After years of fighting about this or that over the governance of Utah public education, can super-majorities of two-thirds of the House and Senate decide a major change in four days?
Maybe.
The Senate has already passed Sen. Jim Dabakis’ SJR16, which would do away with the 15-member elected State Board of Education and give the governor power over public education at the state level.
Wednesday, the 62-member House Republican caucus, in an open meeting, talked about changing that amendment to have the governor appoint – with Senate ratification – a public ed governance model much like the current Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public colleges and universities.
Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, says he will propose a change to SJR16 that would set up a seven or nine-member education board appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.
There are ironies all over the place on this one.
First, Dabakis, a liberal Democrat, is going against the Utah Education Association – the main teacher union – which doesn’t want a change.
And he’s trying to give ultimate power over schools to a Republican governor – an office Republicans are likely to hold for years in Utah.
McCay is advocating taking power away from an elected board – which is often mainly made up of Republicans – and giving it to the executive branch of government.
With House members having no confirmation – no say – in who the new board members will be.
McCay told his GOP colleagues that his substitute would leave a number of big decisions up to the 2019 Legislature.
For now, his amendment would just do away with the current 15-member elected board and give power to the governor to appoint.
Next session, assuming voters approve the constitutional change in November’s election, lawmakers will decide how many board members there are, whether any of them represent geographic areas, or districts, and such.
Several GOP representatives spoke in favor of what McCay wants to do.
But Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, said it would be a terrible mistake to completely change education governance with four days of consideration and one short House GOP caucus meeting.
It takes 50 votes to pass an amendment in the 75-member House, and it is unclear if McCay could get any of the 13 House Democrats votes – since the UEA is against any change now.
That would mean 50 votes out of 62 Republicans.
But it may be if lawmakers really want to make a drastic change in public education governance like this, they need to act quickly.
Dabakis, speaking in the caucus, said lawmakers shouldn’t be afraid to act, since there will be a lot of public debate before the November election, and even if an amendment passes there, lawmakers will get another bite of the apple in the next legislative session.
