This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Former state Rep. Carl Wimmer left the Legislature before his failed bid for the Republican nomination in Utah's 4th Congressional District in 2012. Around the same time, he also left the LDS Church.
The career police officer is now a high school resource cop in Sanpete County and is taking online classes from Liberty University to become an evangelical minister.
To that end, he wanted to share his ecclesiastical passions with his former colleagues through a Utah version of the Washington, D.C.-based Capitol Hill Group Ministry and prepared invitations to Utah House members to join him at the state Capitol's Hall of Governors.
He reserved the room and had Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfied, place the invitations on the lawmakers' desks in the House chambers.
Almost as soon as the invitations were delivered, however, they were gathered up by a House page at the instructions of Rep. Brad Dee, R-Ogden, who is a member of the Capitol Preservation Board.
The concern was the perceived mixing of church and state.
Now let's take that in for a minute: Legislators were concerned about the mixing of church and state at the Utah Capitol.
Hmmm.
Maybe the taboo is the mixing of SOME churches and state. It turns out, the misgivings were premature.
Allyson Gamble, executive director of the Capitol Preservation Board, says there were 4,337 events at the Capitol last year under the state's free-speech initiative, including events sponsored by religious organizations.
In the House chamber itself, a prayer is offered each day before the session starts.
So once that was cleared up, the invitations were placed back on the members' desks, although Wimmer said he got only a handful of people to his event, which included a display of biblical-era pottery and other artifacts.
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Assassination attempt? • It remains to be seen how successful the legislative session will be for Gov. Gary Herbert's agenda, but one thing is certain: He's having a better session than Gov. Heber M. Wells.
Utah's first governor recently took a blow to the head — or at least his painting did — that left a piece of him on the floor of the Hall of Governors.
It was an accident, however, and Gamble says the purveyor of the unintended blow "feels horrible about it."
The firefighters lobby was preparing a reception for legislators. Some firefighters were sprucing up the place with drapes and piping when one of them accidentally hit Wells' portrait with a pole.
Gamble says Carmen Bria, of the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts in Denver, will be brought in to restore the portrait. Bria did the portrait restorations during the Capitol renovation several years ago, and Gamble is confident that when he is through, Wells will be as good as new.
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Blood sport • Wells is not the only casualty of accidental violence this legislative session.
During the annual basketball game between legislators and lobbyists recently, Rep. Stewart Barlow, R-Fruit Heights, was driving the lane, got a little out of control, stuck his arm out to balance himself and inadvertently shoved his fist into the eye of defender Jason Perry, the new director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and former chief of staff to Gov. Gary Herbert.
Perry will recover, although he has a shiner as a reminder of the dangers of going through the legislative process.
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Slow on the uptake • For several weeks, the Park City Institute bought a half-page ad in the features sections of The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News promoting the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, which performed at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday.
Apparently, someone finally tipped of the Deseret News about the nature of the chorus (perhaps the word gay should have been a clue) and the paper canceled the ad the week of the performance. It still ran in The Tribune.