Reader comments
Suit against education bill targeted

The SB2 lawsuit is just more grandstanding. It's interesting to see Rep. Allen lie to the public in the court brief, while portraying herself as the patron saint of ethics.

No, the leadership is grandstanding about grandstanding to try and deflect attention from their illegal bill. Their justification is false--the teacher raises had support as well as most of the other bills. SB2 was cover for the already voted down bills that were bundled in: to give expensive software and laptops to pre-schoolers and to shift school district money to charter schools.

Aren't we taxpayers already paying the Attorney General's Office to defend this bill? If legislative leadership does not trust Mark Shurtleff's leadership they should have filed to run against him instead of making Utah taxpayers pay for a second set of attorneys working on the same case.

Inserting previously defeated bills into SB2 does not violate the constitution. The court will have an easy time throwing out the lawsuit.

Could you offer some detailed reasoning for why the bill is illegal? Just because parts of the bill were previously voted down does not make it illegal if they are included in an omnibus bill. It may have been deceptive to do what they did with SB2, but have you noticed that politics is about deception? It takes something more to make it illegal, and I have yet to hear anyone make a cogent argument for why lumping a bunch of bills about public education together into an education omnibus bill violates the Utah Constitution.

I get that you hate what is in the bill - I really do. You may even be right that the different parts of the bill were right to be voted down individually, but to complain because they later got put into an omnibus bill looks like a childish tantrum, and to file a lawsuit claiming that it is unconstitutional smacks of nothing more than petulance.

It would be far easier for the legislature to re-write the law requiring that each bill only contain one new law, rather than trying to fight this lawsuit on combining numerous bills into one omnibus bill. Omnibus is not ONE bill/issue as the Utah code requires.

Why doesn't someone sponsor a bill that allows NUMEROUS bills to be combined into one bill on the last day of the session?

This lawsuit is a stupid idea perpetrated by people who lack wisdom. The The Democrats that brought the lawsuit are simply using this as a publicity strategy to gain free advertising for the upcoming election. If they win the lottery with this lawsuit it will throw educational legislation into a tailspin for at least two years. Chaos and anger is exactly what they want. Teachers will lose raises, funding for education will stall and Democrats will try to deflect the blame from themselves.

The goal of this group is to destroy the positive educational reforms of the past few years and take our K12 system backwards.

It is more like their unconstitutional law-making powers are threatened. They can still pass laws, they just need to do it the way the Utah constitution says they can do it.

We need to just accept that the legislature knows best. That is why we got Stephenson's (education's champion) 3.5M for Preschool computer software and no school earthquake inspection (100K).

Seperation of Powers? What are the legislatures talking about. Should there power be seperated from the power of the people? The way I see it, the people gave them the power in the first place not only in elections but in the constitution. They represent the real power, the people. When they violate that power, they need to be reminded who holds the real power. SB2 was an abuse of legislative power and like the Voucher Bill, needs to be challenged. The Utah Legislature needs to be reminded they are to serve the will of the people and not their own self interests. This suit might remind them. I hope the election in November reminds them even more.

SB2 is a clear example of taxation without representation. Republican leadership who backed this bill should be replaced by voters. I'm appalled at the lack of concern for taxpayers in this case.

It surprises me that �to maybe� and �anonymous� do not see how "illegal" it is for legislators to put a previously voted down Ron Bigelow �charter school funding� bill into the omnibus bill and hold teachers pay raises as ransom to get the bill passed.

Do legislators need a bill stating deception and holding bills hostage are wrong? I wonder which legislators wrote those comments.

I want �Professor� to know that I am a "Republican" who is appalled at the methods the legislators are using to get 3.5 million in computer software for �private schooled" pre-school children.

The Republican legislators are selling their votes to those with money and power. This is evident in those that voted for vouchers while the constituents in their district voted against, and in the mess they created with splitting districts without everyone having a vote in the decision.

Legislators who protect the omnibus bill want �No representation� for their constituents! I would like to see the paper run articles identifying these legislators and those who voted for vouchers and splitting the school districts, so constituents know who to vote for or against in the next election.

The Charter School portion of the bill the UEA, Sheryl Allen et. all are so upset about calls for only 25% of the funding for a child that leaves a traditional public school to go to a PUBLIC Charter school to follow that student to the charter school.
The other 75% stays at the school the child left. Even if you go to school in Alpine School Dist. and use Math Investigations that's a great deal for the traditional school!

Last I checked the parents are the taxpayers and if their needs aren't being met either at the charter or traditional school they have an obligation to their student to find a school that will.

BTW, are you aware that the state makes up the difference for the 75% of the money the district keeps for students they are NOT educating.
If ALL the money for each student followed the student to the public school of their choice the state could use that money (approx 45 million per year)for the WPU and other education related appropriations like teacher raises or smaller class sizes.