At one point, a number of the House Democrats were so upset they decided to go public over the treatment by holding a demonstration on the House chamber floor, but were talked out of it by their party colleagues, one House Democrat told the newspaper.

By comparison

Becker says it was not a matter of the House Democrats' bills being more controversial or just something that the majority Republicans didn't want to consider. But a look at the bills that Becker sponsored this year compared to the bills that Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, sponsored does tell a tale.

Becker had a lobbyist gift ban bill that was greatly changed by the House and then was killed in the Senate as GOP leaders there ran their own gift-disclosure bill.

He also had a constitutional amendment that would have changed the starting date of each general session from the third Monday in January, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But GOP leaders killed Becker's amendment and ran their own opening-day change amendment.

Becker also had a bill that would have restricted lawmakers private use of their own campaign funds. Legislators can now use their campaign funds any way they want, including just giving money to themselves. Lawmakers routinely kill Becker's campaign account use bill, and they did so again this session.

Because Becker had several bills hacked from his slate, he had a success rate of only 25 percent this year.

Meanwhile, Dmitrich, a retired coal-mining executive, had a success rate of 86 percent. Dmitrich sponsored several technical coal-mining bills, an in-stream water-flow bill, a state retirement bill and a Utah Sports Authority bill.

In other words, Becker sponsored bills with little chance to pass while Dmitrich sponsored noncontroversial bills with little opposition.

Batting zero

The analysis also shows which legislators might be considered "zeros" — not getting much done — and which are the "workhorses," members who carry a lot of bills and get most of them passed into law.

Sixteen members of the Legislature failed to pass any bills — 14 House members and two senators — and so earned "zeros." (See bottom of a related chart, listing the success by all members by their names.)

Rep. Carl Duckworth, D-Magna, was one of those zeros — as he was for the previous two Legislative sessions. He actually had not introduced any bills in the previous two years. He finally introduced one this year but only by its title. And he never introduced any text to go with it, so the bill failed.

The title of his bill was: "Special License Plate for Deaf and Hard of Hearing."