As expected, Gov. Gary Herbert on Friday called a special session of the Legislature for Wednesday to handle several minor items — and avoided more controversial issues such as changes to Utah’s open-records law and a push to repeal Utah’s immigrant guest-worker program.

“The items on the call are generally minor housekeeping items, some of which are time-sensitive,” Herbert said.

The items he included for consideration include tinkering with health insurance rates, liquor commission guidelines, judicial evaluations, and adopting another resolution supporting a federal balanced budget amendment.

Other items include tweaking the makeup of a board created to study the relocation of the Draper prison and legislation about issuing bonds by special service districts.

The one-day session will cost little to nothing extra because it will piggyback on already-scheduled monthly interim meetings.

While the Utah Republican Party passed a resolution last month calling for the repeal of HB116, which would create a guest-worker law, the governor did not include it among items for the special session.

Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, said recently he doesn’t like taking on complicated matters such as HB116 during special sessions. “The bill doesn’t go into effect — if ever — until 2013, so I don’t see a huge rush to repeal.”

Also, no changes are expected to Utah’s open-meetings law. Although a task force has been contemplating changes to the law — after lawmakers were pressured into repealing revisions they passed this year — Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, has said those revisions won’t be ready in time for the special session. He wants the bill to have several public hearings.

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Utah Democrats made history Saturday afternoon, electing the state’s first openly gay major party chairman and an openly gay candidate to fill a vacant Salt Lake City House seat.

Delegates at the Democratic state convention voted overwhelmingly, by 528-71, to elect Jim Dabakis as state party chairman. Dabakis, an art dealer and a founder of a founder of Equality Utah and The Utah Pride Center, ran against Robert Comstock, a political activist and middle school wood shop teacher.

Delegates also voted, narrowly, to put Brian Doughty, a small-business owner, in the legislative seat vacated by Jackie Biskupski.

With Doughty’s election, Utah’s gay community will continue to have at least one voice on the Hill. Biskupski, who resigned in June because she moved out of her district, was the last openly gay lawmaker in Utah. But Doughty, who lives near Liberty Park with his partner, served on the board of directors of Equality Utah until recently when he resigned to pursue the House District 30 seat.

“I think it’s important during these committee hearings and floor debates there’s actually someone who can speak from the heart,” said Doughty before pausing to collect himself in the emotional moment.

Biskupski said after the vote she was pleased to see Doughty, her House district chairman, win the seat. She said it’s good for both the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the Mormon community to have an openly gay lawmaker at the Capitol.

“I am excited that the LGBT community will have a voice again in the Hill because I’ve seen what a difference it makes to have someone on the floor who can articulate a personal message on some of the issues that arise, and that is really important especially during this critical civil rights time for the LGBT community,” Biskupski said.

Doughty said his first priority in office will be to work with the redistricting process “and make sure the House District 30 does not totally disappear.”

“Sugar House and Liberty Park is really a community of common interest and we don’t want to split that up and have it absorbed by surrounding House districts,” Doughty said.

It was a narrow victory for Doughty, in an election where many had expected longtime activist Nikki Boyer to win.

Six candidates vied for Biskupski’s seat, but none of them won the required 60 percent of delegate votes in the first round of voting. A second round of voting narrowed the field to the top two vote-getters, Doughty and William McDonnell, director of the U.’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health Law & Policy. Boyer announced before the second round that she’d like to give her votes to Doughty, who then came from behind to beat McDonnell by one vote.

Party leaders estimated about 1,200 attended the convention in Salt Lake City Saturday.

Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 2011
Lee Davidson

Others have drawn congressional maps that would center new districts in Utah County, Salt Lake City or even Davis and Weber counties. So Utah Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, is countering with one that would put Taylorsville and West Valley City at the center of a district.

“I wasn’t saying that Taylorsville should be the center of the universe. But I did want to emphasize that the west side of the county does have a significant population base,” he said on Friday about the new map he posted to the Redistricting Committee’s website, RedistrictUtah.com.

Waddoups’ latest map would form three urban House districts along a “doughnut hole” stretch of the Wasatch Front, surrounded by one vast, rural “doughnut” district. He says he does not actually favor creating a rural “doughnut” district, but wanted to put on the table a version of the increasingly debated idea that would create a west-side-centered district.

