Give thanks to part-time Legislature

By Jay Evensen
Deseret Morning News
Published: Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008 9:27 a.m. MST
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The last few months have been rough for Utah's lawmakers. Voters went to the polls in November and resoundingly overturned a bill allowing a school vouchers program.

And, if someone had been able to get it on the ballot, a bill allowing public funding for construction of a professional soccer stadium also would have been drop-kicked into the trash, at least according to opinion polls.

Senate President John Valentine told the Deseret Morning News editorial board last week that he had gotten the message. In Utah, mechanisms are in place to let the public act as a check on what lawmakers and the governor do, beyond simply deciding whether to re-elect someone every few years.

Americans like the feeling they can't be bullied by people in power. It's a part of our heritage that echoes back to the tea in Boston harbor and the ruts those wagon trains carved through the wilderness as people tried to create a better life. The first three words of the Constitution are "We the people." That set the tone for how we view the relationship between the government and the governed (on the state level, at least).

But while the majority flexes its muscles menacingly after November's referendum, there is another side to "we the people" that doesn't get enough attention. Utah is one of the few states left with a true citizen Legislature.

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That Legislature convenes Monday for another 45-day session. I know people who literally wish they could stay at home and hide beneath blankets until early March, cringing at the thought of what might find its way into law. They suffer from a case of inflated expectations of representative democracy. This form of government is, as Winston Churchill once said, the "worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." And a citizen Legislature is the best of all types of this "worst form."

By "citizen Legislature," I mean a Legislature made up of people who have real jobs elsewhere and who make laws part-time. By last count, only 17 states have one. In the rest, law-making is a full-time job, with a full-time salary.

But even among those 17 states, Utah is one of only six that employs a bare-minimum number of full-time staff members to help the lawmakers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The most valid criticism of a part-time Legislature is that it can empower an unelected bureaucracy. Given the time constraints on lawmakers, the full-time staff can gain enormous influence as they guide elected officials who are always in a hurry. The fewer staff members, the less influence.

In theory, part-time lawmakers don't lose touch with the people because they live and work among them in various pursuits during most of the year. In Utah, lawmakers are criticized for passing bills that help their own private businesses. They are rightly accused of cozying up to lobbyists who woo them with gifts and trips, earning access denied to average citizens. But these are relatively small problems compared to how out of touch they would become if their only paycheck came from the state Capitol.

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Recent comments

As a former intern in the state legislature, I saw first hand how...

Former Intern | Jan. 21, 2008 at 10:04 a.m.

Please, Mr. Evenson, I thought you had more integrity. This is a...

Anonymous | Jan. 20, 2008 at 9:56 p.m.

There is one major defect of "citizen legislatures" and...

Part-time leg is reason crazy ge | Jan. 20, 2008 at 7:07 p.m.