In case I one day feel like writing again 

Just under a decade from now, the redistricting process will be underway again in Utah and much will be the same. Republicans will have a legislative majority only slightly smaller than today's. There will be a Republican governor. There may me one Independent in our federal delegation, but no Democrats. Elections may be breaking 55-45 instead of 65-35, but still mostly going to Republicans. 

Ah, Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Utah. A day for Republican lawmakers state and federal to tweet a few "safe" quotes from King, and applaud his "message of unity."

King wasn't a unity guy. He was a radical fighting injustice. Some crossover there, but a lot of daylight too. The only "unity" he spend his final months talking about was the intersection of racism, inequality, war, and power. There are some great reads out there I wish everyone would spend time with. King's own words, of course. But also the history of the times he lived and worked in. Learning about the times he lived and worked in, and the very human and flawed person he was made his words even more meaningful for me. The books and docs are out there and easy to find and please do.

King is most inspirational as a person when broadly understood but his words have the impact when applied specifically, immediately. In 1967 King wrote:“We aren’t merely struggling to integrate a lunch counter now. We’re struggling to get some money to be able to buy a hamburger or a steak when we get to the counter.”

Utah lawmakers, Governor Herbert, during the work of the tax task force last year you, all of us, heard from a teacher keeping a make-shift food pantry for students in her classroom closet. You closed out the task force debate and passage of tax "reform" patting yourselves on the back with a WSJ op-ed by a Club for Growth hack based on an ALEC state ranking.

Spare us the MLK Jr memes.

In all the excitement of a potential war with Iran with President Hamberder at the helm, I missed this new year Noonan nugget:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made herself look ridiculous this year when she backed lowering the voting age to 16. This is an idiotic and destructive idea, an epic and hackish pander, and is offensive to the baseline reality that the adults of a great nation have the right to govern its affairs. It will go nowhere, but the coming decade may see some pushback against the 18-year-old vote, passed in 1971. A lot has changed since then. We know the brains of 18-year-olds are not fully developed and haven’t fully knitted. Young people are educated more poorly, and the screens that surround them and through which they learn encourage sensation, not thought. Their experience of the world is limited; most are financially and emotionally supported by others. All this as the questions we face grow more complex. We should raise the voting age, not lower it.

Reminded me of a tweet I wish I'd saved for sharing and crediting the author that went something like: "A good friend invites you over to watch Twilight. Not your thing, but you go, for a friend. Halfway through, he gets up, grabs his car keys, and just leaves. Anyway, my point is, old people shouldn't be allowed to vote."

To Noonan's "point" about dependency, real world education, and cognitive abilities: Um. Not going to waste your time pretending she has a relevant idea what's on The Kids' screens, so just the other three. According to the National Center on Caregiving, 85% of adults age 65+ are dependent on a family member for care or housing. Education? The most avid Fox News viewer is likely 55-65. Cognitive decline begins at 45, really hitting it's stride at 65 (Noonan is 69).

If we're weighing these justifications for restricting the right to vote, we need to have a talk about The Olds, Peg.

A legislative staffer friend long ago suggested I write something about my experience as a transparency activist in Utah. It's a cool story. Every time I try to tell it I'm reminded it isn't about me or any I have skills I bring to the table. My skills -- professionally and politically -- are limited shouting words and making confident guesses, just like lawmakers, but with a better track record on guessing right. Ba dum tss!

It's a story about getting involved and in good faith, as mush as possible. At the start of this decade I waded into transparency activism via a grant from the Sunlight Foundation. They were writing $2500 checks for citizen organizations to build transparency reporting tools at the state level. Some very cool things were done with that money, all of which were eventually rendered obsolete by advances in technology and (this is important) transparency policies and legislative allies in Utah. My approach was cynical. If Democrats weren't going to get serious about making elections competitive outside of Salt Lake County, maybe we could at least make sure the Republicans are being honest with us. After the 2011 bill-that-shall-not-be-named I was invited to be a part of Governor Herbert's GRAMA work group, alongside bill-that-shall-not-be-named sponsor John Dougall, several lawmakers, members of the media and legal experts, state archivists. I felt like an imposter and infiltrator. It was great. What was most surprising to me was how dedicated and sincere the majority of that work group was to open and transparent government. What can easily be interpreted as a penchant for secrecy is, in my experience, a lack of understanding. What is achieved by activists shouting "what do you have to hide?!' pales in contrast with what happened when we were all forced to talk and learn from each other.

In the end, no major changes to GRAMA were recommended by our work group. It's worth noting no recommendations were made to address the original issue then state rep John Dougall was trying to solve with the bill-that-shall-not-be-named. For those of us who didn't have it coming in, a better understanding of that problem was achieved. For lawmakers who didn't understand the reason for the backlash coming in, the work group changed that. In the end the recommendations made were a collective shrug because, honestly, there wasn't and still isn't a good solution to how time consuming (and often abused) public information policy is. And the trade off for restricting the process is unacceptable. Someone asked me then what I thought was achieved and I wasn't sure. My answer now would be the major achievement of the Governor's work group was reflected in legislative votes cast by work group members since, and relationships developed that in a ping-pong fashion lead to  some major achievements in open government and open data in Utah. A lot was achieved, without even getting into the work of the Utah Transparency Advisory Board, well before my time on it and during.