Daily Herald, June 30, 2011
Billy Hesterman

PROVO -- Utah County Democrats spoke out Thursday against the Republican delegates who voted for a resolution urging state lawmakers to repeal an immigration reform bill (House Bill 116), as well as Republican lawmakers who have fought against the bill.

Will Matheson, Utah County Democratic Party chairman, was joined by Jose Inclan, chairman of the Utah County Hispanic Democratic Committee, on the steps of the Historic Utah County Courthouse in Provo. They said that the immigration debate had taken a radical and dangerous turn where civility, truth and compassion had been replaced by fear, misinformation and persecution.

"Elected Republican legislators of this county are out of touch with the majority of its citizens. Rather than representing the majority of Utahns' interests, they have consistently chosen to represent fringe extremist interest groups and delegates," Matheson said. "When major religious organizations, businesses and a 61 percent majority of Utahns are all opposed to the repeal of House Bill 116, and the GOP delegates still push even farther to the right, you know that something is wrong."

Salt Lake Tribune, June 30, 2011
Donald W. Meyers

Provo » Utah County Democrats are urging the Republican-dominated Legislature not to repeal the state’s new guest-worker law.

Standing in front of the Historic Utah County Courthouse, Democratic leaders argued Thursday that HB116 opponents represent a minority of Utahns who do not recognize the complexities of immigration reform.

“We invite Utah County legislators to reconsider radical positions on the topic,” said Jose Alcan, chairman of the Utah County Hispanic Democratic Committee, “and ask Utah County residents to continue to show charity to their neighbors, while simultaneously demanding that Congress aggressively pursue much-needed comprehensive immigration reform.”

Alcan — joined by county Democratic leaders Will Matheson and Robert McMurray — said the party plans to launch a public-education campaign to confront fiery immigration rhetoric, encourage legal immigrants to obtain U.S. citizenship and promote candidates to take on legislators seen as anti-Latino.

Daily Herald, May 10, 2011
Billy Hesterman

Will Matheson, the new chairman of the Utah County Democrats, will have his work cut out for him.
Matheson, a BYU student and former president of the BYU College Democrats, was named chairman at the Utah County Democratic convention last week. He now faces the task of growing and energizing the small number of Democrats who reside in Utah County.

"My goal is to continue increasing the votes cast for local Democratic candidates in Utah County and win seats in 2012," Matheson said. "I want to get the message out there that Republican dominance in Utah County is unhealthy and unrepresentative."

Matheson said he feels that legislators who currently represent the county have been essentially elected at the convention level and not in general elections. He says he hopes to work hard to create a competitive two-party system where the county's elected officials are held accountable.

"Their constituency is a small group of extremists and political activists," he said. "They do not intend to represent the views of the average Utah County voter."

Daily Herald, March 15, 2011
Billy Hesterman

Utah County Democratic Party chairman Richard Davis says Utah's mostly Republican lawmakers missed out on funding public education, showed disrespect to the public by approving bills that limit public's involvement in government, and that lawmakers should have left immigration for the federal government to fix.

They did not provide a vision for education," said Davis. "I'm not sure they can do that."

While the Legislature was able to fund public education higher than the governor had requested and even allocated money for growth, Davis says the Legislature lacks a vision of a long-term plan to fund Utah's students. Davis went on to say public education can get lost in Republican lawmakers minds as they cater to, what he says, Republican delegates who mostly home school their children, or whose children attend charter schools.

"All the Legislature did was keep public education from falling further behind," he said.

Deseret News, October 7, 2010
Hal Miller

Last year, Utahns for Ethical Government (UEG) launched an initiative to pass real ethics reform in the Utah Legislature. The initiative would have ended gifts for legislators, created a citizens' ethics commission with real teeth, and given citizens a role in legislative ethics investigations.

Republican legislators quickly criticized the initiative as unnecessary. Republican Party leaders panned the initiative. Sen. John Valentine complained that the intent of the initiative "is to punish legislators." However, party leaders became worried when polls showed that the overwhelming majority of voters favored the initiative.

In response, the Republican-dominated Legislature passed a bill, claiming it to be serious ethics reform. Their bill, however, was the equivalent of the "fox guarding the hen house." The same legislators who opposed the initiative didn't complain about their own version of ethics reform. Perhaps it was because the new law avoided punishing legislators while at the same time giving them a pass on ethics reform.

The new law passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature isn't real ethics reform. It is only a sham.