Legislative Process

America submits many of its complex issues and problems to legislative process for resolution. Many of these problems exist because the entities involved are unable or unwilling to talk and negotiate. Legislative process affords entities that opportunity.

The Deseret News highlights a serious property rights controversy that exists in Utah regarding billboards. This controversy has been raging for some time. I’m happy to say that the parties brought the issue to the Legislature, and that we’ve been able to resolve it (or at least map out a strategy by which it can be resolved).

The Utah League of Cities and Towns and the billboard companies each had several items of legislation that they wanted run. Senator Jerry Stevenson, Representative Steve Clark and I were able to meet with the entities and craft a pathway forward. It’s not that we did anything great, we simply had the backing of the legislative process to invite (force?) the parties to talk. Once they sat in the same room and had a somewhat refereed conversation, they were able to find some solutions. Good for them.

The underlying balance-of-power issues still exist and must be examined, and maybe modified, by the Legislature, but that’s a good project for the interim.

Sex Ed

My sex ed bill can be found here.

In short, the bill modifies the sex ed curriculum, by instructing the State Office of Education to create a medically-accurate curriculum on contraceptives for all high schoolers (unless parents opt-out). The instruction will be delivered via a video prepared by the State Office. Along with being accurate and excellent, the video will fully inform parents of what will be taught; that way, parents can make an informed decision regarding their child’s participation; better yet, the video will provide an excellent tool for parents to use when talking with their children about sex.

My conversations regarding sex ed suggest that a few points should be clarified:

1. Current Utah law is not abstinence-only. It is abstinence-based. Contraceptive info is taught in 36 of Utah’s 40 school districts.

2. Point no. 1 is not quite accurate. Though all but 4 districts claim to teach contraceptives, instruction often comes down to the personal preferences of the individual health teachers. Some teach it; some don’t; some sort of mention it.

3. Utah rates of teen pregnancy and STD infections are problematic.

Last year, as Senate sponsor of Rep. Seelig’s Expedited Partner Therapy bill, I was surprised by the pregnancy rates and STD rates for Utah kids. Believing that education can improve behavior, and that smarter sexual behavior can prevent much heartache and tragedy, I took a big interest in Rep. Hemingway’s sex ed bill. It has been a pleasure to work with Lynn and all of the interested parties.

The sex ed advisory board for my school district strongly supports the bill. My Senate district is just about the most conservative in the State. But, when my people learn about the specifics of the bill, they support it. That’s the key – getting to the point of real discussion and specifics.

I believe in legislative process. Because of the sensitivity and tremendous importance of the topic, and because of the passions that the words “sex ed” evoke, this bill will be challenged at every turn. And that’s a great thing! The process will drive meaningful discussion and helpful ideas. The final product will be awesome, and it will do great things for the youth of Utah.

Cybersquatting Legislation

I am running legislation, to crack down on cybersquatting.

Last year, we stalled on legislation addressing the practice of search engines selling trademarks as search terms. Sen. Liljenquist and I were tasked to work with the combatants over the interim. We realized that we’d never reach a viable conclusion; but, importantly, we realized that all the companies involved in the discussions, and countless other businesses, did have a common appetite to find a solution to cybersquatting. So, we started working on that issue.

Jim Halpert (not that Jim Halpert, but, yes, the Jim “childhood friend” Halpert) expertly led the discussions from Paris. (Negotiations took a hiatus, when Jim went on a buddy trip with Andy Bernard; not that Andy Bernard, but, yes, the Andy “childhood friend” Bernard). Michael Scott had nothing to do with the legislation.

Though one small area of disagreement remains, the legislation has the support of Google, AOL, Yahoo, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, 1-800 Contacts, and many other great national and Utah-based companies. The cybersquatting provisions are patterned after traditional trademark law – addressing brand confusion.

Friday, I'll meet with the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse at Alston & Bird. After, I will hang with my buddy Colin Delany, founder of ePolitics. The circle will be complete, if I can introduce Colin to Meredith Palmer.

Legislative Ethics

President Waddoups appointed me to chair the Senate Ethics Committee. The first task in that new position is to help guide the legislative ethics package of reforms that started last session (with new laws regarding gifts and disclosures) and progressed this summer (including further work on disclosures, campaign financing, and – most importantly, in my opinion – an ethics commission made up of non-legislators that allows for considerations of citizens’ complaints). A few observations.

First, on the citizens’ initiative. Citizen participation is a great thing and, unfortunately, is not common enough. During and after getting spanked by a citizens’ referendum on my voucher bill in 2007 (the only time that’s ever happened in the history of Utah, thank you very much), I voiced my heartfelt support for Utah’s process for inviting citizen-directed actions:

Referenda act as a rip cord. If the populace thinks that government got something terribly wrong, the referendum process allows the public to step in and take immediate action. Just like the checks and balances between the branches of government, this is a way to prevent excesses and – as is needed to preserve healthy democratic republics – a way to vent steam. Our system of government is designed to encourage battles within the system, not out on the streets.

