HB 64 in the 2013 Legislative Session, takes away the right of Utah voters to decide which candidate to vote for. This bill was filed by Holladay Representative, Carol Spackman Moss, as an attempt to disqualify all rehabilitated citizens who have ever been convicted of a felony from running for the office of State or Local School Board. Utah law already provides that prior felons may not run for office until they have demonstrated their rehabilitation, including by either expunging their record or by the passage of 10 years, payment of restitution, and completion of probation or parole. However, HB64 would entirely take away their earned rehabilitative privilege to an elective office of any School Board, and would violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on bills of attainder, that punish an entire class of persons by Legislating away their rights. This would also take away the right of voters to decide between real issues, including conflicts of interest that divert valuable tax dollars away from education into the hands of developers who are not barred from running for School Board.
As with the 2012 school board election campaign between R. Wagner Jones as a repentant sinner of over 23 years, and Dan Lofgren as a developer who has a conflict of interest by benefitting from RDA funds that divert needed money away from education
regarding the failed Cottonwood Mall development, voters should be allowed to choose which of the two candidates to elect after weighing the baggage of each. Indeed, the 2012 election contest was between fiscal conservative R. Wagner, and an incumbent school board member with a track record of personally profiting from funds that should properly be going to Education. If R. Wagner had been prevented from running for school board, many voters may have never learned about the group of special interests that continue to drain a significant portion of property tax dollars away from Education in Holladay.
In the instant case, HB64 was initially withheld from consideration in the House Judiciary Committee, and then rejected twice in order to require amendments that narrowed the focus of the bill from all rehabilitated felons to only rehabilitated individuals who were Carol Spackman Moss convicted of certain sexual offenses against a child. Still, HB64 continues to be a bill of disclosed reasons for filing HB64 attainder because access to children is not a criteria or qualification of service on School
Boards, which involves exclusively administrative functions for the purpose of assuring that tax payer dollars are spent efficiently on quality education. Even as amended, Moss’ HB64 would exclude the 3 out of every 5 individuals who recidivism statistics prove will never re-offend and who pose no risk after 20 years of their conviction of
the same certain sexual offenses for which Moss has chosen to disqualify eligibility for elective office to school boards. Even if Moss’ fallacious criteria of access to children were to somehow be shown to be a real qualification for the office, elimination of the individuals that she has chosen to bar, cannot rationally include individuals who bear no risk to children or society including rehabilitated individuals identified by recidivism statistics. Further, if access to children were a true criteria, there are
identifiable groups who indeed do pose a risk to children, such as physical abuse, mental abuse, and other intrusions that are not sexual in nature, and are not identified by Moss.
Based upon these concerns, including the seriousness of legislating away the right of voters to choose between candidates, strong voices on the House Judiciary Committee like Lavar Christensen and Eric Hutchings would not vote for Moss’ HB64 until Moss amended the bill to a narrower class of people. On asking Moss why she decided to run HB64, she responded that some of her constituents had expressed concern that a sex offender had run for election in 2012 to Granite School Board #1. Voter concern over the baggage, demeanor, and qualifications of candidates is indeed why the U.S. Constitution provides that the people should decide who to elect with their votes. However, once Moss alleged that she had narrowed the elective offices to candidates based on assumed qualifications, the House Judiciary Committee passed HB64 to go to Debate on the House Floor, where it is believed that the controversy will continue and Representatives who voted to pass HB64 to the House may not vote in favor of the proposed bill again. Indeed, the candidate that representative Moss has targeted as her reason for wanting to eliminate him from eligibility to run for any school board, is R. Wagner Jones, the very 2012 candidate for Granite District School Board #1 that she had mentioned as justifying her HB64.
With the discussions being so clear in the House Judiciary Committee that Carol Moss was targeting a specific individual: One who has recently run for office, who lives within the same District that she does. And with the alleged qualifications that Moss now proposes irrationally excluding many individuals who are shown to bear no risk under her fallacious “access to children” issue. Further, with Moss’ irrationally leaving out groups who would pose a risk to children if access to them should truly be necessary for a school board administrator, representative Brian Greene asserted that Moss is forwarding her personal vendetta against an individual. He voted against passing the bill out of Committee apparently because HB64 has no merit to justify further consideration by the House.
