4th-seat process infuriates Demos

Review: Minority party wants to see a special commission do Utah's redistricting

By Rebecca Walsh
The Salt Lake Tribune, November 27, 2006

One Democratic state lawmaker stormed out of a redistricting meeting last week. Another left right after the vote. And a third was left to try to counter the Republican version of events.
    Welcome to map-drawing, Utah style.
    The latest example of minority vs. majority, winner-takes-all American politics was set during meetings last week when lawmakers used sophisticated software to shift the boundaries of Utah's three congressional districts to add a fourth.
    It's a scene that's normally repeated every 10 years. And with each decade, Republican lawmakers - who outnumber Democrats nearly three to one in Utah's Statehouse - reinforce their majority by adjusting legislative and congressional voting maps to protect GOP candidates.
    A similar scenario plays out in most states. Sometimes the Republicans are in charge; sometimes the Democrats.
    Salt Lake City Democratic Rep. Roz McGee wants to take the politics out of the process by creating an independent redistricting commission.
    Picking up where others have left off, she's sponsored legislation the past two years, trying to reform Utah's redistricting process. And each year, her bills have been squashed by Republican law- makers.
    "That is the ebb and flow of what we enjoy in a democratic process," said Draper Republican Rep. Greg Hughes last February, before GOP members Advertisement document.writeln(AAMB6); of the Government Operations Committee killed McGee's bill.
    The doomed proposal would have required a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to approve any new voting map.
    Undaunted, McGee is back this year and she has returned to her original concept: a nonlawmaker redistricting commission appointed by Democrats and Republicans.
    "Redistricting is a political process," says McGee. "But it is not appropriate to have legislators 4th District Detail Maps (PDF) choosing their own districts."
    Five years ago, GOP lawmakers used state Republican Party data on voting patterns to rework legislative boundaries, combining eight Democratic lawmakers' districts into four. And they made Congressman Jim Matheson's district more Republican. In the end, Democrat Matheson still won, but three minority-party members overall were eliminated from the Legislature.
    GOP lawmakers also refused to consider information about race and ethnicity of voters in drawing boundaries. The Wall Street Journal editorial page at the time called Utah's redistricting map a scam.
    McGee's legislation would require amending the state Constitution to establish a commission, determine qualifications for its members and bar them from running for office.
    Not surprisingly, minority Democrats like the idea. State Democratic Party Director Todd Taylor says he would rather boycott redistricting than give an air of bipartisan legitimacy to Republican lawmakers' efforts.
    "The system is so entirely and totally corrupt. We have reached an impasse," Taylor said. "If it were up to me, there's no way we could play, because they're going to do what they're going to do. Why lend credence to the pretense?"
    Some Republicans, after having more Democrats scooped into their districts, also have been rebuffed in attempts to reform redistricting. Former legislator Kim Burningham and current West Valley City Rep. Ron Bigelow tried and failed to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan lawmakers. Congressman Jim Hansen retired from his seat four years ago after lawmakers dramatically changed his district.
    Acting state Republican Party Chairwoman Enid Greene said she is willing to discuss setting up a redistricting commission. But she believes other states or Congress should act simultaneously to unify the redistricting process across the country.
    "It's an unpredictable, messy process. The time has come to look at it again," Greene said.
    And Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., also Republican, would consider a  commission.
    "Obviously, a redistricting commission wouldn't have worked during the compressed time period we're under to draw the fourth congressional seat. But long-term, it's an idea he is open to," said spokesman Mike Mower.

Huntsman signs 'Lost Boys' bill

By Angie Welling

Deseret Morning News, May 3 2006

Homeless teens in Utah , whether they've left a polygamous lifestyle or an abusive home life, now have a new legal tool to help them bridge the gap to adulthood.

"I think this is a good chance to start my life," said 15-year-old Bruce Barlow of HB30, the emancipation of a minor bill ceremoniously signed into law by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Tuesday afternoon.

Barlow is a "Lost Boy" of polygamy. He fled the Fundamentalist LDS Church six weeks ago seeking "a better life." He now lives with a cousin in St. George and works full time as a framer but cannot do things like open a bank account for his earnings because of his status as a minor.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff calls that in-between stage "legal limbo" and praised HB30 as an effective way to remove stumbling blocks to education, health insurance and student loans.

