Tag: legislature

Moderate voters win session; Lockhart, lungs lose

Maryann Martindale, Better UTAH executive director, made the case in a weekend op-ed that despite a rather lackluster legislative session, there were still some clear winners and losers. Politics will probably always lend itself to a model in which some win and others lose. The winners and losers don’t line up quite how we expect.

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Legislative session like a bowl of cold cereal

I don’t like breakfast cereal. Not because it’s not good, it just never satisfies me. I could eat a whole box and still be hungry for more. This is how I feel about the 2014 legislative session. Going into the session there were a number of important issues on the table and sadly, a lot

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The week in letters: Lockhart, the Legislature and Count My Vote

Disappointment in Lockhart and the legislature, Count My Vote, immigration, and voter fraud in this week’s Letters to the Editors from newspapers across Utah. Resident disappointed in Utah’s legislature It’s disappointing to observe how Utah’s far right-wing legislators, led by Speaker Lockhart, are so extremely eager to grab federal tax dollars whenever they will benefit

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Rolly is wrong on Ruzicka

Paul Rolly’s op-ed in last Saturday’s Tribune, (“Notes symbolize power and the lack thereof”) is, as always, a frank analysis of the workings of power in the Utah State Legislature. He’s right that Republicans have it and Democrats don’t, but he gets it wrong on Gayle Ruzicka. For too long, anyone who isn’t an ultra-conservative has

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Power is difficult to come by in politics

The Better UTAH Beat airs Tuesday afternoons on KVNU’s For the People. Podcasts of previous episodes are available here. —– We hear a lot about power today. Who has it. Who doesn’t have it. Who wants it. Paul Rolly of the Salt Lake Tribune has twice devoted column space in the last week to discussing power, first

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ALEC likely to be influential in Utah’s legislative session

It’s not often that coverage of the American Legislative Exchange Council makes it into the local news, even though many of Utah’s state legislators are members of the secretive lobbying organization. But after the Guardian broke a story about what is often called ALEC, the little known organization made it into one of Paul Rolly’s

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My view: The Swallow investigation is a chance to restore public trust

Better UTAH Executive Director Maryann Martindale and League of Women Voters of Utah Co-President Jenn Gonnelly penned an op-ed earlier this week in the Deseret News in which they expressed support for the legislature’s investigation into the John Swallow scandal. As we have watched the Swallow scandal unfold over the last several months, we have

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How do you solve a problem like John Swallow?

Last week, the Utah State Legislature met, finally, to discuss John Swallow. It is July. During the 2013 Legislative Session he was all the talk, at least in the hallways. It was during the real onslaught of the accusations, long after Bar complaints had been filed, that on the last day of the session they

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New national report details corporate manipulation in Utah schools

Salt Lake City – A new report released this morning by the Alliance for a Better UTAH and its partners details the damaging influence the corporate lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has had on public education policy across the country. The report, ALEC v Kids, documents the growing footprint that ALEC has in

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Anti-corruption rally (Wednesday, June 19) at Utah State Capitol

What: Utahns will gather at the Capitol Rotunda in a show of solidarity to protest corruption in the Attorney General’s Office. When: Wednesday, June 19, 11:00 a.m. Where: Rotunda, Utah State Capitol Who: Holly Richardson, Former legislator and blogger Jenn Gonnelly, League of Women Voters of Utah Isaac Holyoak, Alliance for a Better UTAH T.J.

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