House speaker's partisan hiring is bad idea
Bob Bernick Jr.
It's a new position. And while such a change means little or nothing to regular citizens, it raises questions in how at least the House will operate in the future. (Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, says he has no plans to get his own chief of staff.)
The question is — is it a change for the better or worse?
I say nothing here against Curtis or Bleak (pronounced Blake).
And under Curtis' speakership and Bleak's easy-going style of management (at least easy-going as I saw him run the Utah Republican Party's office), this chief of staff thing in the Utah House may work out fine.
But overall, it is not a good idea. Why?
It puts a full-time partisan appointee over a staff that, historically, has been nonpartisan.
And over the 25 years I've watched the Utah Legislature, I've seen a slow movement among the legislative staffers, especially among researchers, attorneys and budgeters, to become more conservative — more Republican, if you will.
But it is not a welcomed one.
Republicans have been in control in the Utah House since the mid-1970s; in control of the Utah Senate since 1979.
And, especially with some of the long-serving Senate presidents, the internal staffs of the House and Senate took on responsibilities of protecting their members from the press, the public and from the executive branch of government.
Some inappropriate things were done.
There's the story told of one former secretary of the Senate (the top person in that body) taping a bill or two under her desk in the chambers so it was "lost" and couldn't come up for a vote on the final day of the session, a move she did at the request of GOP leadership.
But by and large, and certainly today, the House and Senate are run in a professional manner, rules followed, the citizens and lawmakers getting a fair shake from the staffs. What will happen now that the House staff will report to a partisan appointee?
Curtis said, in a long explanation to his caucus Wednesday — one filled with laughs as he pondered out loud why about everything he does seems to find criticism in the media — that in reality nothing will change. As speaker, he runs the House. And he's clearly a partisan appointee, a Republican in the majority.
He will still make decisions on hiring, firing, pay raises, job assignments, just as he did for the past six months, just as previous speakers have before him.
But Curtis made a bit of slip in his talk — he said that by rule he, the majority leader and the minority leader make operational decisions.
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