"As long as they're in that legal limbo they can't move on with their lives," Shurtleff said Tuesday.

Although state law will continue to value children and families, Huntsman said, "circumstances occasionally exist where a child must be freed from the legal bonds of their parents."

The new law sets up a process through which 16- and 17-year-old Utahns can petition a state juvenile court for legal emancipation from their parents. The legislation's sponsor, Rep. Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake City , said it provides a "clear pathway" for courts to follow.

Co-sponsor, Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem, made clear the law does not open the door to large numbers of teens leaving their families.

"This is not about taking children away from their parents. This is about children without parents to care for them, " Fowlke said.

At least in the FLDS communities of Hildale , Utah , and Colorado City , Ariz. , the new law offers hope to hundreds of youth, said Dan Fischer, founder of the Lost Boys Diversity Foundation. There will be, he said, "hundreds of homeless boys and a handful of girls here and there that will benefit from this."

Joe Williams hopes so. The 15-year-old left Colorado City six months ago and now lives with his brother in St. George. "I'm just grateful for this," he said Tuesday. "I hope that many more will take advantage of it."

It has been at least three years since Williams last spoke to his parents. He believes they are living on a compound run by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs somewhere. He had been living with older siblings until he left in September, but said they wrote him off when he declined to adopt the polygamous lifestyle.

"Basically when I lived there they just acted like I didn't exist," Williams said. "I couldn't even talk to my other brothers and sisters, even if I lived in the same house with them."

Lost Boys, other teens get break from new law

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune, May 3 2006

Salt Lake TribuneJennifer Broadbent is like most teens: She wants a cell phone, to study dance and theater, to make her own way in the world - even if she has to do it all without her parents' help.

That got easier for Jennifer and other teens on Tuesday.

As she and three other so-called Lost Boys looked on, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a new law that allows teens 16 or 17 to seek emancipation from their parents. With that status, the teens would be able to get housing, schooling and other services independently.

The Lost Boys, boys and girls who have fled or been kicked out of their homes in a polygamous community in southern Utah, became the poster children for what Attorney General Mark Shurtleff called a "heart-breaking problem facing all our homeless youth."

Also likely to benefit from the law: gay teens who've run away from or been kicked out of their homes.

The new law allows the teens, with help of a guardian ad litem or other adult, to petition a juvenile court judge for emancipated status. The teens must show they can live independently and manage their own affairs. The process requires that parents be notified and given a chance to respond.

 If granted, the teens would have limited adult status that enables them to sign leases, enroll in school, borrow money or seek medical care.

Child advocates estimate about a dozen youth a year will use the new law. It was sponsored by Rep. Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake City ; Rep. Lori Fowlke, R-Orem; and Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo.

"This is not about taking children away from their parents," said Fowlke. "This about children who do not have parents who care for them."

Hundreds of teens are said to have left Hildale and Colorado City , Ariz. , the homebase of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, over the past decade. They tell similar stories of fights with parents over music, movies, clothes and boy- or girlfriends; they also report getting crosswise with FLDS church leaders and stepfathers or deciding the lifestyle is not for them.

They've landed in nearby communities, often clumping together in apartments and houses. Jennifer, 17, left her home in Colorado City seven months ago with the help of a cousin who'd previously moved to St. George. She is one of 16 children in a plural family that includes two mothers.

She had attended Uzona, a private FLDS high school, and earned money baby-sitting and doing odd jobs. The decision to leave came, Jennifer said, after her parents began complaining about her friends and her father "vandalized" her - taking her money and personal items.

The teen also said she realized she wanted more out of life than an early marriage and a bunch of babies. The new law, Jennifer said, "means extremely a lot to us because it means we can move forward."

Ready, Set, Reform!

by Katharine Biele

Salt Lake City Weekly, 5/26/2005

Maybe she didn't mean to, but Merlynn Newbold hit her fellow Republicans where it hurt—in their agenda.

“If we want to incentivize behavior,” the South Jordan legislator ventured, “then we should be open that that's our intent.”

And she was perfectly serious. Not so Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo. “Is the good representative suggesting that tax law includes social engineering?” he asked. Wink, wink. Yes, this is about tax law, and the mind-numbing prospect of reforming it. According to good tax principles. And that is where the whole issue begins to devolve into chaos.

