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What You Need to Know About Utah Politics Today – February 6, 2014

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Legislative leaders get behind a proposal to build a convention hotel in Salt Lake City. Lawmakers squash a proposed statewide non-discrimination measure. Group tells lawmakers to move the prison.

 

Countdown:

  • 35 days until the final day of the 2014 Legislature
  • 138 days until Utah’s 2014 primary elections
  • 271 days to the 2014 midterm elections
  • 634 days to the 2015 elections
  • 699 days until the 2016 Iowa Caucuses
  • 1005 days to the 2016 presidential election

Today’s Utah political news highlights:

  • House Speaker Becky Lockhart and other legislative leaders come out in favor of a proposal to help fund a convention hotel in downtown Salt Lake City [Tribune].
  • Sen. Jim Dabakis says the outside lawyer the state hired to defend Amendment 3 has serious ethical problems because of his connections with a conservative think tank and because he helped convince lawmakers to kill a proposed statewide non-discrimination measure this session [Tribune].
  • A group tasked with looking at the issue tells lawmakers the state should move the prison away from Draper [Deseret News, Tribune].
  • Speaker Lockhart says reaction to her opening day speech, in which she took a swing at Gov. Gary Herbert, was mixed [Daily Herald].
  • A bill to allow the purchase and use of cannabis supplements may have some big constitutional problems [Utah Policy, Tribune].
  • Utah Democrats unveil their education proposals for the 2014 session while taking a swipe at a plan to spend $300 million on classroom technology [Utah Policy, Tribune].
  • Sen. Peter Knudson wants to cap the amount of money that can be garnished from the wages of people who fail to repay their student loans [Tribune].
  • Sen. Daniel Thatcher is proposing a pair of bills to create a statewide hotline to help improve safety in public schools [Deseret News].
  • UDOT officials were wrong when they testified this week that there had been no fatal accidents in Utah’s 80-mph-speed zones on the highway [Tribune].
  • Rep. Steve Eliason is proposing legislation to help reduce gun-related suicide by providing a rebate for gun owners who purchase a trigger lock or gun safe [Tribune].
  • Legislators are considering a couple of measures to improve the process of considering and passing legislation during the session [Utah Policy].
  • The Utah Transit Authority plans to give away 5,000 free one-week transit passes to help encourage more transit use and reduce pollution [Tribune].

On this day in history:

  • The United States won official recognition from France with the signing of a Treaty of Alliance in 1778.
  • Massachusetts ratified the U.S. Constitution, becoming the 6th state in the Union in 1788.
  • The Spanish-American War ended in 1899.
  • Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, was born in 1911.
  • The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1933.
  • The board game Monopoly went on sale for the first time in 1935.