House kills task force on legislative reform

Legislators narrowly killed a bill Thursday that would have spent several thousand dollars to form a legislative reform task force this year.

Sponsoring Rep. Neil Hansen, D-Ogden, said the task force would look at all kinds of legislative issues, including pay, gift-taking, length of sessions and so on.

But several GOP leaders said the Legislature already has a Legislative Process Committee, which could study those issues, if desired. In fact, the committee has looked at similar issues in the past. While that is true, several years ago the Legislature took away the process committee's interim standing, so it meets only if called by legislative leaders. It didn't meet once last year.

"There's room for a lot of debate on how we can operate better," said Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper. But with a 37-36 vote, the bill failed.