Lawmakers are touting their "consensus" bill that fixes deep-seeded problems between some city councils and mayors.

Senate Bill 20 clarifies forms of city governments and sets rules on how they operate. Legislators also feel they've answered one of the biggest municipal questions of recent years by detailing how a city can change a form of government.

Lehi, Bluffdale and Syracuse were embroiled in fights in recent years over whether a council can change a form of government. Bluffdale went to court over it and Syracuse went to a ballot referendum to restore the form the council tried to change. The Lehi council held off, waiting to see what state lawmakers would do.

The new language would require a vote of the people to change a form of government, and the bill would take away a council's power to change it by ordinance. It's taken 18 months to get the bill to a point everyone agrees on, said bill sponsor Carlene Walker, R-Salt Lake City. Everyone but Johnson.

"He's literally the only mayor in the state who has issues with this," she said.

On that, Johnson can agree. His biggest issue is language in the bill that would also allow a city council to take certain powers away from the mayor.

"Why in the Sam Houston have it in there?" Johnson said. "When the mayor has certain authorities and they take them away from you, that is a change in the form of government."

If the people elect a mayor, it's for specific duties. But the bill allows a council to take away certain mayoral powers, and that violates the choice of the people, Howard said.

Walker counters that a mayor isn't left helpless if a council wants to take powers away.

"If there is any change, the mayor becomes a voting member and can vote on those changes," Walker said.

To that, Johnson answers with a smirk.

If the council attempts to take a mayor's powers away, he said, they'll make sure they have enough votes beforehand to push it through.

"The Legislature has done for the council what we tried to stop the council from doing," he said.

Walker said power struggles between mayors and government are rare and what the bill allows isn't as dramatic as Johnson makes it out to be.

"Changing, tweaking the mayor's responsibilities is not a change in the form of government," she said.

Johnson, or anyone else who opposes the bill, will have to take the fight to the Senate floor, as the bill passed through the committee unanimously Monday.

Senate Bill 20 Municipal Government Amendments

Sponsor: Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Salt Lake City

This bill rewrites and reorganizes provisions relating to forms of municipal government and municipal administration