The Utah Legislature is stealthily attempting to destroy the checks and balances enshrined in both the United States and Utah constitutions.
We all learned the three branches of government: the legislative (makes laws), executive (carries out laws) and judicial (interprets laws).
Let’s compare government to basketball. Every sport has rules and regulations. An unwritten but fundamental policy is that each team has to play by the same rules.
Regulations are established by USA Basketball, a legislative body. Each team plays, executing the rules, and referees, a judicial body, stopping the play if one team breaks the rules.
Picture a basketball game where Team A makes the rules. Its opponents must follow traditional rules, but Team A is allowed seven players, gets four points per basket, and has unlimited fouls and time-outs.
Even a kid would cry “No fair!” Clearly Team A has a conflict of interest.
This is the game our legislators play. First, they write the rules, which always increase their own power, and then carry them out with impunity.
Why is this not an egregious conflict of interest?
Now they want to retaliate against the Utah Supreme Court, our nonpartisan referees.
In Utah we have a fourth branch, the people. We have the right to oversee and put a check on the Legislature, which may be bowing to special interests instead of us, through voter initiatives.
Legislators want to break off that branch, by adding more stringent requirements for a people’s initiative. Through gerrymandering, many ran unopposed, establishing a supermajority that cannot be overridden by the governor’s veto.
This is not a game. They are destroying our freedoms and silencing our voices.
How can they sabotage a form of government they claim to cherish and honor with such arrogance and proclaimed innocence?
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Ann Florence, Murray