October 13, 2014
Amendment A 2014: Qualifications of Tax Commission Members
http://ballotpedia.org/Utah_Qualifications_of_Tax_Commission_Members,_Amendment_A_(2014)
Even though the majority of us in class can vote, I thought I would post about the three amendments being proposed to the Utah Constitution this coming election. While I and others get a chance to vote it would be awesome to hear opinions from everyone.
Amendment A is a change to the qualification of the members on the state tax commission. How it currently stands is that there are 4 members in total and there is a rule that no more than two members from a single party are allowed to be on the commission. The proposed rule would eliminate that current rule and make it alright to have more than two people from a single party on the commission.
Arguments for the amendment include that while it's nice to maintain bipartisan its hard sometimes to find the most qualified members in all the political parties. Eliminating it would allow for the most qualified people to be on the tax commission.
Arguments against say that it is a complete partisan amendment that if a single party had complete control of the tax commission it wouldn't allow compromise and equality in say to be prevalent.
My opinion is against this bill. We have discussed this tons of time in class about screw the other party over politics and gaining more power and authority over the party politics. Big surprise Utah is heavily heavily republican and do you think that this republican proposed amendment isn't a play to gain more political power? I'm not trying to sound anti-republican but I for difference of opinions and compromise shaping our government and tax commission which has a great effect on us the people.
I am entirely with you on this one. The argument that you mentioned for the amendment makes absolutely no sense to me. Even though we certainly have a strong Republican majority, there are democrats in the state in a fair quantity. With 2.91 million people living in Utah, would it really be that hard to find TWO qualified democrats in the entire state? Even if there are two republicans more qualified than whomever the Dems come up with, the retained fairness and bipartisanship would more than make up for the slight decrease in efficacy.
ReplyDelete-Liam Brookhart
I agree too, it's dangerous frankly to let one party control almost everything anyway. Wherever we can, we need to ensure there is bipartisian representation, or there will never be full representation of everyone.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with that is there just aren't very many democrats in this state. It can be hard to find two people that would get this job done well.
DeleteAs Liam said, we have 2.91 million people in this state, would it really be that hard to find just two qualified democrats? And, there are more democrats in Utah than you would expect, they're just not as high in concentration in utah county as in other counties. Republicans have a hold on a lot of the state's functions, they don't need another one that effects everyone that they have total control over.
DeleteAlthough it may be difficult to find two Democrats, you could also use Independents, Greens, Unaffiliated voters, etc, and I'm absolutely sure you could find two people in the state to handle it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Connor, for making us informed voters for the coming election!