Legislature: focus on tax cuts, schools

In beautifully remodeled chambers, new offices and with a sense that they are back where they belong, Utah's 104 part-time legislators open their 2008 Legislature Monday morning in the Utah State Capitol.

And legislative leaders hope it will also be the last time they convene on Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday — ending the annual debate about legislative "insensitivity," as well, since the conflict is rooted in the state's constitution.

For the past three years, legislators and top state elected leaders have been in temporary digs in two office buildings behind the Capitol, which underwent a $250 million earthquake retrofitting and remodeling, reopening just weeks ago.

And a state constitutional amendment will go before voters in November, seeking to officially change the first day of each Legislature to miss the holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and GOP and Democratic leaders alike believe this 45-day general session will bring increased spending for Utah's schoolchildren and teachers, a renewed effort to provide affordable health insurance to Utah's uninsured, the adoption of a nearly $13 billion budget, debates on hundreds of proposed new laws, and another round of tax cuts.

This is also an election year for Huntsman, all 75 House members and half of the 29-member Senate. So local and statewide politics will be considered in Capitol hallways, too. All candidates must file for office just two weeks after lawmakers adjourn March 5, as Huntsman ponders whether to sign or veto 300 or so new laws.

Unknown to many

While the 104 egos in the House and Senate may find it hard to believe, a new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows that 60 percent of Utahns can't name their representative or senator. Only 14 percent said they can name both of their legislators, found pollster Dan Jones & Associates.

Even legislative leaders whose names are often in the media labor in obscurity.

"My own poll of my constituents found that most didn't recognize my name," said House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, who will lead his two-thirds GOP majority in the House for the fourth straight year.

Jones, whose wife and polling partner is Sen. Pat Jones, D-Holladay, also found that most Utahns — 51 percent — do not want another tax cut from lawmakers this year. Forty-one percent of Utahns said they want a tax cut.

Huntsman did not suggest a tax cut in his recommended 2008-2009 budget released last month, saying that after $400 million in tax cuts over the past three years, 2008 was time to catch up on some needy programs.