The dangerous trends before us somehow do not get us out to vote

Voter apathy.  In 2012, Utah’s favorite son Mitt Romney vied for U.S. President.  Even at that, the state of Utah achieved only a negligible bump in voter turnout.

Think about the state of our state, country and world.  Just recently, a 29-year-old outs the NSA, telling the press something the public should already know, but he gives details on the expansiveness of government surveillance.

Too, conservatives seem to be denouncing everyone but white males; including Latinos, the LGBT community, women, and even our voting rights.  They carved up and diluted anything-but-Republican citizen votes in 2011 through computer analyzed redistricting.  

Today America witnessed the U.S. Supreme Court remove critical nondiscrimination language from The Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Rather, how about broadening its scope to prevent voter abuse currently skirting the VRA law, such as preventing the reduction of voting hours in poor neighborhoods, and stopping redistricting bias against political ideology?

The U.S. House of Representatives slid one under the radar recently and easily passed a bill eliminating the publishing of CEO pay originally implemented in the Dodd-Frank Act to prevent another Great Recession.

In 2009, the Supreme Court decided corporations are people too.  

And the worst shredding of common sense?  Earth.  Let’s just siphon the guts out of the crust and insert tainted water through drilling and fracking, adding dangerous amounts of CO² and methane into our finite atmosphere.  President Obama’s climate change speech today?  Fantastic, once again, one more time. The easy sound bite by many politicians “but oil is jobs” is a cop out; a “this is how we’ve always done it” approach.  It will not sustain our Earth and future generations.

Oil refining exacerbates the air along the Wasatch Front; a place with some of the worst pollution in our nation.  A recent study links a significantly increased per-capita rate of autism to cities with high pollution levels. 

I remember, as we all do, when the Great Recession hit, big banks asked taxpayers to bail them out.  They added,“But don’t ask us to give up our bonuses.  And don’t ask us to save your jobs.” 

So here it is. Our U.S. democracy ticks along, but ticks as a time bomb.  Indeed, we know democracy is slow and messy.  But right now, the slow moving scale is skewing against minorities and women, against our environment, and against voter participation.  It is moving toward a polluted Earth and atmosphere.  It moves toward oil wealth, Monsanto wealth, private prison wealth, etc., etc.  

Greed is being legislated into law.  It is used to get prisoners into privately-owned facilities, and to force farmers to use genetically altered products, among much more.  This completely opposes the free market ideology conservatives promote, and they know it.  Rather, markets are being purchased with laws.

Recently a Nestle CEO suggested placing a price on water and air.  Perhaps in reality, clean water and air will actually become luxury commodities.

We could try to stop the insanity, but where is support?  Too few citizens show up to vote.  A small number attend rallies and protests.  Too many are indifferent.

Media can only report actions and reactions.  If no one reacts to greed, if no one attends a rally, little is said in defense of democracy, humanity, and our planet.

In the 1960’s, America’s youth fought for democracy.  Women and minorities did too.  Young men protested against the Vietnam draft.  Women wanted equal rights. African Americans demanded civil rights.  In the sixties, we fought for what was right.  We voted too.

The dangerous trends before us somehow do not get us out to vote: the skew toward wealth and against the middle class, the crush on minority rights, the slap to the face of women’s rights, and the emergency of global warming with its implications for seven billion people. 

Utah’s 2012 voter participation rate--Republican, Democratic, and independent--was embarrassing.  We seem to only watch a dysfunctional government head in a bad direction.  Those who did vote re-elected mostly the same ineffective congressional incumbents, whom have the worst approval ratings in history.

Many of us do not even do something as simple as vote.  We are our own worst enemy.

By Kelli Lundgren

Utah Republicans will be cleaning their fish tanks during tonight's State of the Union Address

By Kelli Lundgren

Utah’s 2013 Legislative Session could be defined as voting-rights-light, although plenty of other concerns are being argued, including the ever uphill battles of ethics and transparency.  Since Represent Me Utah focuses on issues that strengthen democracy, the bills we track are making few waves this session.

One bill, Elimination of the Straight Party Ticket Voting Option, Patrice Arent’s HB0258, positively made it through rules committee but failed in the House Government Operations Committee. 

At RMU, we believe that previewing and reviewing candidates for each political office, then voting for a candidate on individual merits is a better way to vote than by voting for political party ideology.  But then, many members of RMU are unaffiliated, and of course we tend to vote for individuals rather than political platforms.  

We’d like to see our country less divisive.  Also, if more voters voted by candidate rather than by party, they could have skipped over Attorney General Candidate John Swallow last November, benefitting all involved.  RMU members like to see candidates gain office on platforms that are more pragmatic and problem solving toward state and country, versus toward the benefit of a singular political platform or ideology.    

Interestingly, RMU was accused of being unethical, along with Alliance for a Better Utah and Utahns for Ethical Government, by Utah House Representative Mike Noel.  He said it was his reason for voting against Arent’s HB0258 bill.  Ironically I had just stated in testimony that “although Democrats and Republicans are fairly civil to each other in Utah, they are not in our Federal Government's current condition.”  Apparently I spoke too soon!

I perceive the overall theme for Utah's 2013 legislative session to be: anti-federal-government-anything.  Rants and grandstanding abound by Republicans in the Legislature.   Senator Curtis Bramble is running a bill that offers Utah’s support for “Israel’s God-given right to self-governance and self-defense,”  SCR4.   (Insert "Utah" where Sen. Bramble lists "Israel" in the bill and you will get the point.)

And of course Republicans are running a whole slew of bills on gun rights, and the protection thereof from the despicable Federal Government that dares to offer tighter gun control laws to prevent future tragedies such as Sandy Hook.  Forget that it's A-okay to have guns for hunting, collecting, target shooting, etc., the emotional point is "fury with the liberal President."

Also consistent with an anti-Fed theme, Utah is working toward freeing itself from its U.S. Government dependency using several incremental bills such as HB0131 by Representative Ken Ivory, and one forthright bill, SCR007 by Senator Aaron Osmond.  These moves in 2013 follow suit with Utah Republicans' 2012 attempt to tell the Federal Government it intends to takeover federal lands in Utah.  SCR007 also looks like it is setting up reasoning for Utah to raise state taxes.  And, another specific bill does just that: tries to reduce the Federal Government’s tax on gasoline so Utah may increase its gasoline tax.  (SCR006). 

I believe it’s somewhat ironic that Utah wants to reduce or even eliminate its dependency on the Federal Government.  I suppose there's always an apocalypse on the horizon; the latest fads are the federal deficit and walking zombies.  Yet, Utah is one of several red states that bring in more federal dollars than state residents give to the Federal Government.   Utah will have to do a lot of taxation rebalancing once it walls off its borders, even though Governor Herbert touts Utah as a well-managed state. 

Today I saw a tweet by a Republican legislator saying she plans to work on Utah legislation tonight instead of watching the State of the Union address by President Obama.  Fair enough.  I imagine many in Utah will turn off their televisions as well.   This is the overall theme in Utah right now and it’s pretty ugly.