Here's some interesting post election news from this morning's Salt Lake Tribune. Utah Senate majority Republicans have elected new leadership, sacking former Senate President John Valentine and Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, and replacing them with Mike Waddoups and Sheldon Killpack. Could this change in leadership spell a softer, gentler attitude in the upper legislative body on the hill? Or... does this change in leadership signal a leap from the frying pan... into the fire?
And here's a story element with a local angle:
Sen. Scott Jenkins of Plain City and Sen. Greg Bell of Fruit Heights round out the leadership team as the majority whip and assistant whip respectively.Senator Jenkins is Boss Godfrey's cousin, of course, and the same Senator Jenkins who sponsored the Godfrey-backed Senate Bill 229 ("Godfrey's Revenge"), which gave cities the option of abolishing civil service commissions. (We loved the part in the above-linked article, where Senator Jenkins dropped Ed Allen's name, to sell Godfrey's Revenge to former Democratic Senator Ed Mayne.)
Long time Weber County Forum readers will also recall that Senator Jenkins and his big spending cousin are also great fans of the power of eminent domain. In 2007, Senator Jenkins was instrumental, of course, in restoring the power of eminent domain to Boss Godfrey's bag of tricks, over the opposition of Senator Bramble. What better for American democracy, we ask, than a Senator in leadership who thinks its just fine to take properies from random lumpencitizens for pennies on the dollar, and to hand them over to giant multinationals like Wal-mart?
This is a Senate leadership team which will require some close watching, we think. Corporo-fascist tendencies in great ones must not unwatched go.
And what say our gentle readers about all this?
