This Bill did not reach a vote in the Senate.
Libertas Institute supports this bill.
It may come as a shock to some, but Utah legislators don’t read quite a few of the bills that they vote on in committee and on the floor of the House and Senate. This can be because of a variety of reasons, but the main obstacle is time. In the last two weeks of the session, hundreds of bills are considered at a rapid-fire pace and few can keep up. In the past, this has led to bad legislation getting passed and poor decisions being made by the legislature.
Senator Jake Anderegg is proposing Senate bill 84 as a solution to the time crunch. SB 84 requires that when legislation is released, substituted, or amended, it cannot be voted on (including in committee) for 48 hours (verbal amendments being the exception). This should provide legislators with ample time to review each bill before voting on it.
More importantly, it gives the observant public sufficient time to react and reach out to legislators before a vote is taken on the legislation.
Libertas supports this bill because we have seen in the past how not reading bills has led to deceptive policy changes. We believe that by allowing legislators more time to read bills, there will be less bad legislation that slips through and better policies adopted overall. The Utah Legislature does the people’s work and should take the time to understand and carefully consider what they are voting for.