That's what makes writing this difficult. I forget details, dates, and names, and am only noteworthy in all of this because my involvement proves citizen involvement can still go places in Utah. Never underestimate the power of shouting words and guessing.  He'd probably list some really boring bill that only a CPA would like, but one of the most underrated and lasting legacies state senator and eventual Senate President Wayne Niederhauser left behind was his commitment to transparency and making time for advocates. There were many others. Senator Deidre Henderson, who is brave beyond comparison. She's willing to fight necessary fights others have shied away from. Representative Craig Hall, expert at navigating skittish House committees. Former Senate Chief of Staff (now with the AG) Ric Cantrell and his sixth sense for getting the right folks talking and/or diffusing potential communication breakdowns. Auditor John Dougall, in his frugality, is dedicated to holding government accountable and was always a regular at our board meetings. He's also really funny. Now retired State Archives director and Person Who Knows Everything About GRAMA Ever Patricia Smith-Mansfield. There are more who deserve credit.

Not Dan Liljenquist. He knows exactly why. I'd never be crass enough to gossip about it except to say the idea that retirement services administrative salaries and expenses reporting would politicize URS is silly and anyone who'd show up at an 8 am committee hearing to make that argument without even returning the phone call of of the board member who called for your thoughts, accidentally tipping you off is a dirty...

Anyway, eventually I find myself presenting on the concept of open data standards (also courtesy of the Sunlight Foundation) as a way to further digitize and make accessible the mountains of public data Utah smartly makes public, then a member of the transparency board. Building on the financial transparency work of the previous board iteration, we spent the last few years studying open data standards for state agencies which could eventually be implemented in every county and city. We recommended and the legislature signed off on the creation of a data coordinator position within DTS. If you haven't followed the work of Chief Data Officer Drew Mingl on OpenDate.Utah.gov, you're missing out. I can't wait until some creative data/developer nerd does something unexpectedly amazing with some set Drew has collected for the catalog. It'll happen. Always does. The board recommended and gets regular reports from State Archives on the further development of online portals and tracking dashboard options for public information requests (something that may eventually, somewhat alleviate the issue 2011's bill-that-shall-not-be-named was trying to).

In 2019 the board paused a bit. A bill passed moving the board from legislative to administrative oversight gave us an opportunity, prompted by new board member John Dougall to talk about what the board is or should be. In the last year, a request from Utah Interactive to archive data after five years in search databases (something I oppose as a board member) to improve site performance raised legitimate questions about the board's power. Should a request of that significance be decided by a limited member board or go before a full legislative debate? What do the board rules say? With the board, now in it's fourth or fifth iteration, and with all the statute required to purpose the board strategically over the years jumbled upon itself in the books, that was difficult to answer. So we elected a new chair and, lucky her, gave her the job of reviewing the governing code. Stay tuned for more on that.

I hope I've stressed enough how not complete this hasty recap of the last decade is. I hope it conveys enough of how steadily the process has moved forward in Utah, and how easy it is to get involved. As for the next ten years? There are some real challenges coming when it comes to technology, how we interact with our own government, and making public data not only easily accessible but also useful and relevant to more than just real estate developers. I'd like to see even rural cities and counties stepping up more. I'd like to see a lot of city attorneys stop holding them back. I'd like to see more coordination between government entities and agencies and citizen developers to visualize and utilize public data.

But for at least the time it took to write this, I'm just appreciative of the opportunity to be involved, and excited by how much progress was made on so many fronts and by so many people and organizations in the last 10 years.

The Republican Party had been on track to spit up something like Trump for quite some time. Inevitable without a course correction that never came. One party shitting the bed with their nominee usually means a brutal loss. 

I know, I know. Electoral college luck. Clinton Mehs. Clinton team too comfy.Two counties in Wisconsin that decided what the hell lets see what happens. Angry white dudes. Crazy white evangelicals. Etc. But we shouldn't ignore this because didn't help.

High inequality has also political effects. The rich have more political power and they use that political power to promote own interests and to entrench their relative position in the society. This means that all the negative effects due to exclusion and lack of equality of opportunity are reinforced and made permanent (at least, until a big social earthquake destroys them). In order to fight off the advent of such an earthquake, the rich must make themselves safe and unassailable from “conquest”. This leads to adversarial politics and destroys social cohesion. Ironically, social instability which then results discourages investments of the rich, that is it undermines the very action that was at the beginning  adduced as the key reason why high wealth and inequality may be  socially desirable.

Others have said hilarious and insightful things about this already. I'm posting it for ease of reference. If you haven't seen it, you should. The White House put out a statement about a "constructive conversation" shortly after this and I can't do a thing but laugh. Democrats, ignore the "tone" police. This is perfect.