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Law and government
Law and government
Utah government, like most U.S.
states, is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
The current governor of Utah is Jon Huntsman, Jr.
The governor is elected for a four year term.
The Utah State Legislature consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives.
State senators serve four year terms and representatives two year terms.
The Utah Legislature meets each year in January for an annual forty-five day session.
The Utah Supreme Court is the court of last resort in Utah.
It consists of five justices, who are appointed by the governor, and then subject to retention election.
The Utah Court of Appeals handles cases from the trial courts.
Trial level courts are the district courts and justice courts.
All justices and judges, like those on the Utah Supreme Court, are subject to retention election after appointment.
Counties
Utah is divided into political jurisdictions designated as counties.
As of 1918 there were 29 counties in the state, ranging from 611 to 7933 square miles.
Women's Rights
Utah granted full voting rights to women in 1870, 26 years before becoming a state.
Among all U.S.
states, only Wyoming granted suffrage to women earlier.
However, in 1887 the Edmunds-Tucker Act was passed by Congress in an effort to curtail excessive Mormon influence in the territorial government.
One of the provisions of the Act was the repeal of suffrage; full suffrage was not returned until Utah was admitted to the Union in 1896.
To this day, Utah is one of the 15 states that has not ratified the U.S.
Equal Rights Amendment.
Constitution
The constitution of Utah was enacted in 1895.
Notably, the constitution outlawed polygamy and reestablished the territorial practice of women's suffrage.
Utah's Constitution has been amended many times since its inception.
Other laws
Utah is also one of only two states in the United States to outlaw all forms of gambling; the other is Hawaii.
Utah is an alcoholic beverage control state.
The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control regulates the sale of alcohol; wine and spirituous liquors may only be purchased at state liquor stores, and local laws may prohibit the sale of beer and other alcoholic beverages on Sundays.
As of October 1, 2008, Utah is the only state in America to ban the sale of fruity alcoholic drinks at grocery stores and convenience stores in an effort to keep them from minors. The new law states that such drinks must now have new state-approved labels on the front of the products that contain capitalized letters in bold type telling consumers the drinks contain alcohol and at what percentage.
Politics
Historically, politics in Utah have been controversial, such as the Federal government versus the LDS Church on the issue of polygamy.
The LDS Church renounced polygamy in 1890, and in 1896 Utah gained admission to the Union.
Many new people settled the area soon after the Mormon pioneers.
Relations have often been strained between the LDS population and the non-LDS population.
These tensions played a large part in Utah's history, such as (Liberal Party vs.
People's Party).
The current governor of Utah is Jon M.
Huntsman, Jr., a member of the Republican Party.
He is a proponent of a flat tax, an opponent to same-sex marriage, while supporting the creation of a reciprocal beneficiary status for same-sex couples, and an opponent to intelligent design being taught in the classroom.
He also receives high approval ratings from across the Utah political spectrum.
Both of Utah's U.S.
Senators, Orrin Hatch and Robert Foster Bennett, are Republican.
Two more Republicans, Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, as well as one member of the Democratic Party, Jim Matheson, represent Utah in the United States House of Representatives.
While the LDS church maintains an official policy of neutrality in regards to political parties and candidates, Utah votes predominately Republican.
Self-identified Latter-day Saints are more likely to vote for Republican ticket than non-Mormons, and Utah is one of the most Republican states in the nation.
The connection between the LDS Church and the Republican Party of Utah is controversial.
In the 1970s, then-Apostle Ezra Taft Benson was quoted by the Associated Press that it would be difficult for a faithful Latter-day Saint to be a liberal Democrat.
Although the LDS Church has officially repudiated such statements on many occasions, Democratic candidates—including LDS Democrats—believe that Republicans capitalize on the perception that the Republican Party is doctrinally superior.
Political scientist and pollster Dan Jones explains this disparity by noting that the national Democratic Party is associated with progressive positions on gay rights and abortion, both of which the LDS Church is against.
The Republican Party in heavily Mormon Utah County presents itself as the superior choice for Latter-day Saints.
Even though Utahn Democratic candidates are predominantly LDS, socially conservative, and pro-life, no Democrat has won in Utah County since 1994.
David Magleby, dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Brigham Young University, a lifelong Democrat and a political analyst, asserts that the Republican Party actually has more conservative positions than the LDS Church.
Magleby argues that the locally conservative Democrats are in better accord with LDS doctrine.
For example, the Republican Party of Utah opposes almost all abortions while Utah Democrats take a more liberal approach, although more conservative than their national counterparts.
On Second Amendment issues, the state GOP has been at odds with the LDS Church position opposing concealed firearms in places of worship.
In 1998 the Church expressed concern that Utahns perceived the Republican Party as an LDS institution and authorized lifelong Democrat and Seventy Marlin Jensen to promote LDS bipartisanship.
Utah is much more conservative than the United States as a whole, particularly on social issues.
Compared to other Republican-dominated states in the Mountain West such as Wyoming, Utah politics have a more moralistic and less libertarian character according to David Magleby.
About 80% of Utah's Legislature are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while they account for 61 percent of the population.
In 2006, the legislature passed legislation aimed at banning joint-custody for a non-biological parent of a child.
The custody measure passed the legislature and was vetoed by the governor, a reciprocal benefits supporter.
Carbon County's Democrats are generally made up of members of the large Greek, Italian, and Southeastern European communities, whose ancestors migrated in the early 1900s to work in the extensive mining industry.
The views common amongst this group are heavily influenced by labor politics, particularly of the New Deal Era.
The Democrats of Summit County are the by-product of the migration of wealthy families from California in the 1990s to the ski resort town of Park City; their views are generally supportive of the economic policies favored by unions and the social policies favored by the liberals.
The state's most Republican areas tend to be Utah County, which is the home to Brigham Young University in the city of Provo, and nearly all the rural counties.
These areas generally hold socially conservative views in line with that of the national Religious Right.
The state has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964.
Historically, Republican presidential nominees score one of their best margins of victory here.
Utah was the Republicans' best state in the 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, and 2004 elections.
In 1992, Utah was the only state in the nation where Democratic candidate Bill Clinton finished behind both Republican candidate George H.
W.
Bush and Independent candidate Ross Perot.
In 2004, Republican George W.
Bush won every county in the state and Utah gave him his largest margin of victory of any state.
He won the state's five electoral votes by a margin of 46 percentage points with 71.5% of the vote.
In the 1996 Presidential elections the Republican candidate received a smaller 54% of the vote while the Democrat earned 34%.
Source: CIA Factbook, Wikipedia
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