Who'll call special session?

Taking what could be viewed as another swipe at Gov. Olene Walker's executive powers, a House committee Monday approved a constitutional amendment that would allow legislators to call themselves into special session.

The Utah Constitution allows only the governor to call lawmakers into special sessions and to set the special session's agenda. Special sessions can be called outside of the annual 45-day general session.

Walker, who has already seen bills that would limit her appointment authority in midterm legislative vacancies and to several boards and commissions, doesn't get to review constitutional amendments.

If they pass by two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate they go directly to general election ballots for approval of voters.

"The governor is concerned by the amendment. It is the first step to a full-time Legislature," which Walker opposes, her spokeswoman Amanda Covington said. "And it upsets the constitutionally wise balance of power" between the legislative and executive branches of government.

But Rep. Chad Bennion, R-Murray, sponsor of HJR8, said legislators have been discussing this amendment for five years. Numerous safeguards have been put in, he added.

For example, lawmakers could only meet for a total of 15 days a year in legislative-called special sessions. And it would take a super-majority vote of two-thirds of each house's members to call themselves into special session, he said.

Perhaps there is a slight shift in power, but Bennion said recent national studies showed that Utah's governor "ranked second or fourth in power" among the 50 governors.

While Utah has been lucky not to have had "a scandalous" executive in the past, legislators couldn't even start impeachment of a governor (outside of a general session) without the governor calling them into special session for impeachment proceedings, said Bennion.

House Government Operations Committee member Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake, shares the governor's balance-of-power concerns. Current special sessions, called by the governor after talking to legislative leaders, "encourages consultations with all."

But the world has changed since Utah became a state in 1896. "Judicial activism" could result in court rulings that lawmakers must react to quickly, Bennion said.

Bennion didn't mention that a number of lawmakers were upset two years ago when Leavitt refused to call them into special session to deal with a growing budget deficit, leaving them, they claimed, in tougher financial straights than if they could have acted more quickly.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com