How ironic it is when legislators inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot with the very laws they have passed. This is especially true when the law was meant to be self-serving.
Utah lawmakers are in this very fix as they prepare for the 45-day legislative session starting next January.Last year, legislators decided they didn't like part of the state's laws on open access to public documents. So they amended the law to keep the legislative bill-drafting process secret until a measure was officially introduced.
The reasoning behind this approach was shaky at best. It centered mostly on far-fetched political fears about what that "might" happen if people were able to find out about bills being prepared, including potential bills that may never actually be introduced.
But the secrecy backfired this fall.
Legislative attorneys who actually draft the bills requested by legislators found themselves swamped with work. By the third week in November, legislators had asked for 627 bills, nearly double the usual amount. Leaders want to know who is causing all the work so they can be asked to ease up.
But under the secrecy laws, the legislative leaders' own staffs can't legally give out such information to their frustrated bosses. The lack of information also hampers all lawmakers who want to know if somebody else is drafting for the same kind of bill they may be proposing. Again, it's a secret.
Attempts to organize the bill-drafting process so that important legislative work is not handicapped have been frustrated.
Efforts to vote the problem away in a legislative caucus - "you can just tell us" - didn't work. The law is the law. As a result, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. This is embarrassing, but legislators got what they deserved for not thinking their secrecy provisions all the way through.
The law is clearly going to have to be changed. But instead of just tinkering with it, lawmakers should entirely abandon the idea of keeping the bill-drafting process secret.
In any case, most attention is going to be paid - as always - to measures that are actually introduced. The drafting of potential legislation is not a matter for secrecy. All that lawmakers are doing is confusing themselves.