How corrupt is Utah?
At length, former Utah Attorney General John Swallow is finally scheduled to face a jury this week. No matter how Swallow’s story ends, however, it marks an aberration. Federal statistics show that...
View ArticleThe 2017 Utah Legislature passed a record number of bills but slightly...
Back in January, I heard a lot of chatter that this would be one of the busiest sessions ever. Folks were saying that legislators had submitted some 1200 bill requests to drafting attorneys. Though...
View ArticleUtah lawmakers loved to agree in the 2017 Legislature
The partisan rancor that pervades national politics seldom reaches the Utah Legislature. Simply put, Republicans control such an overwhelming supermajority of seats that they have no need to fear...
View ArticleWho missed the most votes in the 2017 Legislature?
My previous two posts had some good news about the 2017 Legislature: Vetting time improved a little, giving the public more time to see most bills, and bipartisanship remained the order of the day. But...
View ArticleWho voted “nay” the most in the 2017 Legislature?
As I posted earlier, the Utah Legislature is almost a bipartisan lovefest. Legislators just don’t like voting “nay.” In general, if something gets to the floor, it’s going to pass. In 2017, only 2% of...
View ArticleWhat Rep. Watkins teaches us about party and ideology
Political scientists have made a parlor game of calculating ideology scores for elected officials based on their voting records. The gold standard for the US Congress is the DW-NOMINATE algorithm; you...
View ArticleAnalysis of voting patterns in the 2018 Utah Legislature
The Utah Legislature concluded its 45-day General Session last Thursday at midnight. Once again, I’ve scraped the voting records to produce this statistical summary. Update (3/14/2018): The Utah...
View ArticleCage match: LaVar Christensen vs Dan McCay
Rep. LaVar Christensen and Rep. Dan McCay are squaring off to fill a vacant seat in the Utah Senate. These two have served a long time together in the Utah House–long enough to cast a lot of opposing...
View ArticleNew data show how little time the Legislature spends per bill
Today the Utah Legislature concludes the fifth week of its seven-week General Session. The pace is about to pick up incredibly. I’ve collected new data on how the Utah House and Utah Senate spend their...
View ArticleWhich way did Utah Co and Weber Co swing?
The New York Times notes in passing today that two Utah metro areas (Provo-Orem and Ogden-Clearfield) moved toward Trump in 2020–the 6th and 8th largest pro-Trump swings in the nation! Trouble is, the...
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