Jay Evensen - Opinions

How many jerks can you count in this airplane story?

2/19/2020

So, who was the jerk?
Was it the woman on the American Airlines flight late last month, later identified as Wendi Williams, a school teacher, who reclined her seat into the lap of a man whose own seat, because he was on the last row, could not recline?
Or was it the bearded man with glasses, earbuds and angry eyes who sat behind her, incessantly shoving her seat with his right hand the way a 7-year-old child might try annoying a sibling?

Lawmakers open can of worms on bigamy law

2/18/2020

There are cans of worms. There are buckets of snakes. And then, there are bigamy laws in Utah.
No one can accuse Utah lawmakers of being afraid to open any of these. Three years ago, they lowered the legal blood-alcohol limit for drunk driving to .05, the lowest in the nation. That generated a lot of headlines, and even threats of tourism boycotts because, well, it was different. (Not different from other nations, just other states.)
Now the Legislature is generating headlines because it’s working toward making the state’s bigamy laws more like those in most other states.

Time to end straight-ticket voting in Utah

2/12/2020

Former House Speaker Tim O’Neill’s most quoted political wisdom no longer is true.
O’Neill, the Boston Democrat who ruled the House while Ronald Reagan was president, said, “All politics is local.” At its root, this referred to how members of Congress needed the skills to take care of the wishes of their local districts if they wanted to hang onto a seat.
That’s no longer true. Today, all politics is national. Voters increasingly care most about whether a candidate supports the current president, or whether he or she adheres to strict party principles.
Local issues? Who cares?

Why doesn't Utah have a homeless czar?

2/11/2020

Pop quiz: Who is in charge of Utah’s efforts to help the homeless?
If you’re drawing a blank, you’ve got the right answer.
Scott Howell, the former Democratic leader of the Utah Senate and current board member of the Pioneer Park Coalition, asked that question at a Deseret News/KSL editorial board meeting Tuesday.
Then he answered it. “There’s nobody.”

Let Washington set our clocks

2/10/2020

Here’s a notion that may seem radical in these parts: States’ rights have a limit. Some things are best imposed from Washington.
Before you throw stones, think about it for a minute. We wouldn’t want each state to coin its own money or launch its own independent army. We learned 90 years ago that it’s better to let the FBI chase bank robbers across state lines than for states to chase them up to the line but no farther. And although it was controversial when construction started in the 1950s, we wouldn’t have much of an interstate highway system today if we had relied on states alone to plan it out.

What will be Romney's political cost?

2/5/2020

On Wednesday, Mitt Romney gave America something it doesn’t often see: A politician who won’t follow the partisan script even when it is in his political interests to do so.
A lot of people say they want to see Washington politicians vote for principle over party, but generally they mean that for people of a different party than their own. When it happens to someone from their party, they tend to question the principle.

Why do Utah's political parties want your private information?

2/4/2020

Time was, not too long ago, just about everything you did was public, and no one seemed to care.
When news reporters interviewed people on the street, they routinely asked for their names and addresses, both of which were then broadcast. Coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy provides a perfect example, only because recordings of it are so plentiful on the internet. Eyewitnesses to that tragic event gave their addresses over the air as if they were telling the temperature or time of day, apparently never pausing to think about what cranks, psychopaths or hucksters might do.
Fifty-seven years later, we no longer have phone books, and people are much more cautious about giving up information.

Should Utah start electing its judges?

2/4/2020

My guess is a lot of Utahns cringe at the thought of the political ads that surely are coming this year, complete with out-of-focus shots of an opposing candidate, sinister music and the ominous voice of a narrator telling us why we definitely should not vote for so and so.
So, how would you feel about a bunch of similar ads directed at judges, who are supposed to decide matters of life and liberty with impartiality?

Scared of coronavirus? How about the flu?

1/29/2020

Imagine a disease that strikes the United States at the onset of winter and that, by the end of January, has sickened 15 million people and killed 8,200. What would be the reaction?
Would people demand a vaccine? Would they wear masks and refuse to mingle with crowds? Would Jazz games and other sporting events be empty because of concern? Would businesses tell workers to stay home and do their jobs over the internet?
The truth is, such a disease already has struck. It’s just that we call it the flu, which makes it sound like yesterday’s disease — something most of us have had a time or two. Few people care. Crowded places? Bring ‘em on.

In Utah, 'people power' is still alive and well, within limits

1/28/2020

Every time the people of Utah pass a law through an initiative or, as happened this week, force lawmakers to repeal a law through the threat of a referendum, I wonder whether Sherman S. Smith is smiling somewhere.
Smith was a member of the Legislature at the start of the 20th century. It may have been one of the few times in the state’s history when he could have been elected, even in his native Ogden. Smith was a populist who, from the sources I’ve read, was not too popular with his fellow lawmakers.
For that reason, he might have enjoyed sticking it to lawmakers more than 100 years in the future.

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