This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
It is difficult to amend a constitution, the federal one or those of each state. They do it that way on purpose, and with reason, so that the law that underlies all the other laws won't be changed for what the Declaration of Independence calls "light and transient causes."
The problem is that if a constitution is amended, and it is later determined that it was a mistake to do so, changing it back can be at least as difficult as changing it the first time was.
(Unless you are repealing Prohibition.)
And perhaps as unwise.
(Unless you are repealing Prohibition.)
Case in point: In 1996, Utah voters approved a change in their state constitution that made it possible for the Legislature to spend some of the money that comes from the state income tax on running the state's colleges and universities. Before that, it was a constitutional requirement that all income tax revenue — which is now something north of $3 billion a year — goes to K-12 public education.
Since then, it has often been argued, sometimes in this space, that the amendment was a bad idea. It made it easier for the Legislature to move money around in a giant budgetary shell game and to engage in one of our lawmakers' favorite pastimes, underfunding public schools.
Comes now state Sen. Jim Dabakis, a Democrat from Salt Lake City. He is proposing another constitutional amendment to repeal the previous constitutional amendment, the result of which would be to again commit all Utah income tax money to public education.
The problem with that idea is that the damage has been done.
Going back to the way it was before would, at current income tax rates, restore some $530 million a year to the fund that gets divvied up among public schools statewide.
But it would also take that much money away from the state's institutions of higher learning. The universities are not exactly flush with cash right now and, if they lost that income tax revenue, the two main options for making it up would be getting it out of the state's general fund, which is already oversubscribed, or raising tuitions and fees, which would just make it that much harder for many young people to finish college.
Or the Legislature could raise taxes, which would not be a popular move either in the Capitol or outside of it.
And even if the public schools received the half-billion-dollar windfall Dabakis envisions, they'd still be underfunded compared to schools almost everywhere else. And the re-infusion of the money that had gone to higher ed would be used as an excuse by legislative Republicans as a reason why no more money was needed.
More money is needed. Finding it will be difficult. But just taking it away from higher education is no answer.
As far as the Utah Constitution is concerned, we ought to just leave bad enough alone.