An Orwellian piece of legislation sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, would give legislators the authority to examine records protected from public scrutiny by state law, including trade secrets, questions and answers for government license examinations, and competitive bids or grant applications.

In other words, Substitute Senate Bill 73, which sailed through both houses and is now on its way to the governor, would allow the lay legislators a glimpse at applications and records that could give advantages to one contractor over others.

Dayton's bill comes on the heels of a battle she had with the State Office of Education over a $500,000 grant awarded to a coalition of Brigham Young University professors and several school districts to develop math curriculum for the public schools. An applicant who did not get the grant is another BYU professor who happens to be Dayton's neighbor.

The senator then wrote to education officials wanting to see the details of the winning grant application, but the officials balked because the grant is renewable after three years and if a competitor saw the applicant's strategies or ideas, it would give that competitor an unfair advantage.

Dayton took the issue to the State Records Committee, which ruled in her favor and ordered the application be released to her. Her legislation now includes lawmakers in the group of entities that should be allowed to view protected information, which already includes government archivists, criminal and civil investigators, and auditors.

This opens the door, for example, for legislators, some of whom are in the charter school business, to review applications from other groups for charter schools, perhaps to get ideas. Or, it could allow legislators in the construction industry to review bids for state jobs from competitive construction companies.

This isn't the first time Dayton has used her legislative power to intervene on behalf of a neighbor or relative. Seven years ago, some BYU students who were acquaintances of Dayton and then-Rep. Katherine Bryson, also an Orem Republican, complained about not getting accepted to the University of Utah Medical School and suggested it was because they were white, male and Mormon.

Dayton and Bryson, along with then-Rep. Carl Saunders, R-Ogden, whose grandson didn't get accepted, called U. of U. officials into a Star Chamber-like proceeding to determine whether the state university was biased against BYU students. They also called for an audit and expressed concern that perhaps there were too many slots left open for minorities and women, an accusation the U. officials denied.

The interrogations went on for months, involving mostly legislators from Utah County, home of BYU. It almost became comical, especially given the Legislature's reluctance to pass meaningful hate crimes legislation which would have protected certain minority groups. It seemed that Dayton, et al., concluded that white male Mormons comprised the only group in Utah that suffered discrimination.

A year later, Dayton sponsored legislation to speed up the process for an apprentice private investigator to become licensed and loosened supervision requirements for apprentices. That was after her son, who was an apprentice PI, was cited for disorderly conduct in Moroni for staking out a home in that city without proper supervision.