This morning's Standard-Examiner reports on the State Legislature's solution to the HB-466 problem: The Utah Legislature has taken the coward's way out. Rather than pass a bill to fully cure the "unintended consequences" of last year's HB-466, a law which now leaves 150 or so Weber County citizens with the prospect of being politically disenfranchised, and living under the thumb of corporate dictatorship for the next two to four years, both chambers instead passed the watered down version, which basically "shuts the barn door after the animals have escaped."
Despite Senator Allen Christensen's eloquent plea (audio transcript 5:23), on the State Senate floor to amend HB-146 to include retroactivity provisions, his Senate colleagues turned him down flat for the second time in a row, passed HB-146 by a 25-0 vote, and then promptly trotted the bill back over to the assembled House, where it passed 67-0. As the 2008 legislative session draws to a close, the citizens of soon-to-be-incorporated "Powderville" are now left to fend for themselves; and meanwhile, the entire State Legislature, the very body which created the whole mess in the first place, will be no doubt patting itself on the back and congratulating itself for another "job" well done.
We'll incorporate a few selected quotes from today's Jeff DeMoss story:
Residents of Eden who have been involuntarily drawn into the Powder Mountain plans descended on the state Capitol Tuesday to express their concerns with the process.That's obviously okay with the State Legislature. Once again, the Legislature has turned its back on the "little people."
“A few large landowners will be able to tax us and enter into financial arrangements for which we will bear the liability in the long run,” said Darla Van Zeben, one of the organizers of a movement against the development.
And we just loved this comment from Representative Brown, whose hopelessly flawed HB-466 caused the whole problem in the first place: “The issue is the law is what it is,” Brown said. “Whether it’s good or bad or flawed, we can’t change laws in the middle of the stream. For everyone who benefits, someone gets hurt.” Remarkable statement from a sitting Utah State Representative, we think. What's important we guess, at least from Rep. Brown's standpoint: At least those developers who took advantage of the legislature's admitted error won't be the ones who get hurt. And of course this whole travesty doesn't actually impair the fundamental civil rights of Representative Brown's own constituents themselves. We also wonder what exactly people Like Rep. Brown believe they should be expected to do, as their primary legislative obligation, if not to correct the effect of bad laws -- especially bad laws that are of their own making?
We believe Senator Christensen hit the nail precisely on the head with this:
“Some people in this body don’t have the political will to back up and admit there was a wrong, and we should right it,” said Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, who apologized for voting in favor of HB 466 last year.And what say our gentle readers about all this?
“I had no idea it was wrong at the time,” he said. “I think it flew past all of us.”
