This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
New York Times political analyst Nate Silver conducted a study recently that found moderate Republican governors are virtually nonexistent after the latest election, with nearly every GOP head of state extremely conservative, even when the state's population tilts moderate or liberal.
He made the comparison by assigning point scores to each governor based on his or her position on a variety of issues — 0 being the most liberal and 100 the most conservative. Then he appointed point scores to the respective states' voters based on their answers in the 2008 exit polls.
The Democratic governors, Silver found, tend to reflect the political leanings of the state's voters. If they are moderate, so is the governor. If they are liberal, the governor fits the bill.
But he found there is almost no ideological diversity among the Republican governors. "Essentially, all of the current Republican governors are quite conservative, taking moderate positions on at most one or two issues," Silver wrote. "Also unlike the Democrats, there is no correlation between the ideology of the governors and the ideology of the states. Whether you have a Republican governor in a fairly liberal state like Maine, a moderate state like Ohio, or a conservative one like Idaho, his agenda is likely to be highly conservative."
But, Silver said, there was one exception.
It's Gov. Gary Herbert, of extremely conservative Utah, "who shares some of the moderate tendencies of his predecessor," Jon Huntsman.
I doubt Herbert will be exploiting that distinction going into the state GOP convention next year.
Bad for business • Not only do taxi drivers have to wait in an unshaded, isolated area while waiting for fares at Salt Lake City International Airport, and not only are they provided no running water and just a couple of poorly maintained Porta-Potties, and not only are the drivers forced to submit two airport charges to their customers, but also the cab companies are being forced to withdraw phone book advertising for their services.
The airport is in the process of awarding new contracts, and there is no guarantee the companies with existing contracts will be renewed.
The contracts originally were to be awarded this fall. But the request for proposals issued by the airport was so flawed, it had to be withdrawn and a new one issued. That means the contracts won't be issued until the end of the year. That is too late for companies that want to advertise in the phone book.
Those advertising contracts are binding for a year, and for Yellow Cab, for example, they cost $4,000 a month. Because Yellow Cab might not be able to serve the airport after December, the company would be stuck with the $4,000 monthly charge until the following fall — while the most lucrative part of its business could be gone.
So, no advertising in the phone book for Yellow Cab.
Bureaucratic logic • Jane Liu, of Sandy, wonders if employees at the state Driver License Division have taken much math, or if they can count.
Her son needed to renew his driver license from a minor to an adult license, but his 21st birthday was on Saturday, July 23 — the same day his minor's license was set to expire — and the state office wouldn't be open again until Tuesday, July 26. Rather than drive on a suspended license for three days, he renewed his license before his birthday.
And that, it seems, was hard for the bureaucrats to process.
When his renewed license arrived, it was still labeled "minor" even though he was 21. When he questioned a division representative, he was told that because he was still a minor when he renewed, it had to be issued as a minor's license, even though he would be an adult by the time he received the license.
When he asked if he could have the minor's license replaced with an adult license, he was told, sure, for an $18 duplicate fee.
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