HJR8 Article V Amendments Convention

Our state legislature is considering a very dangerous resolution this session. It would call upon the U.S. Congress to “call a convention for proposing amendments” to the constitution of the United States. The amendment which HJR8 requests to be considered would require approval of a majority of states in order to increase the debt of the federal government. Pres. Ronald Regan's friend, Phyllis Schlafly, has adamantly opposed this idea for decades. The Utah Eagle Forum has consistently fought against this idea.

Why? The history of the creation of our U.S. Constitution provides a stark warning against any call for a convention to amend the constitution. A convention was called only to amend the Articles of Confederation. That convention exceeded its mandate and produced an entirely new constitution. That constitution was ratified by the states and became our current constitution.

If the states today were to call for a convention to amend the constitution, the convention would be organized by the current U.S. Congress and be conducted by the rules established by the current U.S. Congress. I do not yet trust our U.S. Senate and House to be as wise as our founders and retain the guarantees of our freedom and the protections of our rights which we currently have.

Proponents of this bill will argue that we are safe from a runaway convention because three fourths of the states must ratify any amendments the convention proposes. I argue that one must only consider the broad coverage and persuasiveness of the liberal main stream media to see how many states could be deceived into ratifying amendments which would damage our constitution with socialist ideas.

Another mistaken argument supporters cite is, “The constitution is divinely inspired and it provides this method of amending the constitution. Therefore we must use this provision.” I contend that God expects us to use the provisions from the divinely inspired constitution at the times and in the ways which are best. He does not dictate that we must gamble with the future of our constitution.

The amendment which this convention would consider, is also faulty. It would require a majority of states to approve any increase in the national debt. But states are already so dependent on federal funding of their state programs that most states would not commit fiscal suicide by refusing to approve an increase in the national debt and thus have their federal funding cut.

Unfortunately, there are a number of good (even conservative) members of the Utah legislature who believe this VERY risky convention is a good idea to rescue our republic and our fiscal stability. The bill was defeated in the last legislative session, but it is back with many new legislators now considering voting in favor of it. Many states have already passed this resolution.Utah must not be the state to put us over the top to call a new constitutional convention.

If you are willing to join in the fight against this constitutional convention, please contact as many legislators (especially the newer ones) as you can to ask them to vote against HJR 8.

HB123 Education Savings Accounts

Thank you, Representative John Dougall for sponsoring a landmark piece of education legislation. House Bill 123, Education Savings Accounts, if enacted, will change the way Utah pays for high school public education. Kindergarten through 8^th grade funding will NOT change at all. Rather than paying secondary schools a fixed amount per student enrolled (called the Weighted Pupil Unit or WPU) this bill provides for education funding, both state and district to be provided to each individual student's Education Savings Account. Students then pay for courses out of their education savings account. Students may choose courses provided by school districts, charter schools, applied technology centers, authorized online course providers, state-funded community colleges, state-funded universities, or private non-profit colleges or universities in Utah as contracted with the state board of regents who oversee higher education in Utah.

This bill will provide several significant benefits to our public education system. Because the Education Savings Account can be used for college or applied technology centers, students will be motivated to save some of the fund for use in earning college credits even after high school. It will encourage a productive and healthy competition among educational institutions for the enrollment dollars of students. Students will have the easy means of taking courses where they will be best served. Schools will not receive funding for those class periods when a student is not enrolled in a class.

Under this bill students will be eligible to participate in extracurricular activities at a school where the student takes one or more courses, whether a full-time or part-time student. Families with secondary students will enjoy a savings because course fees will be able to be paid from the education savings account whereas they are currently paid by students and their families.

Surely the public education establishment will not like this change in their system. But, citizens who value their own freedom to choose how they educate their children and value the benefits of free market competition will actively support this bill. Call or e-mail your legislators to voice your support for this historic bill.

More Than Half of Student Growth Now Enrolled in Charter Schools

The Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee today heard a stunning report about public charter schools. Although charter schools only enroll about 9% of all stutents in public schools, they enrolled more than half of the increased number of students in the state over last year. Estimated new students in Utah in 2012 are about 12,500. Charter schools enrolled about 6,500 new students while public school districts only enrolled some 6,000 new students. Charter schools also enrolled more new students than public schools in 2000, 2006 and 2009. This trend shows how popular charter schools are with parents. If we do not artificially restrict the number of charter schools, we can expect charter schools to continue to serve a large proportion of our growing student population. As some school districts struggle with growing pains, they may trust the charter school community to help with accommodating a large portion of that challenge. 

I love the robust and competitive form of education in charter schools. I also am pleased to see that so many families in Utah also recognize the quality of such a form of public education. One of the great strengths of charter schools is that parents must be very strongly involved not only in their student's learning, but also in the policies and running of the school. 

College and Career Counseling Bill - Progresses

Fri. Jan 27 - I was the only member of the public to testify against HB65. It passed the House Education committee with only the dissenting votes of Rep Sumsion and Rep Newbold. It may be that some committee members voted for it because they expect it to fail to win funding in the appropriations process. Without an appropriation, the bill is of no effect. My argument was that America's greatness comes from local creativity and meeting needs at the local level.....Not from implementing central planning which is dictated by the largest bureaucracy possible. This is an example of the latter.

Conflicting Good Principles - HB24

Rep. Jim Bird is sponsoring HB24 - Health Insurance for School Districts. This bill is an example of a bill which pits two good principles against each other. 

On the one hand it is commendable to require open market competition in purchasing health insurance for government entities. Substitute 1 of this bill would apply to charter schools and institutions of higher education.

On the other hand, the governing boards of each school district, charter school and institution of higher education are already highly motivated to obtain the best possible price for health insurance provided to their employees. This bill restricts the local control authority of the locally elected or appointed governing bodies who know the needs of their local constituents best.

There is an expense to school districts to prepare requests for proposals, but that is outweighed by the lower costs to government and to employees obtained through the competitive process. This law will ensure no government educational institutions get lazy and just keep the same health insurance providers when they might obtain a better price.

It is a tough call but I come down on the side of favoring the bill.

College and Career Counseling Bill - A Bad Idea

Rep. Patricia Arent  has proposed HB65 College and Career Counseling for High School Students. This bill is on the agenda of the House Education committee for 2:00 pm today. It would provide $800,000 to hire 18 high school counselors who would work only in helping students apply to college and seek scholarships.

This is a bad idea because it is one more thread tying the hands of school districts. It gives money for counseling, but forces the money to be used only for college and career counseling. School districts know best where to use funds for school counselors. Local control of schools is better than state level control of schools.


I had the opportunity, as a member of the Davis School Board, to speak on this subject to the Utah School Board Association Joint Legislative Committee. I will attend the committee meeting this afternoon to testify against the bill.

State Report of Federal Funds in Utah

Rep. Ken Ivory sponsored HB138 in 2011 which required the state of Utah to report how much federal funding it received, and how departments would be affected by a 5% cut in federal funding and a 25% cut.

Utah receives about $5 Billion of its $12 billion budget from the federal government. As federal debt becomes ever more overwhelming, I hope federal funding will be reduced to all states including Utah. That means Utah is acting very responsibly to consider how it will react to such cuts.

The state report is available for all to review at http://www.le.utah.gov/lfa/reports/bbib/appeac_12-14-11_1.pdf