unwed by definition. Of Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck’s "Forever Homes for Every Child" bill Senate President-elect Michael Waddoups accurately identifies the major objection/hurdle by saying:

That sounds like they’re trying to set up a family relationship that under [Utah’s same-sex marriage ban] isn’t allowed. … If we’re going to change the definition of a family, we should do it constitutionally — not through end runs.

Even if this is not intended as an end run around our Constitutional ban on gay marriage it will easily be perceived as such. The proposed bill gives adoption preference for married couples – which respects our value favoring a traditional family structure – but it opens the door for adoption by unwed couples with the consent of the biological parent(s) or if the child is in state custody. I believe that one minor modification the bill would support our value of granting primacy to the institution of family in this state. Simply put – I do not trust the state to make the decision to allow unwed couples to adopt children. If this proposal were changed to allow an unwed person or couple to adopt a child only "with the consent of the biological parent(s) and any legal guardian" I would fully support it.

The couple cited in the article is a biological mother (using a sperm donation) and her partner who are the only family their child has ever known. It makes perfect sense that the partner would be allowed to adopt and naturally the biological mother would grant the necessary consent. This change in the proposal would allow the biological parent(s) to specify one unmarried person or both members of an unwed couple as potential adoptive parents. It would allow the state or an established legal guardian to block such an adoption where the biological parent(s) choice of adoptive parents may be undesirable. Most importantly it would prevent the state from selecting unwed couples or individuals as adoptive parents for children who’s biological parent(s) objects or who do not have biological parents to speak in their defense or grant the necessary consent.

Tags adoption, family, government, Salt Lake Tribune, Utah

Local State

Blogging Legislator

I’m excited to announce today that Becky Edwards has started a blog to keep in contact with her constituents in House District 20. The issue of open communication is one that I talked to Becky and Kyle Roberts about before the election. I’m happy that we now have a representative for our district who is able to communicate with us and have a record of that communication available.

Anyone who is interested in transparency among elected officials should encourage this kind of interaction with their own legislators and with other legislators who are making themselves available online. I want to invite everyone – especialliy residents of district 20 – to participate with Becky as she shares issues with her constituents.

Tags Davis County, House 20, Utah

culture State

Get Your Hands Dirty

As I have been making contacts and working to get more actively involved in party politics I have started to gain a new appreciation for what government by the people really is. When I learned about our government in school I was left with the understanding that government by the people meant that we have the opportunity to elect representatives as well as the opportunity to replace them in subsequent elections. All of that is technically true but I am concluding that government py the people is really government by those who choose to involve themselves in the process. Being an informed voter is important, as I have stressed for a long time, but your vote at the ballot box is too crude a tool to expect to fix problems if you see things in the political system that you would change.

Our freedom of speech is also important, but exposing problems and speeking up is not enough. If you really care about this country and you see things that need to be fixed there is only one way to go about it. You have to roll up your shirtsleeves and dig in to the political dirt if you want to clean something up.

I have been verbose about my desire to see a good mix of the two parties here in Utah and yet when I chose what party to participate in I chose the dominant party. The reason for that choice is that I realized that more important than balance is accountability. I can’t make the Republican party accountable to the people if I am working in the Democratic party. Since all the attractive ideals of the Democratic party (meaning those that are attractive to me) are compatible with the positions of the Republican party I chose to work within the Republican party to ensure (as much as I am able) that the Republican party is being held accountable for the ideals that they espouse.

if there are things you want to see change – get your hands dirty, that’s the real meaning of government by the people.

Tags civic participation, Davis County, parties, Utah

life National State

Loyalty . . . Right or Wrong

Post author By David
Post date November 24, 2008
4 Comments on Loyalty . . . Right or Wrong

I have been thinking about the sentiment “my country, right or wrong” as well as many potential variations (e.g. “my party, right or wrong,” “my parents, right or wrong,” or “my company, right or wrong”). What I have been thinking is that such a statement of unquestioning loyalty is ripe for abuse and manipulation.

I took the time to look up the origin of that statement and found that the actual toast by Stephen Decatur that it is supposed to be quoting was “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” This statement is still loaded with loyalty or patriotism, but it contains an important sentiment that is left out of the popular remnant “may she always be in the right.” I think that phrase is overshadowed by the statement of ownership that follows – “right or wrong, our country.”

As right as that true statement of loyalty is, a more dependable variation was uttered by Carl Schurz which he calls “the watchword of true patriotism”- “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” This is truly my brand of loyalty, whether to my country or to any other organization.

It is the sentiment of the original statement of unconditional ownership that convinced me to avoid party affiliation. I did not wish to allow any perception that I was dedicated to anything that was changeable. At least with my country it is arguable that my citizenship, and living here make it mine even when I disagree whereas with a party my disagreement while maintaining membership might seem incongruous.

As I came to realize that my strident independence was hobbling my ability to contribute to the actual work of government I had to reconcile myself to the idea of participating with one party or another. I have already expressed the fact that I was seeking to decide what party to work with. Now, having come to the conclusions of Schurz’ true patriotism (even before I found his statement of it) I am able to join a party without reservation.

I have chosen the Republican party as my political vehicle not because it is without fault, but where there are faults I will strive to set it right. Likewise my choice not to join the Democratic party – despite my ardent desire for a healthy balance of parties in this state – is not because that party lacks virtues in its members or its stated goals. My conclusion is that the stated positions of the Republican party more closely align with my own internal values overall than the stated positions of the Democratic party. I have also come to the conclusion that the Democratic party, locally and nationally, has stayed closer to their core values in recent years than the Republican party has to their core values (especially nationally).

I will be working to help the Republican party live up to its ideals and I will hope to see others working to build up a strong and vibrant Democratic party in our state – especially in areas like Davis and Utah counties – which will challenge the Republican party and push us to stay true to our principles because I honestly believe that regardless of the policy differences between the parties each party is built up mainly of people who love their country and want what is best for their fellow citizens.

Tags civic participation, Democrat, Elevated, parties, patriotism, Republican, Utah

Local State

A Step Backwards in Utah

Some people might think that Tuesday was a step backwards because Obama won. Others might consider it a step backwards because Chris Buttars won again. The real step backwards was that 59,000 fewer people voted in Utah this year than in 2004. That is not just lower percentage turnout, that’s lower numbers.

Mark Thomas with the Lieutenant Governor’s Office says . . . the ballot generally lacked hotly contested local races.

“There are people who feel that this is a Republican state and my vote won’t make a difference,” Thomas says. “But I think that’s not a very good attitude in the sense that there are a lot of other races that do affect you, and perhaps even more so in your day to day life, on a local level.”

We need hotly contested local races on a consistent basis to bring people out to the polls. Too many of our elected officials are chosen at the state and county Republican Party conventions where only the elected delegates get to vote. It cannot be considered anything like a democracy when our officials are chosen by the votes of less than 1% of the population (the delegates) who were given the chance to vote based on the support of the 2% of our population who attended their neighborhood caucus meetings.

I’m almost tempted to suggest that the Republicans be allowed (required?) to place two candidates for every office in Davis and Utah counties just so that the general election will have some real meaning. Perhaps better would be a general rule that in a county where more than 70% of the elected officials come from a single party that party be required to field two candidates in the general election. After all, the first Tuesday in November was supposed to be a choice, not a ratification.

Tags 2008, civic participation, Davis County, elections, Utah, Utah County