What laughable excuses the leading Republican lawmakers, Senate Majority Leader Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz, came up with: falsely and absurdly claiming that passing the new constitutional amendment on the ballot would prevent improper “foreign influence” by out-of-state funding and avert the threat of turning Utah into California.
Their approach is in reactionary response to the Utah Supreme Court ruling that limits the Legislature’s ability to micromanage the voter initiative processes, through the Legislature’s vetoing and amending, allowed by the Utah Constitution, Article I, Section 2.
The answer the Utah Republican Party has contrived — this includes U.S. Congressional District 3 presumptive winner, state Sen. Mike Kennedy and the quixotic write-in candidate Phil Lyman who voted “yes” for the special session bills as the status quo — is that it ostensibly preserves “the voice of the people,” which is a bald-faced lie to excuse the naked political power grab.
Case in point: Utah GOP’s meddling with the voter-passed Utah Proposition 2 on regulating medical cannabis several years ago.
The Utah Republican Party’s (that includes the flip-flop craven hypocrite Gov. Spencer Cox) cynical move to force the new constitutional amendment through chicanery is about usurping power that abrogates the people’s will to dictate their selfish and vain attitude, according to the establishment party agenda via the corrupt elements, i.e. special interests (LDS Church, big business, Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, etc).
The hysterical reaction by Utah GOP to the logically precise Utah Supreme Court ruling to pass their version of the constitutional amendment in the quest to grab governmental power of autocracy (for perennial control by theocratic-oligarchy rule that even disregards the true conservative electorate) perfectly exemplifies the crisis that Utah is the most corrupt state in the nation.
P.S. It’s wonderful how the repercussion effect of Senate Bill 54 (“Count My Vote”), passed in 2014 to stop the original initiative from coming to fruition, has the ultimate consequence — turn Utah into California, with pro-establishment RINOs running amok now.
Aaron Heineman, Provo