The St. George Republican's attempt to give each state university $1 million, but slip Dixie State College just a little bit more - $500,000 - had stalled.

And the man responsible, House Education Committee Chairman Greg Hughes, was going to pay. So Hickman, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, held every one of the Draper Republican's bills - some for weeks, including legislation granting college tuition waivers to the children and widows of Utah soldiers killed in active duty.

Eventually, Hughes' bills trickled out for debate. And Hickman brought home his bacon.

As Utah legislators close up their law-making shop and fade into the background for another 10 months, the story is worth repeating.

If nothing else, it reveals how the business of the people too often is done on Capitol Hill.

For six weeks, legislators are all-powerful. They wield the power of the purse and the pen, disbursing tax revenues and writing law. They listen to thousands of Utahns in a seemingly endless series of public meetings. Their interns filter through equal numbers of e-mails and phone calls.

And legislators do their best to weigh competing interests and finite resources.

In many ways they did what they were elected to do this year. Legislators dedicated a good chunk of the state's $1.7 billion surplus to education, giving all teachers raises and bonuses. They shoveled even more into roads. Utahns will get the sales and income tax cuts so essential to preserving legislative Republicans' conservative credentials. And the rest will go into a "Rainy Day Fund."

At the same time, some state lawmakers were petty and mean-spirited - character traits that emerge every year.

Legislation routinely is used to reward friends and family.

Hughes, who sponsors a boxer, managed a wholesale shift in the way the state oversees the sport. Kanab Republican Rep. Michael Noel created an income tax check-off to generate funds to help counties fight for off-highway vehicle access on public lands. His son-in-law was a plaintiff in one of those legal battles. And property manager Michael Waddoups, a Republican senator from Taylorsville, made it easier for landlords to evict renters.

Of those who have irked lawmakers, the easiest to pick on is the Utah Education Association, the teachers union. Groundbreaking new legislation this year will prohibit school calendars from referring to the name of any teacher associations - as in "UEA weekend."

Besides overriding Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon's decision not to build Real Salt Lake a soccer stadium using public tax dollars, legislators threatened to yank another $15 million in funding the county depends on. That bill died. But county leaders had to bow and scrape to soothe lawmakers' egos.

Still smarting from the cost of environmentalists' legal challenge of the Legacy Highway, legislators created a $5 million litigation fund to discourage any future court battles.

The snide carrot? If environmentalists don't sue, the money will go into the LeRay McAllister Open Space Fund.

And, in the most egregious example of lawmaker reprisal, State Auditor Auston Johnson will be punished for doing the job voters elected him to do. State Treasurer Ed Alter, who makes few waves, will have his annual paycheck raised to $98,895, a 22 percent increase. But Johnson, who dared question lawmakers' plans to let the state's Workers' Compensation Fund become a private insurance company and create a "Fund of Funds" economic development scheme, will be stuck with his $83,500 salary for another year.

This year's behavior is not unique. It's just more of the same we've watched year after year.

But it undermines elected leaders who desperately want to be taken seriously and makes a farce out of the democratic process.

So farewell honorable legislators. A suggestion: Come back next year a little less spiteful and self-interested.

walsh@sltrib.com