An occasional series of short opinions on current matters at the Utah State Legislature.

Not a prayer

Sen. D. Chris Buttars somehow cannot resist sponsoring message bills that waste everyone's time.

The West Jordan Republican, having not learned his lesson with the defeat of his creationism bill in the 2006 session, Buttars is back again with another legislative solution desperately seeking a problem. He wants a state law to stipulate that individual expressions of religious faith are protected on public property.

Like last year's creationism bill, Senate Bill 111 was created with no intelligent design. It was inspired by an aggrieved constituent who claimed his child was barred from wearing a T-shirt displaying the acronym "CTR" in school. (Mormons, of course, recognize this as "Choose The Right," a slogan used in the LDS Church's Primary program.) The bill, Buttars explains on the Senate blog, would allow the government to ban religious expression only to further a compelling government interest and then only in the least restrictive way possible.

Forget about dogs that won't hunt. This is a bird that won't fly. It has wings of concrete, an easy mark for any lawyer -- which Buttars isn't. The First Amendment already protects an individual's right to wear a shirt with a religious message, to read a book about religion or to quietly pray in a public place. Buttars might have responded to his constituent that the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that students can express themselves as long as they don't disrupt school. But that would have taken away his opportunity for religious posturing.

Buttars shouldn't worry about schools becoming devoid of religious expression. As long as pop quizzes and football games exist, so will prayer.

Cell phone hang-up

Bad legislation often starts with a good intent. Consider House Bill 217, which would ban teenage drivers from using cellular phones while driving. It is sponsored by Rep. Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville. The only exception is an emergency.

The intent is to remove one more distraction from a young driver's car. Several studies have compared using a cell phone while driving to being legally intoxicated. The Legislature has tried unsuccessfully in the past to bar all Utahns from using a phone while driving. Those measures failed because they were seen as assaults on personal freedom and failed to address other driving distractions such as hamburgers, soft drinks, screaming kids, swapping CDs or conversations with other passengers.

HB 217 may stand a slightly better chance since teen drivers can't vote or hire lobbyists. But it's still a bad bill. It comes up short in the execution department. Do we ask the police to pull over cell phone users they think might be under agefi Quite a few teens who look older than 18, and some adults look like kids. We don't like the police state implications.

As a practical matter this sort of law would come into play only after a traffic accident. But then, how would one prove that the young driver was talking on his cell phone while driving, as opposed to after the crash unless he admitted itfi You'd have to know the time of the accident to the second (which is unlikely) and match the time to the phone records.

Not so foolproof

Freshman Rep. Stephen E. Sandstrom, R-Orem, is tackling the problem of illegal immigration in one of his first bills. He proposes legislation to require businesses to participate in the federal government's Basic Pilot program in order to qualify for state contracts. The goal is to discourage contractors from hiring illegal immigrants.

Currently, employees and employers are required to fill out an I-9 form certifying that the employee provided proper documentation. But there's often know way of knowing whether the documents used for the I-9 are themselves legitimate.

Basic Pilot provides participating employers with verification of any citizenship documents. It's an improvement over the current system, though it has its flaws. Swift & Company, the meat packing company that was recently in the news, could tell Sandstrom all about that. Basic Pilot cleared Swift workers who were later arrested in a six-state immigration raid for using stolen identification to get jobs.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.