Utah House Democrats

‘Message’ bills likely this session
Politicians will try to score points with several issues
By Bob Bernick Jr.

Deseret News
Published: Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010 10:07 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — If it’s January, the skies are gray, there are air inversions along the Wasatch Front and it’s cold and gloomy, it means the Utah Legislature can’t be far away.

This year’s 45-day session, which starts in about two weeks, will clearly be dominated by state budget concerns — how do legislators and Gov. Gary Herbert close an estimated $700 million budget gap?

But 2010 is also an election year for Herbert, all 75 House members and half of the 29-member Senate.

So politics will play a role as well. How will lawmakers, for example, deal with ethics, abortion, gun rights and gay rights?

Election year Legislatures usually bring so-called “message” bills — legislation designed to make either Democrats or Republicans take public votes on measures that later may be used against incumbents in their re-elections.

House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, says he’s already seeing some of those.

“We have abortion, Common Ground (gay rights) and gun bills filed,” said Clark, a southern Utah banker.

GOP leaders want to specifically deal with a package of so-called “government reform” bills early in the session. Get them passed and out of the way, in part so lawmakers can deal with heavy stuff like the budget, and in part to get media coverage of legislative ethics behind them.

“I for one would like to deal in the House with the (ethics) bills the first week,” said Clark, who added that a number of lawmakers from both parties have been pushing such reforms for several years.

House Minority Leader David Litvack, D-Salt Lake, said he hopes that a public school sex education bill sponsored by a Democratic House member and GOP senator is not viewed as a message bill, although certainly that subject has been politicized in the past.

“One positive change” in recent legislative sessions is that critical financial problems have dominated, giving less time and interest to message bills. “But we’ll still see them again” in the 2010 Legislature.

“Every election year (the Republicans) run abortion bills, you can count on it,” Litvack said.

Sometimes those messages come in the form of a resolution, like one several years ago that asked Congress to get the United States out of the United Nations. It was rather quickly killed.

Others actually change state law, sometimes in a relatively minor way, sometimes major policy changes, but all drawing emotional debate.

Clark said a few bills he’s heard about for the 2010 session are really a reflection of greater society/governmental problems.

For example, a bill modeled after a Montana law passed a few years ago, and now being challenged in the courts, would say that a gun manufactured in Utah and used here, along with ammunition manufactured here, are outside federal control because the weapon does not cross state lines, and thus not subject to interstate commerce regulation.

“That is about one-tenth about guns and nine-tenths about states rights,” Clark said. “We are seeing states rights being destroyed by the federal government. What can, what should, we do?”

Still, he adds, that on many of these societal issues, Utah “is not now in a bad position” — that is, the state is not outside of conservative public policy.

“Maybe there can be tweaking” in some areas, but often little more is needed, Clark believes.

While there is clear anger and concern at Congress with decade-long deficit federal spending, Clark said he doesn’t see an overwhelming displeasure with the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature, which has controlled state policy since the late 1970s.

For example, a recent Deseret News KSL-TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates showed that nearly 60 percent of Utahns believe someone new should serve in U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett’s seat. But it also shows that 63 percent of Utahns approve of the job the Legislature is doing, a fine approval rating by historical standards.

Oddly enough, for the first time in years legislative Democrats may have a few solid message bills this year, especially on ethics and gay rights.

LDS Church leaders recently endorsed a Salt Lake City ordinance outlawing discrimination for gays and lesbians in housing and employment. Similar bills in the Legislature have died quick deaths before.

Now even some of the more conservative GOP lawmakers are saying they could support a statewide law modeled after the city ordinance.

Republicans who vote against that measure could be unfairly seen as being anti-gay or against basic human rights as defined by Utah’s prominent religion, with that vote being highlighted by Democrats during the Republicans’ campaigns this year.

The Common Ground bills “are good public policy,” said Litvack, adding “what is good policy or just good politics can certainly be in the eye of the beholder.”