To that end, my hat is off to the group who forwarded the citizens’ initiative on legislative ethics. To be clear, I think the particulars of that initiative are flawed in many respects (e.g., a burden of proof that would force an accused legislator to prove his/her innocence), and I think that the initiative uses the universally-desired aspiration for higher ethical standards to also accomplish some political goals. But, hey, since when are first drafts perfect, or since when are politics immune from politics? Some citizens cared enough about something that they pushed an agenda. Good for them. They jumped into the arena with both feet. That’s exactly how the process is supposed to work.

Did the threat of the initiative spur the Legislature to do more on ethics reform? You bet. I think that we understood that the public wants our rules and processes to be changed, and I think that we largely are headed in the right direction with the changes we've implemented and contemplated. But, I think we misjudged the pace the public seems to be demanding. The threat of an initiative that we believe is seriously flawed and that we believe would do serious damage to the management of the State caused us to reassess the matter. And that's good.

Second, our package of reforms. I’ll start by repeating – first drafts (meaning ideas that have not been reworked by political process) are rarely perfect. Therefore, I don’t pretend that our package is perfect. The proposals will go through the process, and the specifics will be modified and improved. Please participate.

A. We contemplate asking the citizens to amend the Utah Constitution to create an independent ethics commission. Because of the Utah Constitution’s separation of powers provisions, each branch polices itself (and voters police all 3, through elections). Thus, it is necessary to amend the Utah Constitution, to allow for outside policing. This was done, for example, when the Judicial Conduct Commission was created, in order to allow citizen complaints to be considered by a group other than the Judiciary.

B. We contemplate establishing the particulars for the operation of the ethics commission along the lines of the Judicial Conduct Commission, with judges and former legislators considering complaints and making recommendations for action to the house where the member serves. I have the privilege of being 1 of 4 legislators to sit on the Judicial Conduct Commission, and I believe the process works well and is one to emulate. The key is to create a workable path for complaints to be raised and considered, so that problems can be addressed without unnecessarily ruining careers and reputations with unfounded accusations. In the political arena that is a tough balance to achieve, since a mere accusation can turn an election and, if unfounded, effectively disenfranchise voters.

C. We contemplate further tightening provisions relating to gifts, meals, disclosures, and campaign contributions. We serve at the pleasure of the citizens, and citizens want us to make a change here. So, we need to do it.

Third, the path from here to there. We’ll run these proposals through the legislative process. The process calls for criticism, critique, give and take, modification, etc. No doubt, the media will have a field day writing that the Legislature is about to explode with fights between the House and Senate and Republicans and Democrats. Sure, we’ll disagree some. And you’ll be well served by that disagreement. Hopefully, you’ll help foment some of that disagreement and discussion. Each body and party will complain that the other is moving too fast or too slow or too this or too that. But, we’ll keep it together, and I predict that we’ll take the public’s input and move the issue forward.

I'll post links to specific bills as they become available.

Disagree? Lay out your case in the comments.

State Retirement -- Actuarial Report

The actuarial data behind my previous post on Utah's retirement system can be found here.

Utah's Retirement System

Utah’s Retirement System is financially unsustainable. [ed. -- Instead of "unsustainable," I originally wrote "unsound," which is imprecise; because the system is backed by the taxpayers of the State, who can always be hit up for more and more money to fund it, it is fiscally sound -- it's just not sustainable; as I will explain in the comments, to sustain the present system, the draw on taxpayers' wallets and all other areas of government would be huge]. On present course, we will soon be billions of dollars underwater. Something needs to change. And, that has our public employees very nervous.

Two initial points –

One, something has to be done this session. This is a compounding problem. The longer we wait, the worse the problem gets. It is neither wise nor fair to simply bump the problem forward. Because the system is structurally flawed, “wait” is not a proposal that fits the problem.

Two, existing employees must be treated fairly. They did not create the problem.

My preferred approach could be analogized to treating a serious wound.

First, let’s stop the bleeding. We cannot keep enrolling new hires into a system that is broken. Rather than entering new hires into a system that pays guaranteed benefits 30 years down the road (“Defined Benefits”), we need to enter new hires into a pay-as-we-go-system (“Defined Contributions” – like a 401K, for example). Likely, this could be done in such a way that new employees will love it. For less money to the State, salaries could be increased and employees could have much greater flexibility to leave for another job and take their benefits with them.

Second, let’s remove foreign objects. Double dipping is the biggest “foreign object.” We have employees retiring, collecting retirement, and, then, coming back and simultaneously getting paid to do the same job. What I just described isn’t necessarily a problem. Those folks earned the retirement benefits, and the agency decided it can benefit from their continued service. Fine. The problem is that they continue to accrue retirement credits; that is costly to the system. Once an employee begins to draw retirement, accrual of additional service credits should stop.

