"Lawmakers seek to strip school board of it's authority" - SL Trib, B1, today.

Seems we've got some ego maniacal lawmakers that are irked at the fact that the Utah State Board of Education did not buckle under to their demands and immediately implement school vouchers. Despite the fact that the school board was waiting for the Utah Supreme Court to make a decision on it, which ended up vindicating the actions (or in this case inactions) of the school board, there will still be bills up on the hill to strip the board of it's powers. But right v. wrong is irrelevant to these power crazed legislators. "You didn't play by my rules, so now I'm going to take my marbles and go home, pbbbblllttt!" Time and time again these people have proven the wisdom of the separation of powers build into our system. Time and time again they try to circumvent and eliminate these separations, and hopefully, since this involves a change to the state constitution, there are enough level-headed people up there to block this BS. I'm going to e-mail my representatives, you can find yours easily by going to this web site "Legislator Lookup", it will even give you links to their e-mail addresses. I think I'll be a little less, um, negative when I e-mail them than I am here on my blog. Maybe just comment on how important a concept I think the separation of powers is and how I feel that it would be wrong to enact a change in the Constitution that eliminates some, or one, of these checks and balances. Yeah, that sounds good.

Here is what I sent :

Dear Mr. Wiley,

Dear Mr. Romero,

In the Salt Lake Tribune this morning I read an article titled “Lawmakers seek to strip school board of it’s authority”. As one of your constituents I just wanted to let you know that even before I became a public school teacher I firmly believed in the principle of separation of powers, and that too much power in the hands of any one governmental entity is dangerous.

I realize that the next legislative session is still a way off, but I just wanted to express my opinion that the way the State School Board operates should be left alone, and I consider shifting the powers they have from them to the Legislature would be a mistake and contrary to the idea of governmental checks and balances.

Thank you for your time,