Advancing the cause of liberty in Utah

This bill would prohibit adults from smoking (a legal activity) in a car when a child is present who is 15 years old or younger. While we believe that smoking is an unhealthy act that has public consequences, especially when in proximity to another person, law enforcement officials should not be agents of a nanny state looking to penalize something which is itself legal (smoking). Just as the legislature should not dictate who can smoke under what circumstances in their own home, they should not do the same with what happens within an individual's vehicle.

This bill changes state code as it relates to capturing or collecting rain water. While some changes are beneficial, this bill prohibits individuals from collecting more than 200 gallons of rain water that falls upon their own property. This arbitrary limit has no principled foundation; individuals should be free to collect whatever water falls upon their own property.

This bill repeals a prohibition against a newspaper or publication printing something that may influence an election. Everything a person or organization says has the potential to influence an election; free speech should not need to have qualifiers attached under threat of criminal penalty.

While this bill would promote transparency, the ends do not justify the means. The government does not have the legitimate authority to compel a private organization to disclose information it wishes to keep secret. Since nobody who is polled is coerced into disclosing their vote or political preferences, there is no reason the government should intervene to compel disclosure.

This bill comes up annually, and simply adds more drugs and scientific concoctions to a lengthy list of prohibitions. The war on drugs is a proven failure, so Utah should not be amplifying it. Criminalizing the consumption of a substance is not within the proper role of government.

This bill would compel the state to demonstrate that business licensure and regulations are necessary to protect public health and safety. It affirms each person's right to work as they please and will help to significantly scale back bureaucratic and protectionist regulations.

This bill would enable constitutional carry -- the right of adult citizens to freely carry defensive weapons wherever they wish, without needing a government permission slip (permit). It would effectively extend most current exemptions for concealed carry permit holders to all Utah adults.

This bill would increase the state's ability to deal in specie currency rather than dollars (Federal Reserve Notes). The U.S. Constitution states in Article I, Section 10 that "No State shall... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts". All 50 states ignore this provision; this bill would help Utah return to this constitutionally required mandate.

This bill would make it illegal for a prospective employer to request or require an applicant, as a condition of employment, to grant access to, or allow observation of, an applicant's personal internet account (such as social media, email, online banking, etc.) While we consider such a request morally problematic, there is no valid legal justification for the law to intervene. It is a simple contractual matter, and if the applicant would rather not divulge the information, then he or she is free to withdraw the application and seek employment elsewhere.

This bill would prohibit teenagers from talking on the phone while driving unless it's with their parents, or to report an emergency. Speaking with somebody on the phone is substantially indifferent from talking to a person in the passenger seat. Surely it would be unreasonable to ban teenagers from driving with others in their own car, therefore the same type of ban should not apply to telephones.

This bill would require mobile telecommunications services (e.g. cell phone companies) to divulge private geolocation data about their customers when requested by "a law enforcement agency or a public safety communications center" when the government official unilaterally determines that it "is necessary in order to respond to a call for emergency services or an emergency situation that involves the risk of death or serious bodily injury." This exempts a law enforcement official from needing to obtain a warrant, allows a government agent to simply claim the data disclosure is necessary in order to obtain it, and grants immunity to companies which comply. It also says that a company's compliance is "voluntary" but, in an apparent contradiction, says that companies "shall" provide the data upon request.

This bill would require licensure for anesthesiologist assistants. The license requires submitting an application, paying a fee, "being of good moral character," graduating from a certified program, and passing an exam. Occupational licensure imposes barriers to entry and creates economic protectionism, neither of which are legitimate uses of government's power of coercion. A free market cannot exist when the government demands that individuals obtain permission slips for engaging in peaceful, productive industry.

This bill upholds the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by rejecting any federal law which is passed in contradiction to the individual right to keep and bear arms. It further penalizes government agents which aim to enforce a law which is in violation of this proposed bill, and enables the state Attorney General to defend citizens prosecuted under a federal law which has been rejected by the bill.

