Capitol agenda packed

Utah's 104 part-time lawmakers come into session Monday, ready to spend the next 45 days setting budgets, passing new laws and otherwise handling the business of the state's 2.4 million residents.

Topping the agenda will be parental rights, school funding and control, tuition tax credits, taxes and spending.

And there should be plenty of behind-the-scenes politicking: The session marks the end to leadership terms of House Speaker Marty Stephens and Senate President Al Mansell. And it may be the only general session for newly installed Gov. Olene Walker, who won't announce her future political intentions until after the March 3 legislative adjournment.

In recent years, citizens have held the Utah Legislature in relatively high regard, as measured by job performance surveys for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV by Dan Jones & Associates.

But a new poll by Jones shows that less than half of Utahns believe lawmakers make their decisions based on what their constituents want or what the lawmakers' own political beliefs and consciences tell them is best.

Rather, nearly 60 percent of Utahns say lawmakers are mostly influenced by lobbyists or special interest groups, by their own private business interests, their religious leaders and church or by what their immediate families and friends believe is important.

In a survey of 408 Utahns, Jones found that only 20 percent believe lawmakers make their decisions based on what constituents want; 17 percent believe decisions are made via lawmakers' own consciences and political beliefs.

Twenty-one percent said legislators make decisions based on what lobbyists or special interest groups want; 17 percent say decisions are based on what lawmakers' church leaders or own religion would want; 17 percent believe decisions are made based on the legislators' own business interest; and 4 percent said a lawmaker's own family has the most influence on his decisions. Five percent didn't know or have an opinion, Jones found.

However influenced, over the next 45 days legislators will set the 2004-05 $8 billion state budget and vote on upward of 600 bills and resolutions. They will work long hours for their $120-a-day pay, see little praise and a lot of criticism.

And within two weeks of adjournment, most of them will have to decide whether they want to run for the office again. All of the 75-member House and half of the 29 senators are up for re-election in 2004, the filing deadline being March 17.

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