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To Our Newsletter “Legislator Watch”

 

 

We believe that politicians should not ignore the will of the people.

In the last two years, the Utah State Legislature has:

Gutted the initiatives or propositions that Utah citizens worked hard to place on the election ballots with tens of thousands of volunteer hours getting more than a hundred thousand signatures for each of these ballot measures: Utah Propositions 3, That expands Medicaid under the ACA 2, Medical Marijuana Initiative 2018 and 4 Against gerrymandering, to create an independent redistricting commission.     

The Legislature pushed through a highly unpopular tax bill to raise taxes on food, gas, etc. that unfairly shifts the burden of extra taxes on the poor and middle-class citizens. Again the citizens fought the legislature with a grassroots effort to gather signatures for a referendum of that bill and this time the citizens were successful in making the state legislature repeal it. It should have to be this hard, and all this citizen effort and expense (often the cost is between 4 & 11 dollars per signature. 

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It is our intention to represent consumer and citizen issues and be non-partisan. We do not favor any political parties or candidates here at CFPAU.org.

 

The Utah Legislature is Unique From Other State Legislatures in Many Ways

One example, 90% of Utah’s legislature are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church). The Church leadership is deeply involved in the political process of and actions of the state legislators and has hired seven lobbyists to coney their preferences for bills. (While declaring there is a legal separation of Church & State.) Not only the lobbyists but legislators have stated they have had visits from their local church leadership telling them what their Church “Brethren” wanted them to do.  The majority of names on Utah’s Top 25 Political Power Players list are “LDS” or also known as “Mormon”.

Another example is that Utah has a Republican state government trifecta. (A trifecta exists when one political party simultaneously holds the governor’s office and majorities in both state legislative chambers.) It is difficult to pass bipartisan bills and difficult to achieve a balance in public policy and political power.

Utah a patriarchal state that has been listed as the “Worst State for Women” for a great number of reasons.

 

The chart above from the National Conference of State Legislatures shows that Utah has much fewer women legislators than do most of our states at less than 25%, less than half of their population percentage.

Another issue we face living in a such a high patriarchy led state is that it is very very difficult to get funding for children.

Our state claims to value families and children yet the work of our legislators does not reflect those values.

For example in May of 2020, an article was published by the Salt Lake Tribune in an article called Utah ranks No. 51 in per-pupil spending behind Idaho said “Utah has once again ranked last in the nation in per-pupil spending, a spot it has held for more than two decades — meaning students who started kindergarten when the trend began could have graduated from college in that time.”.

They are not just underfunding education, but the Utah legislature underfunds children’s state services as well. Foster care, child protection services and other critical needs.

Lastly, legislature incumbents, professional politicians have a great advantage in our Utah part-time legislature. Special interests provide 82% of their campaign money, while their local voters in their own lawmakers’ own districts, only provide on average about donated 6%. This is why you see the legislature funding projects that support lobbyists and special interest but not citizen children’s educations and other values they so strongly promote they do on their campaign materials and websites.

 

References and Sources

Who funds Utah legislators’ campaigns? Special interests provide 82% of money, while voters in lawmakers’ own districts gave only 6%.

Utah is the second-most sexist state, researchers say — and women’s internalized sexism appears to play a unique role here 

Utah ranks No. 51 in per-pupil spending behind Idaho

Women in Senate walk out in protest of passage of Utah mandatory ultrasound bill

Women in State Legislatures for 2019

Gehrke: My perfect, absolutely definitive, no-way-you-could-argue-with-me list of Utah’s top 25 political power players 

Mormons account for nearly 90 percent of state Legislature   

In Utah, Separating Church From State Can Be Nearly Impossible : Religion: Mormons dominate virtually every aspect of political life here. The state has defied the church only once in the last 60 years.

Coziness between the Mormon church and the Legislature? Why does this song sound so familiar?

The church now has seven registered lobbyists, including John Cannon, who spent the previous 20 years as a policy analyst for the Legislature.

Former Utah House speaker named chief lobbyist for Mormon church Appointment of Marty Stephens may fuel longtime controversy over close ties between LDS faith and lawmakers.

LDS Church’s top lobbyist a candidate to head up crucial legislative office