This bill would allow an individual to surrender his or another cohabitant's firearms to the police for 60 days (or more, if the period is renewed) for safe keeping if the individual feels threatened by a cohabitant. This would allow one spouse or partner to legally steal the other's guns and have them removed, which is highly problematic and may leave the other person (who may be entirely innocent) unable to defend themselves against the cohabitant or a third party.

This bill would prohibit employers, landlords, etc. from discriminating on the basis of a person's height or weight. Discrimination is a fundamental and necessary condition of a free market, specifically the rights of contract and association, and a legal prohibition against doing so is not a legitimate power which government may exercise.

This bill increases the state's markup on alcoholic products. The state's stranglehold on alcoholic beverages completely violates the free market; the government should not be involved in the booze business.

A government limited to the role of protecting life, liberty, and property does not tax its citizens to then "promote programs that educate couples on how to achieve strong, successful, and lasting marriages" along with "promoting and assisting in the offering of events, services, marriage education conferences, and enrichment seminars." These initiatives should be left to private organizations, of which there are many already involved in and concerned about such issues.

This bill would allow an individual who faces a termination of his/her parental rights to nominate a relative who may serve as legal guardian for his/her children. It also specifies certain principles regarding the parent/child relationship which must be considered when the state determines whether and how to terminate such rights. If enacted into law, this bill would correct many problems in the system whereby the state legally kidnaps children from their parents and places them into foster care when a willing family member would have taken the children in.

This bill would mandate $100,000 of taxpayer dollars to be spent annually to provide free hearing aids to children under three years of age who have hearing loss. Such charitable causes should be left to the private market and not done through coercive taxation.

This bill creates a state certification for music therapists through the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensure. Certifications from private organizations are important and beneficial but fall outside the proper role of government to implement through the state.

This bill would prohibit car wash establishments from charging more than $20 when the car wash is pre-paid and based on a timer. While there may be instances of fraud or deceit or bad business worth remedying, such a remedy does not require dozens of lines of new laws to prohibit what the market can take care of itself. This is a completely unnecessary law.

This bill would create income tax brackets in Utah, charging a higher income tax rate to wealthier individuals. The income tax should not exist at all, but if it is to exist, then it should be equally applied to all without discrimination.

This bill removes the "Zion wall" which requires restaurants to prepare alcohol drinks behind a physical barrier so that patrons cannot see it happen. While the intent is noble (preventing youth from seeing/desiring/obtaining alcohol), the means utilized to achieve that goal are in this case illegitimate. The state has no moral authority to dictate to business owners how they should provide their services to consenting adult customers.

There currently exists nearly 10,000 words in state code which require and manage occupational licensure for funeral service directors and others involved in that profession. That licensure is set to sunset in 2018. This bill would repeal that sunset, perpetuating indefinitely (subject to future changes) the requirement to obtain a government permission slip to be involved in the funeral services industry.

This bill completely exempts hair braiding from occupational licensure, whereas previously it was believed by DOPL to fall within the general cosmetology requirements which included 2,000 hours of school. HB238 also reduces the number of hours for cosmetology licensure from 2,000 to 1,600, among other changes.

This bill introduces a number of new regulatory restrictions upon business owners which violate the free market, including requiring immigration consultants to fill out an annual application and pay an annual fee, requiring owners or employees of a telephone soliciting business to submit to a background check and be crime-free for 10 years, and a number of other unnecessary and anti-free market restrictions.

This bill would indefinitely extend an existing program that provides job development, placement, intensive on-the-job training, and consultation for disabled employees and follow-up to people with disabilities in the community. Such services should be left to the private organizations to provide; it is not the proper role of government to tax some people to provide employment assistance for others.

This bill strengthens the requirements for business owners to not hire "undocumented" or "illegal" persons and requires the government to compile a database of business owners who comply with its mandates. A free market means that consenting adults should be able to do business (including hiring or contracting) with whomever they choose. This bill takes Utah in the opposite direction of that ideal.

This bill would eliminate straight party voting in Utah so that citizens throughout the state would be encouraged to better investigate the candidates to see who best aligns with their views, rather than simply assuming that the candidate which shares their party affiliation would be the better option.

