March 08, 2013 02:58 PM UTC

At Least They're Not Your Legislators: "Utah is Crazy" Edition

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• by: Colorado Pols

We didn't want to let this week get away from us before passing along some incredible, though sadly believable, news from our neighbors in Utah. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported earlier this week, the Utah legislature is doing everything it can to try to get rid of that pesky federal govm'nt and its so-called "laws" (well, except for the 2nd Amendment — they like that one):

Agents in tactical gear and armed with assault weapons asking for your fishing license. Others appearing in camp at night to peer into your cooler, pulling you over for trivial traffic infractions, and arresting you for maintaining a trail.

Confrontations such as these, instigated by federal employees with minimal law-enforcement training and accountability, are common on Utah’s public lands, according to testimony given last week in the Legislature’s latest installment of an anti-federal campaign that appears to be gaining momentum.

Three southern Utah sheriffs leveled these allegations in support of HB155, sponsored by Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, which would bar U.S. Forest Service officers and Bureau of Land Management rangers from enforcing the law in Utah except in emergencies or when a sheriff has given prior approval under cooperative agreements. [Pols emphasis]

The story goes on to document at least nine other bills or resolutions in which Utah legislators are trying to stop the adults from telling them what to do. The "leave-us-alone-forever-but-except-for-the-second-amendment" caucus, which appears to be all Republican state legislators in our Western neighbor, is pulling out all the stops in order to make the federal government sound really scary.

Heck, three friggin sheriffs testified that federal agents in tactical gear are swarming lakes like mosquitos in order to check on your fishing license. One of the sheriffs tells a story about off-road vehicle riders who were fined $36,000 for destruction they caused on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property. The men had installed a culvert, cut down a fence post, and built their own bridge for easier access to land that is protected as an archeological site. How could these poor men have possibly known that wanton destruction of federal property is against some law or something?

The editorial board of the Tribune has been watching this legislative nonsense unfold. A few days later it published a scathing editorial titled "Constitution 101", which begins with a quotation from the "Supremacy Clause" of the United States Constitution:

And that is that.

Or that would be that, in a state where more lawmakers were concerned with carrying out their own duties, not trying to aggrandize themselves by promoting flatly unconstitutional schemes on everything from gun laws to sage grouse…

…Just imagine how much better the political life of Utahns would be if our lawmakers spent their time and energy carrying out the duties they do have, duties such as providing for a properly funded system of public education. Or establishing ethical and campaign finance laws that would — along with a proper understanding of the separation of powers — make our Legislature a model rather than, too often, an object of ridicule.

As we watch more strangeness unfold under Colorado's golden dome, we can at least take solace in the fact that it could be worse. We could be Utah.