As the chief law enforcement officer of the State of Utah, I don't share that opinion. The people of Utah elected me to enforce the law, and my constitutional responsibility to my client agencies, including the Utah Board of Education, is to advise them to obey the law - even if they disagree with it.
In the words of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, "Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy."
I understand that a lot of Utahns are frustrated with Utah's voucher and citizen referendum laws. But The Tribune has been surprisingly inconsistent regarding my duty to enforce the law. They recently applauded me when I advised a local school board that open meetings laws are not subject to individual interpretation (even if board members hired an attorney to support their interpretation), and that they had to obey the law.
Local and state school board members are not elected to make laws, or to substitute their own opinions or judgments for those of elected lawmakers, but rather to implement the laws made through our representative democratic process. But when I instruct a public officer or agency to obey a law that some at The Tribune disagree with, they toss the facts and fabricate a case to suggest some other reason why I'm so insistent on obedience to that law.
The truth:
* I did not attend the "rally of voucher supporters" as stated by The Tribune, nor did I "take political advantage of the moment."
* The assertion that the motive for my legal opinion is because some of my children attend a charter school is irrelevant and even ridiculous because it ignores the facts that charter schools are public schools, all five of my kids and I are products of public schools and my parents are retired public school teachers.
* I did not "brush off" 25 questions from the board "as so much fluff." I did not receive those questions until after my letter was sent; and in my letter I specifically stated that they would "be answered with all due speed once we have received the official request from the Board."
My advice to follow the law will not cause an expensive lawsuit. The state will likely be sued regardless of what the board does, but obedience to the law is the best defense. As I advised my clients: Obey and implement the law and if someone sues you, we will defend you in fulfilling your civic duty.
I don't share The Tribune's penchant of first deciding how it feels about a law, and then bending the facts or law to suit that opinion. Numerous lawyers with the Attorney General's Office worked with me to make sure we understood the voucher law and how it would likely be interpreted by the courts, and then developed the best plan to follow it. Some might choose to support our system of justice only when it suits them, but as stated by William Penn, "Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it."
Your readers deserve facts and fairness. Utahns deserve an attorney general who will ensure justice and vigorously defend the rule of law whether it is popular or not.
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* MARK SHURTLEFF is Utah's attorney general.