This bill would require a private company to post its job listings on a government website while said company has any type of contract with the government. This is an unnecessary and intrusive requirement which should be amended out of an otherwise-acceptable bill.

When gun owners open carry their weapon in public, they are often threatened or charged with disorderly conduct when their behavior has not in any way been disorderly. This bill would clarify that simply carrying a gun openly does not constitute disorderly conduct.

This bill allocates $37 million from the sale of liquor within Utah to fund teacher salaries in public schools. Utah should not be engaged in the sale of liquor, nor should it fund the education of children with the proceeds from selling booze.

This bill offers tax credits for businesses which employ a homeless person. While we emphatically support the employment of those who are in need, we believe that the tax code should not be used to manipulate behavior.

This bill would make a seatbelt violation a primary offense. Currently, those not wearing seatbelts may only be penalized if they were pulled over for another reason (a primary offense). This bill would allow police officers to target, detain, cite, and even arrest drivers or passengers they see not wearing their seat belt. The legislature should be seeking to shrink and not swell the nanny state.

This bill would create an annual seminar to be conducted in each school district to teach parents about substance abuse, bullying, mental health issues, and internet safety. Should parents actually need instruction regarding these things, then they should be provided for by non-profit groups in the private sector. The government should not seek to teach parents how to raise their own children.

This bill would impose campaign contribution limits on individuals, organizations, and corporations. As a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling said on the matter, “No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.” We agree, and believe that the government may not legitimately impose arbitrary limits on how much an individual, or a group of individuals, supports a candidate for office.

This bill would protect a parent's right to trial by jury if faced with the terminate of parental rights. Jury trials are a fundamental component of the justice system, and if a parent is to be completely separated from his child by the state, then it must be able to be done by an impartial jury of one's peers.

This bill would prohibit a person from sharing information regarding concealed weapon permit holders with any agent of the federal government. The federal government has no business in monitoring, registering, or otherwise interacting with individuals regarding their use of guns, so this provision is a welcome protection against their potential invasion of privacy in attempting to obtain such information.

This bill repeals three government programs.

While we usually support bills that repeal existing code, the purpose of this bill is to repeal a restriction on the Division of Air Quality that prevents it from creating and enforcing regulations that are more stringent than existing federal laws. If this bill passed, the state of Utah would be able to much more restrictively impose regulatory burdens upon business owners and individuals.

This bill would require 24 hours of "continuing education" every two years for massage therapists as a condition of renewing their occupation license (without which they are prohibited from offering their services to consenting customers). This is a violation of the free market; licensure laws should be liberalized and ultimately repealed, rather than imposing more costly and unnecessary burdens.

This bill requires collective bargaining meetings (related to forming or changing a labor union) to be open to the public, and minutes and an audio recording made publicly available. This level of transparency is important for a process that is often secretive.

This bill requires Utah's representative to the Interstate Advisory Health Care Commission of the multi-state Health Care Compact to work with the other member states to nullify federal health care laws. The federal government does not have the delegated authority to manage (let alone mandate) health care policies, so Utah must continue to explore efforts to reclaim that power and return it to the citizens.

This bill would prohibit a government entity from employing a lobbyists to influence the action of a public official. This would prevent tax dollars from being used to seek an outcome that the taxpayers may disagree with.

This bill nullifies the federal health care legislation known as "Obamacare," declaring it "null and void and of no effect" within the state of Utah." The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to micromanage and mandate health care services, and since the Supreme Court has refused to protect individual liberty, the state legislature can and should intervene.

This bill creates a state certification for applied behavior analysts through the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensure. Certifications from private organizations are important and beneficial but fall outside the proper role of government to implement through the state.

This resolution is based upon the notion that, as it states, "immigration is a federal policy issue between the United States Government and other countries." This is false; the federal government has not been constitutionally delegated the authority to regulate immigration (they can only regulate naturalization), so it therefore cannot be a "federal policy issue."

