Must citizens fight their government?

Why is it we have to fight our own government? That, in essence, was the question of a woman with disabilities who, after the sudden death of her husband, had to run a small family plumbing company. The U.S. Department of Labor regulators found her in noncompliance with federal regulations, including that she had only one toilet in her small shop and regulations required she have two.

Now, Utahns are asking the same thing. "Why do we have to fight our own state government to carry out the public's wishes?" They said they didn't want more nuclear waste in the state that would endanger their own health and that of their progeny, yet legislators voted for it, favoring big business.

Legislators ignored the decision of a local elected official who decided, after much study and public debate, it would not be fiscally responsible to use taxpayers' money to fund a shaky deal for a soccer stadium. Though local constituents supported the decision, the Legislature, in a political nanosecond, overturned it and voted for it because big business put on a full-court press to get it. Their antics remind me of my late friend Alex Hurtado's saying about mind over matter, "I don't mind, and you don't matter." To legislators, local elected officials and their constituents don't matter.

For years, voters have made legislative ethics and campaign financing reform a top priority, yet the Legislature, controlled by one party, keeps ignoring those pleas. They ignore appointing a nonpartisan commission in the redistricting of voting districts and continue to do it themselves. Voters keep saying they want legislators to sit out two years before registering as lobbyists. Yet legislators seem to have turned the "part time Legislature" into a lobbyist training ground for full-time employment. It's embarrassing to see such blatant abuse of campaign contributions to the extent many politicians don't bother to get elected on the merits of how well they represent their constituents. They extol the virtues of competition, and the evils of monopolies, when they rail against public education; yet with the one-party system they have built, they have created the most powerful monopoly that allows them to use our government institutions for their benefit.