It's sort of a political food chain: The federal government tells the states what they can and cannot do, and the states, in turn, mandate to cities what they can and cannot do.
And the 1995 Legislature was a perfect barometer of just how frustrated those at the lower end of the food chain are. State lawmakers spent hours berating federal government mandates at the same time mayors called press conferences on the Capitol steps to bemoan legislative mandates on local governments.If no federal mandates is good for the goose, shouldn't the goose be sensitive about its own mandates to the gander?
"I wouldn't want to use `hypocrisy,' but there was certainly inconsistency," said Dave Spatafore of the Utah League of Cities and Towns.
Utah's local governments do not have a lot to cheer about with this year's Legislature. Lawmakers passed a law greatly restricting the impact fees charged by cities for new residential development - fees they use to offset the costs of growth on municipal services.
Under the new law, cities can use impact fees only for roads, sewers, fire stations, water systems, parks and other capital improvements. They cannot use the money to hire additional police or firefighters or to fund libraries or purchase equipment like street sweepers and police cars.
And lawmakers prohibited school districts from imposing any impact fees.
"Lawmakers should never have passed the bill, although it is eons better than what they originally proposed," Spatafore said. "That bill has sent tremors through numerous municipal governments in the state, and I guarantee you there will be a lot more mayors up here involved in the legislative process next year."
Lawmakers also took away cities' powers to regulate the sale of firearms. State law prohibits the sale of firearms to those convicted of felonies, drug abusers, the mentally ill or illegal aliens. Cities had wanted to go much further through local ordinances, but the Legislature passed a law stating cities cannot pass any gun-control ordinance exceeding state law.
The irony of the legislation is that lawmakers passed numerous bills and resolutions targeted at federal government mandates. They appropriated $150,000 to defend the state's position in a long-standing dispute with the Department of Interior over who owns the thousands of miles of dirt roads across federal lands.
And they passed resolutions reaffirming the state's claim to water originating on federal lands, opposing excessive wilderness designations and begging the federal government to lay off the mandates.
The most important bill to many lawmakers was a resolution calling for a Conference of the States - a meeting of all 50 states later this year in Philadelphia to develop proposals that may return power - and responsibility - from the federal government to the states. The national initiative is the brain child of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.
"I don't know how we could send a stronger message," said Senate Majority Whip Leonard Blackham, R-Moroni. "The way it is now, we have to have a lawyer, a bureaucrat or a social worker - or all three - to make any decision. We want to have more control over our own destiny."
City officials say the same thing, and although lawmakers certainly sympathize, they did little to shift decisionmaking to the local level.
Blackham, a former county commissioner, dodged the question of municipal control, arguing that cities want the same thing as lawmakers: "Cities are to serve the people. We are all trying to do what's best for the people, not what's best for state government or what's best for a particular city."
Spatafore agrees on that point. "Our true creators were not the state Legislature but the people. And we will continue to ask for more and more home-rule powers to allow our true creators, our stockholders, our residents, the ability to control their own destiny."
But if the 1995 Legislature is any indication, that destiny will come only with legislative sanction.