This bill creates the "Cigarette Rolling Machine Operators Act" which requires owners/operators of cigarette rolling machines to comply with an onerous amount of mandates regarding the brand, weight, type, etc. of cigarettes produced from the machine and sold to others. It further creates a new annual certification for operators and directs the State Tax Commission to oversee everything related to these certifications. This bill has nothing to do with protecting the life, liberty, and property of Utahns and should therefore be opposed.

This bill requires the state of Utah to develop and promote materials for parents to teach their kids the “birds and the bees” and requires school districts to push the materials onto parents twice per year. This is not at all the proper role of government and is a subject matter properly left to families, churches, and private organizations.

This bill appropriates $10 million from the state's Education Fund to the University of Utah School of Medicine in order to admit an additional 40 students. Individuals should not be coercively taxed to subsidize or fully fund another person's education. Rather than entrenching the education regime further, the state should begin to direct responsibility for educating Utah's youth back to the free market.

This will would criminalize cockfighting along with possession of fighting birds and being a spectator at a cockfighting event. Animals do not have rights, and are routinely (and legally) killed for sport and food. Imposing criminal penalties for causing them harm in other ways is inconsistent and unjustified. This is a basic property rights issue; preventing people from using their animals (a form of property) and authorizing the unwarranted invasion of their property (homes, businesses, etc.) is a violation of liberty.

This bill would increase an existing pilot program which provides treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder. It increases funding by $1.5 million. The government has no authority to tax citizens to provide medical care for those in need.

This bill would create public preschools financed by private investments, which would then be paid back by the state (up to $10 million) if the program is successful. Education is an individual service which, like any such service, should be left to the market to provide. While this proposal is better than direct financing by taxpayers, it nevertheless burdens the state with debt (conditional on the program's success) to the tune of $1-2 million per year. Parents, and not the state, are responsible for the education and care of their children

This bill would expand the duties and budget of the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) by creating the Outdoor Recreation Office. The office would be tasked to seek federal grants and loans, participate in federal programs, and recruit outdoor-related businesses to the state of Utah—along with a slew of other government interventions into the market. GOED's activities involve picking winners and losers in the market, and the creation of this new Office would only increase that intervention.

This bill would make it a class B misdemeanor to keep a dog on a leash for more than 10 hours per day, among other actions which would also be punished. Animals are the property of an individual and do not have the same rights as humans; there is no principled foundation upon which to justify this imposition of government upon a dog owner.

This bill would add persons with physical and mental disabilities to the already-existing list of protected classes in Utah (which include race, color, gender, religion, ancestry, and national origin). Doing so would mean that business owners could not discriminate against disabled persons when considering them for employment, property owners could not discriminate against them when considering them for a rental, etc. Discrimination is an inherent and necessary part of the free market; property owners should not be compelled in any way to exchange or manage their property in a way they would prefer not. We do not support unreasonably discriminating against disabled persons, but we do oppose the government punishing people for doing so.

This bill would make not wearing a seatbelt a primary offense when driving on a highway. First time offenders would be given a warning, and after that a citation would be issued. The choice to wear a seatbelt or not is a personal one, and the legislature should work on reducing, and not enlarging, the nanny state in Utah.

Freedom of contract, a cornerstone of a free market, requires individuals to engage and employ whoever they desire. An individual should not be required to obtain a permission slip from the government in order to offer legal services and assistance to another person.

This bill would exempt the state of Utah from the observance of daylight savings time if seven other states adopt legislation exempting themselves as well. The legislature has opted in years past to not "go it alone," and so this bill conditions the exemption upon the actions of other states. The government should not manage time itself in this fashion, and so exempting the state altogether is an action worth supporting.

This bill would increase the penalty for a person who is convicted more than once of patronizing a prostitute. Consensual sexual activity is not criminal. Simply adding money to the equation does not introduce any condition that justifies using the coercion of government to prohibit the activity and punish those involved. It was also brought up on the Senate floor that this would only apply to six people in Utah's entire history.

