Cooperative spirit reigns on Hill — for now

Two weeks into the 2005 Utah Legislature and we see that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The new building is cramped, just as we imagined. The halls are crowded, with loud conversations among the public and lobbyists almost constant while legislators are in their chambers. Technical glitches abound.

But the work still gets done. And the work is about the same.

One thing is clear: Unlike the last years of former Gov. Mike Leavitt's administration, legislative Republicans (and even the Democrats) are looking for reasons to get along with new Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

In grousing about having to be bused down to Fillmore to hear Huntsman's State of the State address last week, one legislator said, "It's still the honeymoon."

And he was right.

This week a legislative committee quickly adopted a bill that starts the phased removal of the corporate income tax. That will cost public education at least $200 million come 2012, when the last of the tax is finally removed.

Huntsman says he needs this action now so he can immediately use the phase-out as a selling point in recruiting outside businesses to Utah.

Now, admittedly the phase-out doesn't start for two years. And if in 2008 or 2009 we see public education funding dropping dangerously low, legislators then could just stop the revenue bleeding. But would the 1999 or 2000 legislatures have junked a major source of public education funding because then-Gov. Leavitt had asked them to?

I doubt it.

And wouldn't about 100 legislators have gleefully reminded the governor that he'd campaigned on cutting the sales tax from food (as Huntsman did) and is first cutting the business tax?

Oh, I can imagine some of the comments now.

But we're not hearing any of that today. All the Capitol Hill kids want to play together nicely in the sandbox.

Democrats on the committee that heard the business tax-cutting bill voted against it, true. But they didn't have harsh words for Huntsman nor the majority Republicans. And after Huntsman decided to take a further step toward clearly banning hotter B & C radioactive wastes from being brought into Utah, GOP lawmakers began falling all over themselves to do just that — when they'd been cool before to a Democrat's bill that would have done it.

True, the session is only one-third over. There is much to come, including how to spend nearly $600 million in new one-time and ongoing tax revenue. Huntsman and his GOP legislative colleagues could still have some donnybrooks over spending.

But it looks now that Huntsman's "new day in Utah" slogan is finding sympathy in the "new" Legislature, as well.