Utah’s 104 part-time legislators are getting ready to start their 45-day general session at the end of this month.
And, once again, UtahPolicy.com is told that more than 1,100 bills are being drafted.
That number will just grow until two weeks into the Jan. 28 start – when all bills must be introduced and numbered.
Typically, more than 800 bills are ultimately formally introduced, and more than 500 passed into law.
In just 45 days (actually less than that, for lawmakers aren’t in session on Saturdays and Sundays), that is a lot of new laws to consider, amend and vote on.
In theory, the Senate and House Rules Committees are supposed to sift bills even before they get sent out to standing committees for hearings – with an eye to killing stupid legislation before those bills are even considered.
But that doesn’t much happen.
The majority Republicans on Rules don’t want to anger their fellow caucus members – who they have to work with in all sorts of ways.
And if a Rules Committee Republican ever hopes to be elected to leadership in either body, killing a party colleague’s bills is not the way to get their leadership vote.
So, does it really matter that the Utah Legislature has so many bills to consider each session?
Yes.
And for several reasons:
First, Utah probably doesn’t need 500 new laws every year. The Utah Code Book just keeps growing and growing, with no end in sight.
State government is regulating actions by its citizens and businesses continually.
It’s true that it takes a bill to repeal a law, or make existing law much easier to obey.
But, trust me, most of the new bills don’t do that.
They impose new law on citizens and businesses.
In some cases, they take “occupations” that currently aren’t specifically regulated and make folks who work in those areas take state-sponsored tests and be certified in one way or another.
You can understand an accountant or surgeon needing to be licensed, but someone who paints toenails?
Being a working journalist for more than 40 years, I’ve always been so grateful for the 1st Amendment, which says government can’t control the press.
And that means government can’t license me.
Yes, I still have to get official press credentials.
But, in theory, I get them just by working for a real journalist organization. The credentials get me extra access to legislators.
But anyone can attend legislative public hearings, watch in the galleries and online, and write or broadcast anything they want about Utah legislators.
Just think what lawmakers would do to pesky journalists if they could?
Secondly, all these bills each session mean some bills will get short shrift. And that usually means the minority Democrats’.
Again, a few Democratic legislators get much, if not most, of their bills considered in a committee.
A few Democrats even get most of their bills passed.
But that’s just a few.
I watch actions by the Rules Committee in both the House and Senate, and by far most of the bills getting sent out early in each session are GOP-sponsored – thus giving them a leg up on working the system and getting their bills to the House and Senate floor for votes.
It is a two-party system, true.
But, like Animal Farm, while all animals are created equal, some are more equal than others.
Thirdly, all these bills mean some really important matters are put off year after year.
Legislators just don’t have time to take on some big issues – especially in the form of long-term planning.
Utah is a desert state.
We need water development and conservation.
For the 40 years I’ve been watching the Legislature, there has always been talk of building a new dam on the lower Bear River, to store water for growth.
It has never happened.
Now the growth in the St. George area is dependent on developing water. It hasn’t happened as it could.
And even though air pollution has improved along the Wasatch Front – and there is a bipartisan air quality caucus in the Legislature – many of the really tough decisions haven’t been made.
You may say if there is a will, there is a way.
So if a problem is bad enough, there will be political pressure to deal with it – even in a short 45-day session and more than 800 bills to consider.
Still, it does seem like the Utah Legislature’s operations are like drinking from a fire hose.
And with more than 1,000 bills being drafted each year, that drink is just getting harder and harder to take.
By the way, you can see who is drafting many of those bills by going to the Legislature’s website, here.
But you can’t see all of them.
That’s because lawmakers allow themselves to start drafting “secret” bills – and you’ll never see them if they are not introduced, or you see some of them only in the final two weeks or so of the session as bills with short titles only are finally made public.
Open wide. Here comes a fire hose drink, once again.
