This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
A small group of lawmakers from the House and Senate met Thursday to hash out a compromise on State School Board elections.
But the final agreement, which has not yet been approved by the Legislature, would give the Senate much of what it wanted and leave the House with very little.
A substitute bill, to be presented later tonight in both houses, would establish partisan school board elections in 2016 while simultaneously asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment to require the governor to appoint board members.
If voters fail to approve the amendment, the entire statute would be repealed, forcing lawmakers to take up the debate again in 2017.
"For me, personally, we have to come up with a solution," Mapleton Republican Rep. Francis Gibson said. "I think governor appointment seems to be the area where both sides can come to the middle."
The stalemate occurred after the House rejected both partisan elections and a governor-appointment bill, sending a nonpartisan proposal by Gibson to the Senate.
Senators refused to argue the merits of that bill, which would require candidates to gather signatures as an alternative to party vetting. Instead, the bill was gutted and replaced with a bill identical to one that had already failed in the House.
Riverton Republican Rep. Dan McCay said the compromise approach would function like a two-year pilot program for partisan elections while voters study the merits of a governor-appointed board.
"We'll learn some lessons and find out if it's the devil everyone thinks it is," he said.
But Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, said that public polling shows Utahns prefer nonpartisan elections to both a partisan and appointed board.
"I think about how that amendment would go," Moss said. "I frankly don't think it would pass."
She also expressed some skepticism that House members would approve the compromise, having already rejected similar bills. But Gibson, who serves as House Majority Whip, was confident he could secure the votes.
"I will get it through my body," he said.
The bill will be presented later today to both chambers for a vote. Because it represents a conference committee compromise, debate is not allowed.