...

Now, the generalities have it. As the Task Reform Task Force ponders its mission, there is no dearth of dialogue about philosophy. Much of it is Republican rhetoric in the face of Democratic impotence. After all, there are only three Democratic members on the 15-member task force.

And they got their comeuppance during a May 17 meeting when Rep. Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake, tried to amend the “Suggested Goals and Principles.”

“It's very clear to me that the leadership of the committee and many of its members are proponents of what's called right-sizing,” says McGee.

Right off, she slammed their very first principle: “Government should live within a budget and should not always expect more revenue.” Sounded like one of those damned Democrats to them.

So, what's wrong with right-sizing anyway, asked one committee member bent on setting revenue goals for the state. The idea is to set the goal really low, and then nobody's disappointed. Take education, for instance.

“Education does an incredible job of using the revenues they have, and it's a function of not having enough,” he said.

This bootstraps theory, of course, has been a longstanding tax principle in Utah. But … but, McGee attempted, what about in times of crisis? It's the Legislature's responsibility to determine needs through the appropriations process, she said amid a cacophony of scorn.

Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, mused simply that citizens have got to be ready to suck it up. “Somewhere we have the concept that the sun won't always be shining.” A reference to falling revenues. Even though Utah has a hefty surplus now.

Bramble, the committee chair, was none too happy about McGee's philosophical leanings. What did she mean by implying you can't live within a budget? Worse yet, she tried to strike a quippy little sentence noting that taxes are not “government's money,” and “that sounds like a roadmap for a policy I'd find difficult to embrace.”

While the principles are being hammered out, the public remains in doubt. Economic neutrality appears to be a goal, but few believe that can happen in a politicized environment.

...

“The question is whether this is truly trying to achieve fairness and soundness in the tax structure, or a backdoor approach to cutting spending,” said Bob Huefner, a professor of political science at the University of Utah. Huefner, who has long been involved in tax policy issues, believes that spending cuts should be done through a “balanced review that simultaneously considers tax burdens and service needs.”

He may be on to something. Balance is one of the committee's guiding principles, even if the politics is a little off-center.

To Be Free

The Salt Lake Tribune, 11/17/2004, Editorial

If it were to be as simple as turning around three times and saying, “I divorce thee. I divorce thee. I divorce thee,” then a proposal to make it easier for some Utah teenagers to win legal adulthood would indeed be dangerous.
    But no one is suggesting any such thing, and any discussion of the proposal will not be honest if it assumes otherwise.
    Responding to the very real problem of homeless or rejected teenagers who may have no legal means of supporting themselves, one Utah legislator is drafting legislation that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to petition a court for official recognition as adults - emancipation, in legal terms - so that they could better make their own way in the world.
    Rep. Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake City, understands that while reality may have left far too many teens to fend for themselves, the law still treats them as children. The state presumes that there is a responsible adult in their lives to do such things as sign them up for medical care, enroll them in school or sign a lease.
    When there isn't such a responsible adult around, the teens are just stuck. Being dependent on others won't work for all of them, especially when the price of such sanctuary may include participation in prostitution, drug dealing or other illegal activities.
    Earlier this month, when McGee presented her idea to the Legislature's Interim Judiciary Committee, there were valid questions about whether emancipated minors accused of crimes, or of not paying their debts, would be in another kind of legal limbo.
    Sadly, though, there are always some who see a threat to “parental rights” whenever anyone speaks up for the welfare of children.
    The image conjured up in some minds was not of horribly abused girls justly fleeing their own fathers or of “lost boys” expelled from the polygamous sects of Utah and Arizona. Instead, a few could only worry about Wally and The Beaver threatening their parents with court action if they wouldn't let them take the car and stay out until midnight.
    Such nostalgia would be touching if it did not literally endanger the lives of an estimated 600 teens in Salt Lake City alone who, through no fault of their own, have been forced to become adults and should be seen as such by the state.
    No proposal would allow the emancipation of a minor by simply filling out a form. It would involve a legal proceeding before a juvenile court judge, who would be expected to hear not only the teenager's side but also from social workers, the state's Guardian ad Litem Office and - if they are anywhere to be found - the parents.
    McGee's measure is a common sense idea that, while it will depend on fallible human beings to carry it out, is necessary in a world that too often fails to do right by its children.