Curtis was quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune explaining why he supports Sandy's attempt to use part of its share of Legislature-approved funding for Salt Palace expansion to snatch the proposed professional soccer stadium from the capital city and locate it in Sandy instead.

Curtis' legislative district includes Sandy, he explained. So his duty is to help the residents of Sandy. If Salt Lake City wants a voice in the Legislature, it should come from a representative of Salt Lake City.

And therein lies the problem, which Curtis knows all too well.

Every senator and representative from Salt Lake City is a Democrat. Because the Republican Party holds super majorities in both the Senate and the House, the Democrats, and therefore Salt Lake City, have no voice in the Legislature.

That makes Curtis' explanation a bit disingenuous and it demonstrates an ongoing disdain for Utah's most populous city at the Utah Legislature.

Salt Lake City and Murray appeared to be the only two cities competing for a soccer stadium to house Real Salt Lake, Utah's new professional soccer team. The reward, of course, is an expanded tax base and tremendous economic development potential for the host city.

At the time both cities were trying to put together financial packages to build a stadium, Sandy officials apparently were in secret negotiations with officials of Salt Lake County and some legislators to figure out a way to get the stadium for Sandy.

The Legislature also was considering how to fund expansion of the Salt Palace and, although the state would be the biggest beneficiary of larger and more frequent conventions (mostly through sales taxes), legislators initially balked at making any contribution from state coffers. Various funding scenarios were offered (mostly sticking it to Salt Lake City). At one point Salt Lake City would have been required to kick in $23 million for the project.

During a special session this spring, the Legislature finally agreed to cough up $4 million from the state, and Salt Lake City was told to contribute $8 million, to go along with the investment of Salt Lake County, the actual owner of the Salt Palace, of tens of millions of dollars.

The expansion package also included $20 million for a parking structure for Sandy's South Towne Expo Center, which handles mostly locally based conventions as a complement to the Salt Palace's role.

Now it has been revealed that Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, an established Republican Party insider, plans to use part of that $20 million to leverage funds for a soccer stadium with help from the Legislature and the Salt Lake County Council.

The winner: Republican good-old-boy Tom Dolan. The loser: Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a Democrat and the Legislature's favorite whipping boy.

This latest ploy is reminiscent of other legislative shenanigans leaving Salt Lake City out in the cold because its Democratic legislators are not invited to play.

Republicans outnumber Democrats 56-19 in the House and 21-8 in the Senate. That means many crucial decisions are made in Republican caucuses, then rubber-stamped on the Senate and House floor, and the Democrats have nothing to do with it.

Take the time the Republican majority held hostage more than $2 million that legitimately was Salt Lake City's money. It was Salt Lake's sales tax share pledged to help leverage light rail funding to get TRAX done before the Olympics. After money from the Olympics secured the budget, Salt Lake City was supposed to get it back.

But the majority party, like bullies on a beach, delighted in holding up the money until Anderson bent to his knees and promised not to file any more lawsuits against the Legacy Highway.

Just this last session, Democratic Sen. Fred Fife, who represents Salt Lake City's west side neighborhoods, sought state help in moving a smelly and messy tire recycling plant in his district to a less populated area.

Although dozens of his constituents showed up for a hearing on the matter, they and Fife were ignored and the proposal died with nary a hearing.

Compare that to the Legislature's $2 million contribution a few years ago to help Provo move a smelly meat processing plant in Provo (represented entirely by Republicans) to a less populated area in Juab County.

Once upon a time, there actually were a few Democrats outside of Salt Lake City. In the 1980s, the mayors of Salt Lake City, Ogden and Provo all were active Democrats. The Republican-dominated Legislature changed the way sales taxes were distributed so sales taxes collected in the larger cities were spread out among the less-populated cities. The cities most hurt by this, of course, were Salt Lake City, Ogden and Provo.