I’d been meaning to write this before the announcement from the ethics committee was posted, but it’s still relevant. Media reports indicate Rep. Hughes has been found not to have committed ethical violations, but has been found to have participated in “conduct unbecoming a member of the House of Representatives.” I’m not clear on what [...]
Two years ago, there was some general concern about declining college enrollment. I posted about it. One one biggest reasons for the decline was the growing economy. I said then that there is an inverse relationship between economic strength and college enrollment. The Trib has an article about how college enrollment is now increasing: About [...]
The legislature will be called into special session to reduce the current year’s budget by about $200 million. (See senatesite.com, SLTrib) If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, I suspect few in education would miss the $1 million appropriation for UPSTART (from the controversial SB2 second substitute, line 1108), which provides [...]
The press release from the governor’s office is below. I don’t have time for commentary at the moment, other than to say I’m given to understand the governor simply took the ranked order from the nominating committee as his selection. Sara Brate over at the Accountability blog complied a list of the committee’s votes. Salt [...]
The suit suit filed contesting the constitutionality of Senate Bill 2 (2nd Substitute) has been in the news and come up in the bloghive. I haven’t seen anyone post a copy of the complaint—I happen to have one, so here it is. Complaint [pdf] The two constitutional sections at play are Article VI Section 22 [...]
Today is the final day to file for elected office. After some deliberation, I decided last year to not seek a second term on the Utah State Board of Education. (District 13) The decision was made for several reasons, and more recent events have only solidified my decision. A list of current candidates may be [...]
In my last post I covered the relationship between the Attorney General and the State Board of Education as defined by the Utah Constitution. As promised, this post will cover how the relationship is defined in statute. The same disclaimers as last time apply. The constitutional relationship was much easier to define. For starters, there [...]
One of the issues the keeps rearing its head is the relationship between the Attorney General’s office and the Utah State Board of Education. The Education Interim Committee [1] met on the issue. Standard disclaimers: I speak only for myself. I am not a lawyer. Because it was surely intended to be an impartial meeting [...]
The Utah Supreme Court just ruled in a unanimous (4-0) decision that (contrary to the opinion of the Attorney General) HB 174 could not stand alone, separate and apart from HB 148. Read the full decision (pdf). Before reading the decision to those assembled, the presiding Justice prefaced his comments, including the following (as best [...]
A handful of discussions have popped up recently in response to the Utah Taxpayers Association’s suggestion that the gas tax be raised significantly. It seems to me UTA and those responding to their proposal are coming from different premises, and thus arriving at different conclusions. One of UTA’s reasons for supporting a significant gas tax [...]
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