No part of government should be able to act without the oversight of the others. And of the people.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Third District Judge Laura Scott during a hearing on Utah Education Association’s lawsuit against the Utah Fits All Scholarship (voucher) program, in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024.
The checks and balances that define the genius of the American system have been on happy display in Utah recently.
A state district court judge rightly ruled that the state’s system of giving taxpayers’ money to families to pay for private, religious or home schooling violates the Utah Constitution’s requirement that public money go only to schools that are “free and open to all children.”
The $100 million “Utah Fits All” voucher program will remain active while the state appeals.
Meanwhile, the Legislature’s attempt to destroy public sector unions in the state has hit a roadblock. Opponents of a law banning cities, counties and school districts from engaging in collective bargaining filed petitions with enough signatures to force the question onto the 2026 state ballot.
The law will be suspended while the process moves along.
Also, U.S. Rep. Blake Moore spoke out in favor of congressional efforts to curb the president’s power to single-handedly impose tariffs on imported goods. The founders of the republic, Moore sees, would be disappointed to see Congress so passively surrendering its constitutional authority to the executive.
Backers of the school voucher plan predictably called the court ruling “judicial activism.” But the fact is that our system doesn’t work unless there is judicial activism. And legislative activism. And executive activism. And, most important, citizen activism.
A little more checking and balancing would apparently have been useful over at Utah State University, where recently departed President Elizabeth Cantwell is now known to have spent $661,000 on travel, office remodeling and three expensive vehicles in the less than two years of her tenure.
This is the kind of thing that the school’s board of trustees, as well as the board and staff of the Utah System of Higher Education, should have been actively monitoring. And, we trust, will be in the future.
No part of government should be able to act without the oversight of the others. And of the people.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.