Earlier this month I asked Steve Kroes, president of the nonpartisan Utah Foundation, the same question. He was a little less certain about the future, but still a fan of the current system.
The downside to Utah’s system, he said, is that “it tends to be privileged people who can serve.” Not many typical workers can take 45 days off each year to serve on Capitol Hill, not to mention regular interim meetings and special sessions during the rest of the year.
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But you won’t change anything by paying for a full-time Legislature, except incurring a bigger bill for salaries and staff.
“Having been in a state with a full-time Legislature — California — those are privileged people (in that Legislature), too,” he said.
The longer you look at representative government and legislative models, the more you tend to conclude there is no perfect system. If, like my neighbors, you believe less is better, a 45-day session with mostly regular folks is about as good as it can get.
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