This bill would strengthen the prohibitions and recourse for justice against adoptions where a fraudulent representation or action has been made. Significantly, it would stipulate that that due process must be preserved in resolving a dispute, regardless of the emotional bond that may exist between the child and his or her adoptive parents, in order to preserve the biological parent's right to obtain custody of the child.

This bill prohibits individuals from using a automatic license plate reader system but allows police officers, parking lot owners, and a few others from using one in limited circumstances. Legitimate police power is based on the delegated authority of the individual; if police are authorized to use such tools to monitor potential threats, then individuals have the same authority. It further allows law enforcement to maintain a database of each scanned license plate (along w/ the location where it was scanned) for six months, which has problematic civil liberty implications. Such records should be kept for no longer than one week, providing for sufficient time to conduct a current investigation.

This bill would impose campaign contribution limits on individuals, organizations, and corporations. As a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling said on the matter, “No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.” We agree, and believe that the government may not legitimately impose arbitrary limits on how much an individual, or a group of individuals, supports a candidate for office.

This bill extends the state's taxing authority to out of state businesses that use Utah companies to advertise. These businesses need not have a physical presence within the state, according to the bill, and yet would still be compelled to submit taxes to the state. This is very problematic, likely unconstitutional, and takes Utah in the wrong direction of increasing, rather than decreasing, taxes.

This bill prohibits cosmetic medical companies from advertise their services using the term "medical" unless while the service is being performed, the facility has a licensed medical professional on the premises. It further requires that that licensed professional be on premises at least 75% of the time in which the facility is open for business. This arbitrary requirement is not based on any principle; consumers should do their own research and investigate the claims made by businesses which they may voluntarily choose to patronize.

This bill would criminalize the sale or offering of dogs and cats on public roads, parking lots, or other places open to the use of the public. Only animal shelters, retail pet stores, and dog shows would be exempt, along with individuals selling the pets at their own residence. This bill serves no practical purpose and violates the rights of association and contract.

This bill would prevent employers or landlords from discriminating against a person because of their "gender identity" or sexual orientation. This proposal, along with existing anti-discrimination law, is a violation of property rights. The government has no authority to dictate to a property owner with whom he or she may wish to share or use their own property.

This bill provides taxpayer dollars and tax-related incentives to help finance a mega hotel. A government limited to its proper role does not engage in economic development efforts with taxpayer dollars.

This bill adds more drugs and scientific concoctions to a lengthy list of prohibitions. The war on drugs is a proven failure, so Utah should not be amplifying it. Criminalizing the consumption of a substance is not within the proper role of government.

This bill allows a property owner to refuse to comply with an order to evacuate his/her property, and removes a provision which previously made such a refusal a class B misdemeanor. Individuals should not be coerced into leaving their property and should be allowed to reap the consequences of their own informed actions. This is a basic but important property rights bill.

Foreign policy is a federal matter, and yet this resolution would interject Utah into commenting on the internal and foreign affairs of a separate nation. It "recognizes that Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others," a contention that is highly contested and regarding which Utah legislators have no expert opinion.

This resolution reject the United Nation's "Agenda 21" and supports private property rights by encouraging political subdivisions of the state to also reject any attempts to implement the UN's land-use planning, which comes at the expense of an individual's right to own and peaceably use his property as he sees fit.

This resolution "urges parents and concerned citizens to consider ways to mitigate the exposure of children to gateway pornography." The prevalence, ease of access to, and damaging effects of pornography, especially to children are indeed alarming. This fact does not mean that the situation has any relevance to government. While this is simply a resolution, such statements of the will of the legislature often and inevitably turn into legislation down the road. A government concerned with protecting the lives and liberty of its citizens should leave the subject of pornography to mediating institutions which are already aware of the problem and exploring solutions to help address it.

This Senate Resolution opposes the taxpayer subsidization of one hotel over others, recognizing it (rightly) as being unfair. However, it also states that "the Senate expresses support for the use of public resources [taxes] to fund convention center facilities and promotion activities that benefit all hotels." The government should not be involved in the convention center business; if a need exists for such facilities (which already exist), then the market will provide.