In the fall of 2018, Utah voters passed three propositions: Medical Marijuana, Medicaid Expansion and Better Boundaries. In the 2019 legislative session, many Republican legislators worked to overturn our propositions. Many Republican lawmakers said the public didn’t really understand what these propositions involved, and that they knew better than the public.
Specifically, Sen. Allen Christensen proposed a bill to alter Medicaid by serving fewer people at an increased cost to the state and instituting work requirements. This required a waiver from the federal government. Rep. Raymond Ward wanted to serve more people on Medicaid and proposed a bill that would expand Medicaid similar to the proposition, if we didn’t get the federal waiver. We didn’t get the waiver, and Ward’s bill was enacted.
The Republican supermajority in the Legislature doesn’t permit Democrats to have a voice in lawmaking. We don’t have good legislation when all voices are not heard. Some good bills sponsored by Democrats do not even get assigned by Republican leadership to be heard in a committee. Rep. Karen Kwan had a resolution to support the Equal Rights Amendment and it stayed “in the dark” and was never heard in committee.
When you go to mark your ballot this fall, please remember if your incumbent legislator listened to the public. You can look on the legislative website (www.le.utah.gov) for the year 2019 by the bill number, and see how the incumbents voted looking at the status of the bill. If they voted against the will of the people, then vote for another candidate. A better balance of legislators would make for better government.
Diane Forster-Burke, Cottonwood Heights
