Before Chris Buttars had the entire state engrossed in a war of racial epithets, the West Jordan senator was actually going about the business of lawmaking — albeit, really bad lawmaking.
Proposed in early February, Senate Bill 260, which has been referred to by some as the Bad Cop Bill, seeks to limit access to public records by amending the Governmental Records Access Management Act. The limitation would be of peculiar benefit to members of law enforcement who might not be model citizens.
SB 260 would classify information about disciplinary action or misdemeanor criminal charges lodged against police officers, essentially making it a secret to private citizens and members of the press.
Although the proposal doesn’t necessarily place the keepers of the peace above the law, it does seek to shield even the bad eggs from any type of public scrutiny. How can the general populous be expected to place their unquestioning faith in the guys who hold the guns if any slight misstep or even serious breach of conduct is swept under the rug?
The secrecy could even go so far as to hide instances of sexual misconduct or the punishment of an officer for using deadly force, Joel Campbell, a Brigham Young University professor and member of the Society of Professional Journalists, told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Even members of law enforcement have acknowledged that they are indeed servants of the public and as such are open to scrutiny from both the media and average citizens.
This assault on the already limited freedom of information that citizens enjoy is so out of line, even Buttars — the author of the bill — rejected the text of his own bill, admitting that it went too far. However, despite coming around to the reality that the proposal was ludicrous to be begin with, the senator and the Legislature refuse to let it die.
SB 260 is now tabled in committee to be reworked. I guess in lieu of passing any actual policy changes this year, lawmakers are determined to take this doomed piece of legislation under their guiding hand to be redesigned and repackaged as something a little less offensive to the idea of a participatory democracy. It should be noted that the Senate is also trying to resuscitate a flailing anti-domestic partner registry bill.
Buttars and the entire legislature should admit SB 260 was ill-conceived from the get-go. This back and forth is a waste of their time and ours. There are only so many weeks in the general session, and if things continue like this, lawmakers’ time will be up before they even have the chance to propose some new and exciting piece of anti-gay or freedom-limiting legislation.
