Gotta love this man.

Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, as Paul Rolly of the Salt Lake Tribune puts it, is a “low tax, small government, pro-business fiscal conservative.”  But he’s the kind of Republican that pisses off Gayle Ruzicka and the Utah Eagle Forum.  Which, in my opinion, makes him a good Republican.

How does he piss off the Ruzickastanians?  Let me count the ways:

1. He showed his opposition to a bill that would ban the teaching of evolution in Utah schools by wearing a monkey tail during the session the Senate voted on the bill.
2. He sponsored a bill that would make it easier for teachers to discuss contraception in sex education classes.
3. He helped prevent legislation against the IB program by people who think it’s a United Nations socialist plot against the American way of life.
4. When the Sutherland Institute got all bent out of shape over the Sundance Film festival, he compared them to the Westboro Baptist Church.
5. And just this legislative session, he sponsored, and helped push through the Senate Committee with a favorable recommendation, a bill that would have banned housing and employment discrimination against the LGBT community.  (It still failed in full session vote).

Hmmmmm, Gov. Herbert showing rational thought, Sen. Aaron Osmond listening to actual Educators when thinking about education legislation, and now Sen. Urquhart refusing to be a jellyfish and showing backbone by standing up to the Eagle Forum.

Is the Utah Republican Party learning that extremism is what cost them in the last election, or is this just a temporary shift?

Utah Legislators bought and paid for? Pshaw…

Why bother understanding one of your own bills you expect to become law when you can have a representative of the special interest group that is pushing it explain it for you.

At least that’s what a couple Utah Senators from Layton seem to think.  And not too many people up there seem too worried that the group that has sworn to punish the uppity citizens of Utah for a Citizen Initiative that defeated their beloved private-school vouchers knew more about proposed education laws than the people who supposedly wrote them.

But that’s what happened.  When a group asked Sen. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, to explain a bill that would change the way public schools in Utah were graded, all but guaranteeing every one would fail, he sent Judi Clark out to give the details.

Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, got the same Judi Clark to explain his bill, establishing a student achievement record for everyone to see, to the Senate Education Committee.

So, “Who is this Judi Clark?” you ask.  Is she the Layton Senator’s personal assistant?  Or maybe a Senate aide they both share?  A paralegal?  Could be she just typed it up for them, so they figured she knew it the best.

Um, no.  She’s the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, a group hell-bent on decimating public schools so they can foster the use of public funds for private schools.

I know it’s silly, but it all makes me wonder why someone running a group that is working against public schools has so much influence regarding laws that have to do with public education.

Maybe it has to do with all the money they donate to political campaigns.

Nah.