“Lawmakers repeal HB477”

Utah legislators got a lesson in humility today, and we can only hope they learned something from it.

When they ramrodded the the bill gutting Utah’s open government (GRAMA) laws through the process in less than 3 days, they even admitted doing it on a non-election year to stifle voter backlash.  I don’t care what the party is, being a one-party system like Utah has developed into just begs for governmental abuse, and on this our leaders didn’t let us down.  Over the last few years they have passed laws making it harder and harder to get citizen initiatives on the ballot.  They have refused ethics legislation, despite the public outcry for it.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What they (hopefully) learned is that they, in fact, do not have absolute power.  The public uproar, justifiably fueled by the media, was intense and had no look of dwindling soon.  Despite all odds, turned in favor of the legislature by the legislature, a citizen initiative to repeal HB477 had cropped up already and was flourishing.  After the 2007 citizen referendum that eventually repealed the legislature’s school voucher puppy, I don’t think they were ready to let us slap them in the face again.  So they repealed HB477 in a special session called for by the Governor.  Yea for them.  Now, let’s just see if they can retain this sense of humility for more than 3 days.

Did I do that?

Earlier this month I wrote about Utah’s HB477, the bill that made all our Legislator’s electronic communications private and exempted them from our own state GRAMA (Government Records Access Management Act) laws, even though they are sent and received on state owned (read: citizen owned) cell phones, computers and internet access.  It went from a blank paper, with nothing more than HB477 on it, to the Governor’s desk in less than 3 days, with no debate and no public input.  The Governor, a rubber stamp arm of the Utah GOP, signed it.

The public outcry was amazing.  The news media outcry was intense.  And, in my opinion, because the news media show no signs of letting the issue die before the next election, several legislator’s have done an about-face and admitted it was a mistake to vote for it.  One said he was actually blackmailed by the Republican leadership – threats to defeat any and all bills he introduced or co-sponsored, they wouldn’t even be allowed out of committee.  Another one fell short of claiming blackmail, but claimed he voted for it because he knew it would be harder for him to get bills introduced.  A couple other have come out and are calling for a recall vote.

It all reminds me of a fictional character from the 90’s sitcom “Family Matters”, Steve Urkle.  For those of you who never saw it, Steve was super-intelligent and a total klutz.  He was always destroying things, and his tag line comeback was always a oblivious sounding “Did I do that?”   Exactly what the illustrious lawmakers for the State of Utah are doing.  Ramrod an unethical and self-serving piece of legislation through, and when those pesky masses get all uppity and threaten their unbridled power, they look stunned and ask “Did we do that?”

Where were your cojones back before you knew your constituents would want them for your self-serving vote?

Son – of – a – …

If you’ve been visiting my blog for a while you have probably read me complain about Utah State Senator Chris Buttars (here, here and a few other places I didn’t have the time to track down.)  He is an ultra-conservative, bigoted, anti-public schools, anti-environmentalist that is in the back pocket of Gayle Ruzicka’s Eagle Forum and who knows how many construction companies and developers.  I have despised this man’s politics since the day I noticed him on the political scene.

And now I’m really mad at him because he has made me feel a tiny bit of respect for his politics. 

HB477 went from a simple number with no content whatsoever to the Governor’s desk in under 72 hours.  Passes both the House and Senate so fast that constituents in St. George heard the sonic boom.   The bill deems private congressional electronic communications; texts sent from their government issued (taxpayer bought and owned) cell phones and emails sent from their government issued (taxpayer bought and owned) computers, and exempts them from State GRAMA open information laws.   The taxpayers, their bosses, the people who pay their salaries, have no right to know of their dealings when doing our business. 

Chris Buttars voted against this bill.

Yes folks, it’s true.  I read it on the front page of today’s Salt Lake Tribune, in the article titled “Herbert sells out”

And here’s the kicker:  at the bottom of the exact same page, was an article about Sen. Chris Buttars announcing his retirement right after this legislative session.

He’s going out right after doing something I have to respect him for.

Son-of-a-…