An Omnibus Bill:Legislators Take “Easy” Way Out On Education
UtahTeacher has done a great job breaking down the political hack job our legislature is doing to public education through use of an omnibus bill containing many pieces of legislation that likely couldn’t pass if voted on individually. Republicans stuck these ugly measures together with all the positive legislation the public education system needs so they could avoid having to debate the wrongheaded bills.
I understand that politics can be ugly but this is ridiculous. Several of the items stuck in this bill have already been voted down in committee or on the floors of the house and senate this year.
Have we really gotten to the point where the legislature can’t get business done in a way that allows the people to know what is actually being voted on? Cramming all education legislation into an omnibus bill at the last minute does a diservice to Utah’s taxpayers and voters. Legislators should have the courage to give each measure an up or down vote.
It is ironic that Sen. Stephenson, president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, is one of those evangelizing about how great an idea this is. You’d think someone interested in what taxpayers think would want each measure that will cost taxpayers to be considered individually on its merits.
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Jeremy,
You know, don’t you, that Sen. Stephenson and the Utah Taxpayers Associations doesn’t care about the individual taxpayer, only the corporate taxpayer. Money talks and big money buys legislators.
Comment by Barbara — March 4, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
It seems that any omnibus bill, state or federal, is a Frankenstein-like monster of competing interests hoping to ride the coattails to passage instead of being forced to stand on their own. It’s legislative laziness to even propose these bills.
Comment by Jesse Harris — March 4, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
Jesse, I just copied your comment into my new post. Thanks.
Comment by UtahTeacher — March 5, 2008 @ 3:46 am
This omnibus bill may be unconstitutional under the Utah Constitution. (See Article VI, Section 22)
One argument in favor of calling it constitutional would be to consider it an “appropriations” bill, which is partially true. However, the constitution requires it to be a “general appropriations bill”, which I would argue it is not. (See SB1 for an example of a general appropriations bill.) Further, there are stand-alone sections of the bill (e.g. lines 469-491, which come directly from HB 419, a bill that had no appropriation), which give further evidence to the notion that this bill has a) more than one subject, and b) the title (”Minimum School Program Budget Amendments”) does not accurately reflect the body of the bill, both of which are constitutional requirements of bills.
It’s clear in my mind that at the very least, the intent of Art VI Section 22 was violated by the omnibus approach.
Comment by Tom — March 8, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
[…] made an interesting comment on this post that I’ve been thinking about for a couple of days. I think he’s probably right. This […]
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