Shame on rude, petty Utah lawmakers

The 30 or so souls who happened to attend Thursday morning's meeting of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee got to see one of the ugly sides of the Utah Legislature: Part-time politicians taking out after a group they don't like.

Unfortunately, over the 25 years I've covered the Legislature such bashing-matches are happening more and more. Leaders are doing nothing to stop it; in fact sometimes they seem to fuel the attacks.

Civility is not the legislators' strong suit.

In this case it was the media who were the brunt of Sen. Howard Stephenson's nine-minute tirade. But in recent years it has been environmentalists, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, citizens who come up for a public hearing, only to be ignored or told to shut up and sit down.

When a citizen dared to take the public stand and questioned two House members about their conflicts of interest regarding Intermountain Health Care, the committee chairman — one of those whose conflicts was questioned — told the man to stop talking and leave.

Imagine, confronting a legislator about conflicts of interest?

Thursday morning, those present at the Senate committee saw Stephenson, R-Draper, spew forth things so vindictive that if a citizen had walked to the stand and said them, lawmakers would have quickly told him to shut up.

And if that citizen had kept talking, they would have given him the bum's rush out the door by security.

What was Stephenson, a registered lobbyist himself, so upset about? Two bills that would have required more reporting of legislators' names who take gifts from lobbyists.

The bills wouldn't ban the gifts. Both SB102 and HB101 would have lowered to $10 or $5, respectively, the lobbyist gift-giving naming levels. If a legislator took a gift over those amounts, the lobbyist — who most likely is being paid a high salary to influence the legislator — would have to list the legislator's name in the lobbyist public report.

I could go on and list all of the names Stephenson called the media in general and legislative reporters specifically. We are "killer bees" feeding off of good, upright, decent, self-sacrificing, moral, hardworking legislators. The media only write about the gifts that legislators take to "sell newspapers." A TV station followed legislators to a Florida conference several years ago "and hid in the trees" to take pictures of legislators golfing with lobbyists — a perfectly proper outing — just to practice irresponsible and self-serving yellow journalism.

And on. And on. And on for nine minutes.