Welcome to The Senate Site

By John Valentine
President of the Utah State Senate

FYI - I appointed the following senators to the new Equalization Task Force:

• Dan Eastman, Chair
• Mike Dmitrich
• Michael Waddoups
• Chris Buttars
• Scott McCoy
• Howard Stephenson
• Lyle Hillyard

The task force will meet several times over the next few months to study how we might provide equalization of capital funding on a statewide or countywide basis. Their final report, including any proposed legislation, will be presented to the Executive Appropriations Committee on or before December 19, 2007.

3 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Many of those involved in the equalization issue have been drooling over the potential for Salt Lake County and Summit County taxpayers to fund school district splits and growing districts. The message being sent by the lack of Summit County representation is being heard loud and clear.

9/05/2007 8:38 PM  

 The Senate Site said...

104 legislators. 14 slots on the task force.

This group is a good mix of perspective and representation from various areas of the state with emphasis on Salt Lake County. Whatever proposal(s) the task force works out will go to the full legislature.

Also - this group is only half of the task force.

9/05/2007 9:14 PM  

 James E. Metherall said...

I am a new observer of state government. Prior to attending the first meeting of the current task force, I had only participated by voting in state elections.

My first visit was disturbing. In particular, I was very concerned about Senator Stephenson's allegations that representatives of Salt Lake City could not provide a "moral" argument for "hording" education tax revenue. During the meeting, Senator Stephenson demonstrated an excellent understanding of the issues and effectively advocated his position. However, these arguments must have previously fallen short; if his position had been definitive, the current task force would not be necessary. Personally, I have very serious concerns about Senator Stephenson's assumptions, evidence, arguments and positions, and I am willing to debate them at length.

But before I debate Senator Stephenson, I need a better understanding of his requirement for "moral" arguments. I understand the criteria for logical, coherent, cogent, beneficent, sentient, gracious, substantiated and effective arguments, but I do not understand the criteria for "moral" arguments. I am not saying that I am not moral; in fact, if I were capable of making effective arguments without moral conviction, I would have become a lawyer.

My question is: who's "morals" do arguments need to address and who gets to decide whether they are adequate? Is Senator Stephenson the moral authority of the task force? Should “moral” criteria represent the mean, median, or modal morality of the task force? Wouldn't it be most efficient if we could just develop a collective, mandated morality for everyone in the legislature and/or state? Would that be constitutional?

Senator Stephenson's remarks were very unfortunate. He clearly does not understand the essence of our state or federal constitutions. I hope the rest of the task force is ready for a pragmatic, and logical discussion, and that the task force is committed to developing laws and programs that benefit the education of all of our kids.

James E. Metherall, Ph.D., M.B.A.
Parent, West High School
Salt Lake City, UT

12/01/2007 4:55 PM  

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