Tuesday, February 9, 2010

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY

The House and Senate will debate bills on the floor twice today, between 10 and 12 am, and from 2 to 3 pm. Extra time is needed since 42 bills are waiting on the House calendar and 37 on the Senate board.
Standing committees meet from 8 to 10, and from 3 to 5. Caucus lunch is at noon.
Then at 5:00 in Capitol room 445, the Executive Appropriations Committee will meet to discuss 2010 budget changes.

MORNING COMMITTEES

SENATE EDUCATION will consider Second Substitute SB49, Vending Machines in Public Schools, which provides standards for low-fat, nutritious snacks and drinks in school vending machines. The State School Board sets the standards but unlike under the original bill, local boards need not follow them. One reason for the change could be that school districts collect more money from vending machines that have fattening snacks.

Also in EDUCATION is SB59, At-Risk Student Provisions. It requires local school boards and charter school governing boards to have gang prevention and intervention policies.

SENATE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES will look at SB44 and SB127.

SB44 would make legal immigrant children eligible for Medicaid or CHIP health care regardless of how long they had been in the county. Currently they must wait 5 years.

SB127 would require an individual applying for public assistance to disclose both earned and unearned income.
HB12, Criminal Homicide and Abortion, is also on the agenda.

HB259 in HOUSE REVENUE AND TAXATION asks county assessors to update property values every year in small counties as well as in counties of the first and second class. It would also increase property values eligible for homestead exemptions.

AFTERNOON COMMITTEES

SENATE TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC UTILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY will debate SB113. It prohibits anyone under 18 from using a cell phone while driving. Exceptions would be phoning during a medical emergency and when reporting or requesting assistance regarding a safety hazard or criminal activity.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY

Ethics Bills Update from Sherilyn Bennion:

Here's a report of the Monday morning meeting of the Senate Governments Operations Committee. Gigi Brandt and I attended, and I gave testimony in opposition to SB136, SB138 and some provisions of SJR3. Sen. John Valentine (R-Utah County) is the sponsor for all three. Bottom line: All three passed unanimously, with a favorable committee recommendation.

SR136, Open and Public Meeting Revisions Related to Review of Ethics Complaints, exempts an Independent Ethics Commission from the requirements of the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act and also allows an ethics committee of the Legislature to close its meetings.

After giving a little plug for League's 90th anniversary, I argued that informed citizen participation in government requires access to as much information as possible and that the current law, which allows closure of meetings for such items as discussion of "an individual's character, professional competence, or physical or mental health," is adequate to protect anyone accused.

The same argument goes for SR138, GRAMA Revisions Related to Review of Ethics Complaints, which protects from disclosure records of an Independent Ethics Commission related to review of ethics complaints.

SJR3, 1st Substitute, "Joint Resolution on Ethics Complaint Procedures," sets up an Independent Ethics Commission, regardless of passage (or not) of the constitutional amendment establishing such a commission. If the constitutional amendment passes, SJR3 would set the rules for the resulting commission.

At close to 40 pages, it's a chore to absorb, and I don't claim to have done so, but among the access restrictions is one providing that records of commission meetings are private under GRAMA and one that provides for dismissal of a complaint if anyone leaks it to the press or public while the commission is reviewing it.

Dixie Huefner, a League member who has been a leader of Utahns for Ethical Government, testified against SJR3, citing 14 problems that her group finds with its provisions.
She summed them up thus: 1) It reduces the likelihood of an ethics complaint being filed or acted upon;
2) It ensures that the commission's authority and independence are limited;
3) It ensures that control of the whole process remains in the hands of a politically controlled Senate or House Ethics Committee.

Sen. Ben McAdams (D-Salt Lake), a co-sponsor of SJR3 and a Gov. Ops. Committee member, suggested that, if commission hearings are considered as equivalent to grand jury hearings, which Sen. Valentine had argued, the sponsors might look at the possibility of adopting grand jury standards in some areas where they are less restrictive than those in SJR3.

Sandy Peck