Prologue: In 2007, a dozen of my very closest friends were the instrumental organizers of the referendum effort that repealed the Utah Legislature’s first voucher law, along with thousands of teachers and PTA moms who gathered the petition signatures, and the tens of thousands of voters who resoundingly rejected that law.
I was sidelined by a dying heart, and was flat on my back in a hospital bed, but I had a petition by my bed, and the medical crew all signed.
The last voucher fight was a year ago, and HB 331 failed on a 22-53 vote at the end of the session. My Representative was among the no votes.
The pro-voucher crowd (which has always aligned with far-right Republicans) then launched a primary campaign to defeat its Republican opponents in more than a dozen districts. Those efforts mostly failed, and my representative soundly defeated his pro-voucher primary opponent 59%-41%.
The same bill came back this year as HB 215.
On Friday, Day 4, at 0700, I received my representative’s mass-emailed invitation to take a survey about issues of importance in this year’s legislative session, including a detailed question about HB 215. I responded to that survey by 0900.
At 1008, I received a text message from a pro-voucher group alerting me that HB 215 would be voted on later that morning, and at 1041 I sent an email to my representative asking him to vote no. At noon, and after a voice vote to suspend the rules and allow an immediate floor vote, it zipped through the House 54-20.
I sent a polite note the next morning expressing my disappointment that my representative had voted for the bill and, a few hours later, he responded with a page-long explanation of his reasons for voting as he did. I appreciate that response; it was more detailed (and better) than I suspect many others would have provided.
My purpose in responding here is not to rag on a friend, who is a good guy in a difficult position. What was wholly missing from his explanation was a rationale for why a voucher bill that takes $43 million from already insufficient public education money and hands it to private schools for the benefit of 5,000 kids (who, if their parents are not high-income, still can’t afford a private school) is smart public policy for Utah. It’s not as though public schools and publicly funded charter schools do not offer sufficient parental options.
The significant revelation in my friend’s message was this sentence: “It became apparent that leadership was really pushing for the bill, and that part of their push was to have things all lined up and ready to go to push it through quickly at the beginning.”
But even that’s not the full story. The leadership push was most significantly exerted not to just pass the bill, but to flip the vote to ensure a veto-proof and referendum-proof two-thirds majority. That’s 50 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate.
The plaque over the speaker’s chair reads “Vox Populi” – the voice of the people. Noble, except when the process is twisted to ensure that the people’s voice is ignored. Since 2007, the Legislature has worked overtime to ensure that the people’s constitutional right of initiative and referendum is increasingly burdened to make the exercise of that right nearly impossible.
Richard C. Howe died in 2021. He was a justice on Utah’s Supreme Court for 22 years, and a Utah legislator for 18 years before that. He was a wise statesman and a Democrat. Twenty years ago, before the worst of the damage had been done, he remarked to a former law clerk that “The court needs to re-visit the cumulative burdens the Legislature has placed on initiatives.”
One thing is clear: Legislators are elected to be the people’s voice. In theory, they are not there to do the bidding of “leadership.” Edmund Burke said that legislators owe us their best judgment, and they betray us if they sacrifice it to our opinion. I agree with that.
But we live in a one-party state, and I thank Ezra Taft Benson for that. If Utah were a competitive two-party state, the voice of the people would not be throttled by a single-party, veto-proof majority. You and I do not elect “legislative leadership.” Nor do those good folks care a whit what you or I think. This bill is only the camel’s nose for what’s to come.
The gold standard: “All political power is inherent in the people” — Utah Constitution.
My frustration with my representative and too many others is that this fait accompli didn’t have to occur and should not have. If it repeats in the Senate, it will be because the voices of a handful count for more than the voices of the majority of the rest of us.
| Courtesy David Irvine
David Irvine is a lawyer and was a four-term Republican Utah legislator from Bountiful.