This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The announcement by Gov. Gary Herbert this week that former state lawmaker Dave Ure, a dairy farmer by trade, is the new director of the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration is the latest in a trend.
Serving in the Legislature can win you a good job later on.
Ure has been out of the Legislature for a number of years and since then has served on the Summit County Council.
Here's the trend: Former state Rep. Michael Styler is now the executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources; former state Sen. John Valentine is now the chairman of the Utah Tax Commission; former state Rep. Gregg Buxton is director of the Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management; former state Rep. Julie Fisher is director of the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts; former state Rep. Todd Kiser is the state insurance commissioner; and former state Sen. Leonard Blackham left the Legislature to become state agricultural commissioner, replacing Commissioner Cary Peterson, whose son, Darin Peterson, then was appointed to Blackham's Senate seat.
In addition to state jobs, former state Sen. Greg Bell became lieutenant governor and now heads the Utah Hospital Association; former state Rep. Scott Wyatt is now president of Southern Utah University; former state Rep. Kory Holdaway became government-relations director for the Utah Education Association, a job he no longer holds; and Sen. Wayne Harper is economic-development director for Taylorsville.
Being in the Legislature can be beneficial in other ways.
A few years ago, state Rep. Mel Brown and some lobbyists put together a deal with SITLA made possible by legislation Brown had sponsored. Brown and his team formed a company that bought property in Tooele County from SITLA, then turned around and sold it to a waste-management operation for a landfill, piling up a tidy little profit.
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When to obey • So Mormon apostle Dallin H. Oaks says Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the U.S. Supreme Court made such unions legal, was wrong and that, despite her personal convictions, she should uphold the law and do her duty as an elected official.
Most of the rural Utahns who have rallied behind San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman after his conviction for organizing an illegal ATV ride in a protected canyon are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
That includes the elected officials who tried to commit taxpayer funds to pay for Lyman's appeal, and county commissioners who voted at the Utah Association of Counties convention to name Lyman Commissioner of the Year. (Lyman has since turned down the award.)
Wonder how they feel about Oaks' comments calling for obeying the law?
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Talk about confusion • The Utah lawmaker most adamant about requiring public school students to pass a citizenship test before they can graduate may have trouble with the test himself — if past examples are any indication.
Lawmakers created a conundrum last session when — in their frenzy to protect parents from government intrusion while intruding themselves on the practices of public schools — they passed two conflicting laws.
Largely because of right-wing conspiracy theories over Common Core standards adopted by most states, the Legislature adopted a bill allowing parents to opt out their students from federal- or state-mandated tests.
But, also acting on right-wing criticisms that schools don't adequately teach U.S. government principles or history, the Legislature embraced another bill requiring students to pass a citizenship test to graduate.
The Utah School Board recently addressed the conflict by ruling that students can opt out of the citizenship test — as allowed by the one law. But then they won't graduate — as required by the other law.
The required citizenship test's most avid proponent was Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, a longtime critic of public schools and their teaching of American principles and history.
During his weekly Red Meat Radio program, Stephenson once agreed with his co-host, now-House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, that Thomas Jefferson was the second U.S. president (apologies to John Adams).