So, Dan Harrie, the political editor over at the Salt Lake Tribune, woke up this morning and forgot to plug his smarts in. Now, normally I like Dan quite a bit, but from time to time I have to wonder if he’s playing arena football without a helmet. Really.

Here is the steaming, fetid pile of fiction that Dan passed out in the Out of Contact Blog: LINK HERE

Dan is referring to a blog post I threw up yesterday when I was talking about the vote, for an ammendment from REPUBLICAN Dave Ure, whose idea it was to give back the 70 million dollars stolen from the education fund. There was a vote on that ammendment and every single Democrat voted to reverse the GOP leaderships indiscretion and return that money to the schools.

I’ve read the post over and over again (ok, twice) and, seriously, how Dan could have got this one SO VERY, VERY, VERY wrong baffles me. Seriously, Dan, what gives?

In the comments section of the trib post, Dan recieved a comment that far better articulates the disconnect between Dan and, well, a very simple and easy to understand blog post written late last night, without the benifit of night’s sleep. Here it is:

At 10:20 AM, Todd said…

I don’t understand the fixation that the Salt Lake Tribue has with declairing who are ‘legit’ Democrats in its opinion. If they filed on the Democratic ticket, they are Democrats. And, that includes Congressman Matheson and State House Reps. Janice Fisher and Karen Morgan. We are proud to have them represent the Democratic Party.

As for your mistaken blog post, it refered to House Amendment 6 offered by Rep. Dave Ure that would have appropriated the $70 million to the Uniform School Fund instead of the dual tax scheme.

Yes, every Democrat including Reps. Fisher and Morgan voted for it. For the record the vote was as follows:

Representative Ure’s motion to amend failed on the following roll call:

Yeas, 32; Nays, 40; Absent or not voting, 3.

Voting in the affirmative were: Representatives
S. Allen Barrus Becker Bigelow Biskupski Bowman Cosgrove
D. Cox Duckworth J. M. Fisher Gowans Hansen Hardy
Hendrickson Holdaway E. Hutchings Jones King Lawrence
Litvack Mascaro McGee Menlove Morgan Moss Murray Romero Seelig
Shurtliff Ure Wheatley Wiley

Voting in the negative were: Representatives
Aagard Adams Alexander Buttars Buxton Christensen D. Clark
S. Clark Daw Dayton Dee Donnelson Ferrin Ferry
Julie Fisher Fowlke Frank Gibson Harper Hogue Hughes Hunsaker
B. Johnson Kiser Last Mathis Morley Newbold Noel Oda
Painter Ray G. Snow Tilton Urquhart Walker Wallace Wheeler
Wyatt Curtis

Absent or not voting were: Representatives
Dougall Dunnigan Lockhart

Since the amendment failed and the funds were not going to be spent on education, it is apparent that Reps. Fisher and Morgan determined that the dual tax scheme was worthwhile. The voted in favor of the final bill — but only after trying to get the money to educate Utah’s children.

This is not that complex. I think apologies are in order, Dan.

Todd Taylor
Executive Director
Utah State Democrats