The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, according to Albert Einstein.
I used this adage recently to describe Utah voter dissatisfaction with the Legislature, according to the polls, but re-electing their legislators over and over again.
But the adage also applies to the Legislature itself. If it looked at its own history, it might not make the same costly mistakes that it has made in the past when spending taxpayer money for ideological quests against the wishes of the taxpayers themselves and the advice of attorneys who warned they were on a fool's errand.
The Republican-dominated Legislature just authorized $4.5 million for Fiscal 2017 toward an eventual $14 million approved by the Legislature's Commission for the Stewardship of Public Lands to pay for a lawsuit lawmakers want to file against the federal government to force the transfer of 31 million acres of public lands from federal to state control.
Never mind that most attorneys say the state has a slim to none chance of winning such a lawsuit. Some lawyers in the Legislature think they have a great chance, especially the lawyers who stand to benefit financially from such a lawsuit because of a non-profit set-up that collects fees from local governments and organizations to lobby for the land transfer.
Other attorneys who say the state has a great chance to win the lawsuit are the attorneys for the Davillier Law Group, the consultant who advised lawmakers the suit's success was feasible and who stands to get a big chunk of that $14 million if chosen as the lead law firm in the case.
No conflict there.
So let's hearken back to the mid 1980s when a similarly GOP-dominated Utah Legislature passed a bill enabling the state to regulate the content of subscription cable television programs and ban shows deemed pornographic or unsuitable for the tender minds of most Utahns, even though the shows were only available through private subscriptions.
The Legislature passed that bill despite advice from most attorneys, including attorneys in the Legislature, that it would be found unconstitutional in the federal courts
Then Democratic Gov. Scott Matheson, who also was an attorney, vetoed the bill on the grounds it would be found unconstitutional and constituted a waste of time and money to defend.
But the lawmakers, loaded for rabbit with that Elmer Fudd resolve, overrode the veto and the fun began.
Several groups sued the state over the bill on the grounds —you guessed it — that it was unconstitutional.
One of the great champions of the bill was then Republican Attorney General David Wilkinson who believed that with Ronald Reagan as president there was a chance that judges with conservative moral values would be appointed to appellate courts and the Supreme Court and they would be sensitive to Utah's protectionist stand.
With that argument in tow, the state forged on, despite rulings that the law was — drum roll, please — unconstitutional, and the state lodged appeals. And lost.
In the end, the state spent about $2 million of taxpayer money for nothing.
Then there was the time in the 1990s when the Utah Legislature enlisted private attorney Mary Ann Wood, an anti-abortion activist supported by right-wing groups such as the Eagle Forum, to file a brief on its behalf in the federal appeals over Utah's restrictive anti-abortion laws. The move was seen as a snub to then-Attorney General Jan Graham, a Democrat who conservative legislators didn't trust to fight the abortion law appeals aggressively enough.
And later, then-Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt signed on to a friend of the court brief in a lawsuit over same-sex civil unions in Vermont that was prepared by a team led by BYU professor Lynn Wardle. That, again, was a snub to Graham, who wanted the amicus brief handled by her office and based solely on legal issues.
The Wardle brief was filled with religious references and biblical passages that Graham did not deem to be an adequate legal brief and was an embarrassment to the state.
And more recently, in 2014, Republican Attorney General Sean Reyes' decision to hire attorney Gene Schaerr as the lead attorney in the appeals of Judge Robert Shelby's ruling striking down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage raised a few questions.
Schaerr was also a fellow at the conservative Sutherland Institute, a moral crusading organization against legalizing same-sex marriages. Schaerr joined with Reyes in a closed Senate Republican caucus at the time to dissuade the senators from considering legislation to protect gays and lesbians from housing and employment discrimination.
He was paid several hundred thousand dollars up front to fight for Utah's right to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
We all know how that worked out.