If HB64 should somehow become law after scrutiny by the Senate and without a veto by the Governor, the bill would certainly become a serious liability to Carol Spackman Moss, because it is truly an unconstitutional bill of attainder: The U.S. Constitution provides that any State Legislator who swears an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States and thereafter knowingly does not do so, shall be removed from office and shall never be allowed to hold elective office again. If Moss were to be successful in forwarding her personal vendetta against R. Wagner Jones to bar him from eligibility to run for school board, she would have to answer among other questions:
> Why R. Wagner and many individuals like him are not qualified when recidivism statistics prove that they bear no risk to children or society; ( See recidivism graph at www.electwagner.com )
> Why she had unequally disqualified certain sexual offenses but did not disqualify certain physical abuse and mental abuse offenses;
> How is HB64 not a bill of attainder;
> Why should a developer who has a conflict of interest to serve on a school board from which he profits by receiving money that otherwise would go to Education, be any more qualified than a rehabilitated felon that statistics prove bears no risk to society;
> Why she has taken away the right of voters to decide who to elect; and
> Why the votes of almost 30% of the voters in the 2012 election for Granite School Board #1 who voted for R. Wagner, should not count.
regarding the failed Cottonwood Mall development, voters should be allowed to choose which of the two candidates to elect after weighing the baggage of each. Indeed, the 2012 election contest was between fiscal conservative R. Wagner, and an incumbent school board member with a track record of personally profiting from funds that should properly be going to Education. If R. Wagner had been prevented from running for school board, many voters may have never learned about the group of special interests that continue to drain a significant portion of property tax dollars away from Education in Holladay.
In the instant case, HB64 was initially withheld from consideration in the House Judiciary Committee, and then rejected twice in order to require amendments that narrowed the focus of the bill from all rehabilitated felons to only rehabilitated individuals who were Carol Spackman Moss convicted of certain sexual offenses against a child. Still, HB64 continues to be a bill of disclosed reasons for filing HB64 attainder because access to children is not a criteria or qualification of service on School
Boards, which involves exclusively administrative functions for the purpose of assuring that tax payer dollars are spent efficiently on quality education. Even as amended, Moss’ HB64 would exclude the 3 out of every 5 individuals who recidivism statistics prove will never re-offend and who pose no risk after 20 years of their conviction of
the same certain sexual offenses for which Moss has chosen to disqualify eligibility for elective office to school boards. Even if Moss’ fallacious criteria of access to children were to somehow be shown to be a real qualification for the office, elimination of the individuals that she has chosen to bar, cannot rationally include individuals who bear no risk to children or society including rehabilitated individuals identified by recidivism statistics. Further, if access to children were a true criteria, there are
identifiable groups who indeed do pose a risk to children, such as physical abuse, mental abuse, and other intrusions that are not sexual in nature, and are not identified by Moss.
Based upon these concerns, including the seriousness of legislating away the right of voters to choose between candidates, strong voices on the House Judiciary Committee like Lavar Christensen and Eric Hutchings would not vote for Moss’ HB64 until Moss amended the bill to a narrower class of people. On asking Moss why she decided to run HB64, she responded that some of her constituents had expressed concern that a sex offender had run for election in 2012 to Granite School Board #1. Voter concern over the baggage, demeanor, and qualifications of candidates is indeed why the U.S. Constitution provides that the people should decide who to elect with their votes. However, once Moss alleged that she had narrowed the elective offices to candidates based on assumed qualifications, the House Judiciary Committee passed HB64 to go to Debate on the House Floor, where it is believed that the controversy will continue and Representatives who voted to pass HB64 to the House may not vote in favor of the proposed bill again. Indeed, the candidate that representative Moss has targeted as her reason for wanting to eliminate him from eligibility to run for any school board, is R. Wagner Jones, the very 2012 candidate for Granite District School Board #1 that she had mentioned as justifying her HB64.
With the discussions being so clear in the House Judiciary Committee that Carol Moss was targeting a specific individual: One who has recently run for office, who lives within the same District that she does. And with the alleged qualifications that Moss now proposes irrationally excluding many individuals who are shown to bear no risk under her fallacious “access to children” issue. Further, with Moss’ irrationally leaving out groups who would pose a risk to children if access to them should truly be necessary for a school board administrator, representative Brian Greene asserted that Moss is forwarding her personal vendetta against an individual. He voted against passing the bill out of Committee apparently because HB64 has no merit to justify further consideration by the House.
If HB64 should somehow become law after scrutiny by the Senate and without a veto by the Governor, the bill would certainly become a serious liability to Carol Spackman Moss, because it is truly an unconstitutional bill of attainder: The U.S. Constitution provides that any State Legislator who swears an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States and thereafter knowingly does not do so, shall be removed from office and shall never be allowed to hold elective office again. If Moss were to be successful in forwarding her personal vendetta against R. Wagner Jones to bar him from eligibility to run for school board, she would have to answer among other questions:
> Why R. Wagner and many individuals like him are not qualified when recidivism statistics prove that they bear no risk to children or society; ( See recidivism graph at www.electwagner.com )
> Why she had unequally disqualified certain sexual offenses but did not disqualify certain physical abuse and mental abuse offenses;
> How is HB64 not a bill of attainder;
> Why should a developer who has a conflict of interest to serve on a school board from which he profits by receiving money that otherwise would go to Education, be any more qualified than a rehabilitated felon that statistics prove bears no risk to society;
> Why she has taken away the right of voters to decide who to elect; and
> Why the votes of almost 30% of the voters in the 2012 election for Granite School Board #1 who voted for R. Wagner, should not count.