Who got helped, who got hurt

Published: Thursday, March 4 2004 10:36 a.m. MST

Lawmakers helped:

• Conservatives' chances for re-election by passing laws to ban partial-birth abortion, abortion funding and gay marriages.

• Noncustodial parents by giving judges the discretion to require both parents to split the responsibility of transporting the kids.

• Civil-rights attorneys who make their living suing the state by passing numerous bills certain to be challenged as unconstitutional.

• Victims of downwind radiation by urging Congress to add all Utah to the list of those eligible for compensation.

• Free up jail space by allowing drunken drivers to submit to rehabilitation before entering a guilty plea.

• Kids with asthma by changing a law to allow them to keep their inhalers with them instead of locking them up in a separate room.

• Charter schools by authorizing their own governing board and more than $2 million.

• Couch potatoes by lowering tax on cable TV.

• Green River by approving Solitude Landfill.

• Teenagers who hunt by allowing them to get licenses before their 16th birthday.

• Patriotic trailer park or condominium dwellers by allowing them to fly an American flag unfettered.

• Stern parents by acknowledging that "reasonable" spanking isn't abuse.

• Children of illegal aliens hoping to wear Ute red, Wildcat purple or Aggie blue by not repealing their in-state college tuition.

• Utah's struggling movie industry by giving a sales tax break for filmmaking equipment.

• Nucor Steel by extending its sales-tax break.

• Opponents of fluoridated water by requiring cities to be more forthright when putting the issue before voters.

• President Bush by passing a resolution supporting his efforts in Iraq and to fight terrorism.

• The United Nations by refusing to approve a resolution urging Congress to get the U.S. out of the organization.

• State employees by giving them a 1 percent pay raise and another 1 percent bonus.

• Dinosaur footprints near St. George by appropriating money to hire a paleontologist.

Get The Deseret News Everywhere

Subscribe

Mobile

RSS