The Utah Legislature has issued a call for companies wanting to bid on a contract for 202 Blackberries. The current contract with AT&T is about to expire.

The requirements specified in the RFP (request for proposal) include a flat monthly rate and no reference in the billing to the telephone numbers or the identities of those who lawmakers call or e-mail on their Blackberries. It also requires anonymity for those who call or e-mail the legislators. That is the current practice with the existing AT&T contract, so it will just be a continuation of making sure nobody can find out who lawmakers talk to on a daily basis, despite the fact that taxpayers pay the phone bill.

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No royalty in Murray: If Stockton Mayor Dan Rydalch is a yin, then Murray Mayor Dan Snarr must be a yang.

Rydalch, you will recall, lost his re-election bid after he made headlines by firing a police officer who gave his son a ticket. The police chief talked him into just suspending the officer without pay and the city council subsequently reinstated the officer.

Snarr, on the other hand, made sure his wife got a ticket when she did something wrong.

It was several years ago when Murray police officer Bryan Ririe told Snarr that women who were parking in a red zone of a Murray elementary school were causing a problem. When Snarr told Ririe he should issue tickets, the officer told him that one of the violators was his wife.

"Then she should

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get a ticket," Snarr said.

A few days later, April Snarr forgot to give their daughter her lunch, so she rushed to school, parked in the red zone to run inside, and Ririe gave her a ticket, per the mayor's instructions.

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Behind the Iron Curtain » Republican legislators opposed to the proposed ethics reform initiative have told constituents that the initiative would be disastrous and they should read the entire 21-page bill before signing a petition to get it on the ballot.

It's too bad the leaders of the Utah County Republican Party don't heed the advice of their esteemed lawmakers.

The Utah County GOP Central Committee recently passed a resolution opposing the ethics reform initiative. When some committee members complained that they had not had a chance to read the bill before voting to oppose it, they were summarily dismissed and members were told to voice their opposition whether they knew what the bill contained or not.

Before the issue was proposed to the Central Committee, it was vetted in the Utah County Republican executive committee, where Sen. Curt Bramble and Rep. Becky Lockhart appeared on behalf of the resolution, even though they are not members of the executive committee.

When some members of the committee tried to speak against the resolution, they were shouted down, town-hall-meeting style.

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Stupid is as stupid does » The Utah Senate appeared last week to be discouraging people from voting.

On the state Senate's Twitter page Tuesday morning was this message: "If you haven't studied, don't take the test. Voting in ignorance only drags down the score for the rest of us. Stay home."

Senate Chief of Staff Ric Cantrell said he was just relaying a tweet he got from another site. He also relayed tweets that encouraged people to vote.

But he said he agreed that people should not vote stupid. The problem: Who decides what is a stupid vote and what is a smart vote?

Paul Rolly is a political columnist. Reach him at prolly@sltrib.com