Third, let’s address the soft tissue. The last step is to address the benefits of existing employees. The system has to be actuarially sound. If steps one and two don’t right the system, adjustments will need to be made to the benefits of existing employees. As I pointed out above, this step involves taking things from people, and, therefore, must be handled with the utmost respect and sensitivity. A guiding factor must be the amount of time that employees have put into the system. No one appreciates having something taken away; however, the more time employees have put in, the more they have ordered their lives around the promised benefits and the less time they will have to adjust to changes before retirement. While I am hopeful that we won’t have to touch the benefits of existing employees, I don’ t think that is realistic; we are in a deep hole. However, I am optimistic that we can bring the system into balance without altering the benefits of our longer-serving employees.

I realize that everything I have written above must be extremely frustrating to state employees. I have held off quite a while before writing anything, in order to let our retirement committee run several models. It now seems, though, that what I have written above is an accurate description of where we stand and roughly what must be done. Please, come to the table, and help us figure out the best approach to this difficult issue.

Sense and Nonsense

One of the things I like best about policy making is the education process that is involved. Legislation deals with just about any topic under the sun – which means that a legislator should spend loads of time learning about lots of things (which is pretty cool). In that fast-and-furious education process, it is always a challenge to sort out sense and nonsense in the information we are presented. I’ve been wanting to blog about this topic for a while, and I recently received something that provides good fodder.

A doctor sent out an email with some serious allegations about health care in Utah and about Intermountain Healthcare specifically. Coming from a doctor and citing sources for the allegations, the email initially would seem to add substance to Utah’s health care debate. However, it falls apart, when subjected to scrutiny. Because I serve as a volunteer on the Governing Board of my local hospital, Dixie Regional Medical Center, I had some baseline knowledge of the underlying issues, and was able to quickly spot problems with the information presented. Here are some examples.

The first allegation was: If Utah is the second healthiest state and also the youngest population demographic in the nation, then why are our health care costs so much higher than many other states? In the most recent year for which data is available Utah was 32nd for families, and in 2003 was third highest in the nation for single insurance coverage when it should be second lowest (source: StateHealthcareFacts.org).

However, StateHealthcareFacts.org doesn’t show that at all. Much to the contrary, that site shows that Utah has the lowest per capital health care costs in the nation, the 16th lowest rates for single insurance rates (2008), and the 20th lowest for families (2008) – not bad, given the average size of Utah families. And, though I’m not sure why emphasis was placed on 2003, the data for 2003 showed that Utah had the 14th lowest rates for single insurance coverage, not the “third highest in the nation” as alleged.

The second allegation was: Why did the largest insurance actuary in the country, Tillinghast, comment that healthcare costs would be lower in Utah were it not for Intermountain Healthcare? (Source: Personal communication with Jacob Lawrence of Tillinghast).
Well, he didn’t. Jacob Lawrence (who actually works for Towers Perrin, not its subsidiary, Tillinghast) says, “I would like to take this opportunity to correct the facts set forth . . .. I did not make the comment to Dr. [X] attributed to me.” Likewise, a video touted by the same doctor shows prominent medical practitioners and professors apparently saying bad things about Intermountain. When contacted, those people likewise say that the attributed quotes were fabricated through the editing process.

Etc. Etc. My personal favorites are the allegations that Intermountain advertises during the Superbowl (uh, no) and that Utah is one of the worst regarding the cost of in-patient hospital stays (when it is, actually, the very best).

You get the idea. People and organizations sometimes do play fast and loose with the facts, when dealing with the Legislature. That is a mistake. In the hustle of the session, legislators listen to reliable sources and ignore sources that have previously been inaccurate. Most issues legitimately have 2 or more sides and can be worthy of legislative consideration. It always baffles me that experienced people would come before the Legislature with glaringly erroneous (and so easily verifiable) information.

Gov. Herbert's Proposed Budget

Gov. Herbert announced his budget recommendations today. (Here is a video link to his presentation). Because budget recommendations from Governors are, well, recommendations, and those recommendations aren’t actually put into place, it is very easy for Governors to employ smoke and mirrors that play well to the media and the general public but put the Legislature in the unenviable position of doing the tough things those Govs fudged. As far as I can tell from my review so far, Gov. Herbert avoids budgeting parlor tricks. He puts forward a responsible budget that will serve as a sound basis for legislative discussions.

And, Gov. Herbert sticks to his pledge to not raise taxes. He states, “In putting this budget together, my first priority was, in fact, to not raise taxes, if at all possible. . . . I think, as we go forward in this fragile, yet recovering, economy, that a tax increase at the present time would be just absolutely the wrong thing to do for the best interests of Utah’s future. . . . I think that tax hikes, in fact, would be counterproductive to the stability and the viability of our economy going forward.” Well said.

