Utah's part-time legislators make all kinds of weighty decisions banning gay marriage, deciding who gets the death penalty, setting sales tax rates, borrowing millions of dollars for roads.
Now a group of representatives and senators is stuck over this tough question: What do you like most, a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or a camp stool with a beer cooler?
Say what?
A committee of 16 of the 104 legislators is planning a big convention this summer as Utah lawmakers host 5,600 legislators and their families at the annual National Conference of State Legislatures convention in late July.
The host state is responsible for social activities. This year the opening event is a reception at the Capitol followed by a special performance of the choir on Temple Square, and the convention closes with a night at the Utah Olympic Oval with winter sports stars.
The host, by tradition, is also expected to give attendees a gift.
Texas lawmakers hosting the event several years ago gave a big paperweight shaped like the lone star of Texas.
Big deal, said House Majority Leader Greg Curtis, R-Sandy and co-chairman of the NCSL committee that met Monday. He doesn't even know where his star is now.
"Mine is on my desk. I like it," countered Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay.
And there's the rub. How do you decide what's a neat gift?
"I thought we voted to give the camp stool and cooler," complained Rep. Wayne Harper, R-South Jordan and an economic development director who knows something about pleasing guests, especially non-Utahns.
Minutes of a November meeting show they only voted not to spend more than $15 each on the gifts. Each "Spirit of America" CD is $8.50; the camp stool $10.79.
But with the committee having raised just $460,000 out of the needed $1 million to host the event and with only two months before the big shindig, Curtis and Senate co-chairman Pete Knudson, R-Brigham City, decided the camp stool is too generous.
"We can save $10,000 with the CD," Curtis said. "And you save $10,000 ten times in this budget and that's $100,000."
But Rep. Ty McCartney, D-Salt Lake, who has a party-boy reputation among committee members because of his complaining about alcohol (another NCSL tradition) not being served at the opening reception, really likes the camp stool and cooler.
"You know, you could sit on this while you were fishing and drink," he said. "And we're going to give a Tabernacle Choir CD to save a buck-fifty per gift?"
"What do you have against the Tabernacle Choir?" another committee member asked McCartney.
"If it's a question of costs, maybe we could get someone to sponsor the camp stool, put their name on it," said Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Sandy. "Like the Fred Lampropoulos camp stool?"
That would be former Republican gubernatorial candidate Fred Lampropoulos, who spent some $3 million before he was eliminated in the May 8 state GOP convention.
Harper moved to approve the camp stool as the official gift.
Then the confusion started: Does it have to pass among both senators and representatives, as legislative joint committees usually require, or is a simple majority enough?
That's unclear, Curtis said. "Let's form a committee to look at gifts and report back."
And so the debate continues. . . .
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com