Selective Indignation

By Emily Hollingshead

So a major side effect of running for the Utah Senate has been that I can’t keep myself away from the senate floor debates, and every single day I find myself listening to them online, hanging on every word. Really, I am glued to the thing… and as a result, I can tell you every Senator by name, I can almost recognize their voices when they get up to speak, and I’m just about to the point where I could tell you who voted for or against a bill and their reasons for doing so.

It should have come as no surprise when Senator Howard Stephenson stood up last Wednesday and explained why he chose to vote against a Concurrent Resolution opposing Divine Strake:, He said that he did not like the way the resolution went straight to a vote without an opportunity for public input:

“We have known apparently, at least 90 days… when this public period ended. If this was urgent, I would have expected this would be scheduled up for committee hearing so that we could hear the public, so that we would know what the dangers are, what the issues are involved in this. This is another case where we suspend the rules and we violate the normal process of the deliberative bodies that we are supposed to be in the legislature not only deliberative on our floor debate, but deliberative in our committees, allowing the public to comment and hearing this out… and now it apparently, we will have no committee hearing neither in the senate or in the house.”

As I listened to this little bit of information, I couldn’t believe my ears… has Senator Stephenson been living under a rock? Well, if he has been living under a rock, it wasn’t in Southern Utah, because the Divine Strake test is the *only* thing anybody is talking about down here. All over the state there has been all kinds of public input… one only needs to browse through the KSL message boards to know that there has been a LOT of public comment on Divine Strake. Just two weeks ago Governor Huntsman held a public hearing where over 300 people came and voiced their opinions, mostly against the proposed testing.

Fast forward to today, when Utah Senators were debating the House Bill 148, the notorious private education vouchers bill.

Senator Curtis Bramble gave a very brief recap of the bill, then there was some floor debate (where all of the Democrats spoke out in opposition of the bill and tried to offer amendments that the majority would have no part of) and then this fell out of Senator Bramble’s mouth:

“Mr. President, under suspension of the rules, I would move that this bill be considered… be considered read for the second and third time… and up for final passage. In making this motion, this does have a fiscal note, and that is one of the rules being suspended, meaning should we pass it today, it does become part of the budget without additional consideration in executive appropriations.”

Wait a minute – just two days ago Senator Stephenson said “This is another case where we suspend the rules and we violate the normal process of the deliberative bodies that we are supposed to be in the legislature, not only deliberative on our floor debate, but deliberative in our committees, allowing the public to comment and hearing this out…. And now it apparently, we have no committee hearing...”

Senator Scott McCoy caught on to the hypocrisy at about the same time that I did, because he stood up and said that he was voting against the bill because it had not been allowed to go through the deliberative process. Senator Stephenson quickly rebutted, saying this was a different issue and it was ok this time to suspend the rules.

According to Senator Stephenson, the bill already DID have enough debate and no more public comment was needed. But Senator, if you’re going to claim superior legislative behavior on one issue, why not do it across the board? Where was the indignation today for the disregard for the legislative rules? The Senator didn’t have to be indignant today, he said, because this one was different. Why is it different? If your guiding principle is that the senate should not break its own rules, why is this different? Even our seasoned Senator Dmitrich said he has NEVER seen a bill breeze through second and third passage with a fiscal note attached.

Which is it? Are we supposed to be outraged when we suspend the rules, or not?

I like consistency. I believe it is a good thing when our elected officials stand steady and consistent in their decisions and when they choose to apply the same careful reasoning across the board to any given issue. But this one – this just wasn’t consistent.

I am not sure what Senator Stephenson’s *real* reason was for opposing the Divine Strake Concurrent Resolution – but I will propose that it had nothing to do with Senate rules and everything to do with being contrary just because he could. And while I enjoyed Senator McCoy’s snark regarding suspension of the Senate rules, he will be the first to admit that he voted against vouchers for private education because he and his constituency are opposed to them. I do not believe that Senator Stephenson’s reasoning against voting for the Concurrent Resolution was as honest.