Here are some examples of what the Utah legislature does. Keep in mind it is VERY heavily Republican.

- A bi-partisan committee, that was approved by the legislature, put forth ethics reform recommendations last fall. The recommendations received wide support from the Governor and citizens. Did the legislature care? Nope. They drafted their own bill that mostly ignored the recommendations.

- The legislature has shot down EVERY bill that has come before it that even has ANYTHING in it that could be even remotely construed as gay rights legislation. Examples: Salt Lake County allows employees to purchase health care for another adult. It could be an elderly parent or an adult child. But, the legislature, in their "we know how to take better care of you than you do" wisdom, determined that it could also mean a same sex partner and attempted to pass a law prohibiting any government agency from having such policies. The bill was narrowly defeated. Additionally, Utah already prohibits housing and hiring limitations based on age, sex, or race, but refuses to add sexual orientation into that. Finally, there is no such thing as sexual orientation hate crimes in Utah.

- The US is widely regarded as having a poor education system compared to other industrialized countries, yet the biggest jacka$$ in the legislature proposed dropping 12th grade as a way to cut costs. Now, I'm all for cutting costs, but not at the expense of weakening education. The bill has been pulled for "further study".

- The legislature did not like the Governor signing an agreement with other Western states that basically said, "We're concerned about global warming". The agreement did nothing to commit any funds or policies. Yet, because the legislature does not think global warming is a problem, they had a bill that stripped the Governor of all authority to sign any types of agreements with other states. Again, it was narrowly defeated.

- Utah is notorious for outdated liquor laws. Wine and hard liquor have to be bought from state run liquor stores. I'm ok with that. Other states do it. But, liquor licenses for taverns (beer only), bars and restaurants are issued based on population. There are currently 1 tavern, no bar, and 12 restaurant liquor licenses available in the entire state. Several large restaurant chains are refusing to open here because they can't be guaranteed they can get a liquor licence. This outdated law does not stop people from drinking. It simply stifles economic development. Yet, the legislature refuses to change the law because they really think it stops drinking.


>>The purpose of the Utah law is because the state legislature thinks they need to control everything and stick their noses into everyone else's business, despite what their constituents think.
>
>Yep... the mention of "some of louder voters" is only a pretext.