Legislative clock already ticking
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orty-five days. That's the time given to the state Legislature by the Utah Constitution to work its miracles of setting budgets and passing bills and crafting state policies to make our lives better.
That's the goal, anyway. Whether they live up to that objective is for each Utahn to decide on their own. Our experience is that this collection of 104 lawmakers usually gets most things right, but sometimes the things they get wrong are whoppers.
Certain items are paramount each year: education, transportation, social services, taxes. Some years, issues emerge, seemingly out of nowhere, to capture the public imagination: gay clubs in schools, liquor laws, immigration, creationism versus evolution in public school science curricula, animal cruelty and more.
This year will likely be no different, except there will be additional topics added to the list -- property taxes and health care reform. Both are complex issues, and they are being undertaken in an election year. The GOP in both the House and Senate holds a safe supermajority. But a wrong step on either of these issues, or others important to Utah's conservative Republican base, could prompt intra-party challenges at county and state party conventions, forcing primary elections.
So far, there appears to be a disconnect between voters and lawmakers on the property tax issue -- especially in the Top of Utah, where some communities were hard hit by steep increases in property valuations and tax bills. Sudden bumps of 50 percent, 100 percent and even more in some communities have property owners demanding relief or, short of that, at least some incremental controls on surging property tax bills. Despite some lawmakers filing bills that would offer various remedies, the rumblings we hear from the Capitol are that Utah's property tax system is fine the way it is. If that sentiment prevails at the end of the 45-day session, voters and the party faithful may respond by making life difficult for incumbents who weren't aboard the reform bandwagon.
The other reform issue -- health care -- will be a years-long process, by all accounts. Gov. Huntsman has established the issue as one of his chief priorities. The system, he maintains, is failing, given the large numbers of Utahns who are uninsured and the soaring costs of health insurance and of medial treatment. The goal this year, lawmakers told one of our Capitol reporters Loretta Park, is to establish a framework on which to hang a new way of approaching health care for all Utahns.
It's a huge issue with well-financed special interests who will want a seat at the table. (The health care industry donated more than $150,000 to state lawmakers' campaign coffers in 2007, a non-election year for state offices.) So, while this is an issue that we've been talking about for years, we will continue to chew on it for years to come.
In the coming weeks, we'll be discussing these and many other legislative matters in this space. We hope you will add your thoughts to the debate via letters and commentaries. We look forward to the work by lawmakers, and the reaction by you, our readers.
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