The other main aspect of the Governor’s budget is the protection of education funding. The budget does employ some practices that the Legislature typically does not favor, such as replacing cash funding with bonding in transportation matters and using one-time (lapsing) money to fund on-going programs. To avoid those practices, the Legislature likely would make additional cuts. But, this is an excellent basis for discussions. Thank you, Gov. Herbert and LG Bell.

No Tax Increase

The Tribune editorialized against my effort to balance the State budget without raising taxes. They write, "Sen. Steve Urquhart is trying to round up a majority of his Utah Senate colleagues to promise to oppose any tax increases in next year's general session of the Legislature. . . . To say that the St. George Republican's tax pledge effort is a bit premature is like saying that Custer slightly underestimated the Sioux at the Little Big Horn." That's good writing. (As I've written before, I love editorials that make a crisp point).

However, the editorial continues, "We have discussed all kinds of possible tax increases on this page." To be more precise, the Trib has editorialized in favor of raising taxes. So, the Trib believes that it is premature to oppose tax increases, but that the time to push for tax increases is now. Clearly, as has been alleged, ideology does factors into this discussion. Some people believe that government's size and reach should be increased; others, including by my estimation a majority of my constituents, don't.

KSL previously editorialized against opposing tax increases. Sen. Wayne Niederhauser emailed me this reply (and agreed that I could post it here):

The KSL editorial has one major flaw . . .. It is economics 101. Taxing does not create increased economic activity. It takes money from the private sector, funnels it through government at a cost and distributes it back into the economy. It is a shift, not an increase. The only way to increase the flow of money and economic activity is by deficit spending or spending savings. Long-term deficit spending has huge problems. One day the debt has to be repaid, which takes money out of the economy and hurts economic activity. Deficit spending is a false economy, and one day a sad reality must be faced. Therefore, the idea that tax increases will save jobs is flawed. It might save government jobs, but it deeply hurts private sector jobs. In the end, there is most likely a net loss of jobs in the economy as a whole. The idea that we are going to take money out of the private sector and the hands of our citizens, who distribute it at their will, and give it to government to distribute at its will seems repulsive to me.

Clearly, people differ on what will be best for Utah and Utahns. I think that balancing the budget to existing revenues leaves the State in much better position to spring out of the downturn; but, we'll have robust debates, and, in the end, we'll deal responsibly with the State's budget.

Let your voice be heard!

UPDATE (12/11): One other point I meant to make is that we don't know where the bottom is on this downturn. Just as we did last year, it makes sense to keep taxing options available, instead of using them to putty a hole that just might get bigger.

Utah's 2010 Budget

Utah balances its budget every year. Revenues must match expenditures. With the continued economic downturn, Utah's tax revenues now do not match the State's expenditures. There are 3 main tools the State can use to bring its budget back into balance. It can (1) reduce expenditures, (2) raise revenues through increased taxes, or (3) draw money from the rainy-day fund. Of course, the State can employ any mix of the 3 options, so long as revenues match expenditures.

I believe that my constituents do not want the Legislature to raise taxes. Therefore, I will oppose tax increases. (I am not opposed to adjustments -- raising some taxes, while lowering others -- so long as the adjustments are revenue neutral; the one possible exception my constituents raise is the tobacco tax; perhaps the tobacco tax should be raised to the western states average, even if not revenue neutral, so long as the increased revenue is placed in the Tobacco Trust Fund).

Over the last 20 years, the growth of Utah government has significantly outpaced the State's combined rate of population growth and inflation. In other words, the growth of State Government has outpaced the underlying economy. To fuel the growth of Government, Utah saddles its citizens and its economy with a tax burden that is much too heavy.

A high tax burden chases away productive businesses and citizens. Conversely, a lower tax burden attracts productive businesses and citizens. Utah needs to balance its budget in a way that promotes job growth and job creation. That means that the Legislature should bring expenditures in line with revenues, without adding to the overall tax burden of its citizens.

Because Utah balances its budget, the money is real. A dollar really is a dollar. Depending on tax policy, each dollar can either be in the pocket of the person who earned it, or it can be collected and shifted to someone else. Utah already takes too many dollars out of people's pockets. Each additional dollar we take is one less dollar that the worker could have spent on food, shelter, charity, business development, etc. Government simply does not multiply the benefits of a dollar like the owner of a dollar does. Thus, while taking additional dollars out of people's pockets could work to shore up the State's budget issues, it would not be in the long-term best interests of Utah's citizens or economy.

We currently understand the financial hole we are in; we understand the tools at our disposal; and I believe that I understand the will of my constituents. We can -- and should -- balance the budget without digging deeper into our citizens' wallets.