Utah Legislature: Lawmakers list items for study

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah legislators like to study things. A lot of things.

Each spring, summer and fall, the Legislature meets at least once a month in what are called interim study committees.

This year the 104 legislators will study 249 topics. (Some of the topics are related in nature, and so may be combined.)

Of course, lawmakers really don't have time to study all that stuff.

But especially in an election year — with all 75 House members and half of the 29-member Senate, unless they are retiring, facing voters — legislators want to please constituents by formally requesting study items their supporters want.

The Legislative Management Committee assigned the study items Tuesday and adopted the formal meeting schedule.

By examining what is being studied, and which committee that topic is going to, one can gain insight into leaders' objectives this election year. And one can wonder why some subjects need to be studied at all.

Some examples:

 At the suggestion of Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, the joint Ethics Study Committee will meet only three times — in May, June and November.

The committee will take up what could arguably be its most important assignment: Rewriting the code of conduct for legislators. All the ethics work accomplished in the 2010 Legislature, including adopting an independent ethics commission to screen complaints against legislators, means little, observers say, if legislators are not held to a higher, clearer, code of conduct.

But by meeting monthly in the 2009 interim, the Ethics Committee drew news coverage nearly all summer long — something that might not be desired this year.

In 2010 the committee's final meeting in November will come after the general election — too late for criticism should members make little progress on legislators' code of conduct.

 While legislators will study outlawing affirmative action through a state constitutional amendment, the management committee didn't ask the Constitutional Review Commission to study that issue.

The CRC was asked only to study school fees and supplies, an issue brought up in HJR25.

CRC members didn't give Rep. Curt Oda's anti-affirmative action amendment a good reception during the 2010 Legislature, and Oda was forced to hold his HJR24.