Lessons from the Arena: The Prison and Public Participation
Many times, good governance is more about the “how” than the “what.” How the Utah Legislature made the final determination on the prison move—in a special session without committee hearings—likely explains why the project is shaping up to be a financial fiasco.
Though Legislators and the public were told they were getting a 4,000-bed prison for $550 million, it now looks like we will get an undersized 3,600-bed prison for $692 million or $860 million or, well, “it’s a moving target.” Just have your taxpayer wallets at the ready for whatever the number is at the end of Prison Move Wheel of Fortune.
In 2011, the Legislature created a commission and started a multi-year process to study how future prison needs should be addressed, with an eye toward shuttering the antiquated Draper facility, putting that land toward more economically productive use, and building a modern facility on less valuable land. The committee met often, toured many facilities, and took extensive public comment. So far, so good.
The commission made its recommendation, and … the Governor and the Legislature fumbled. Instead of drafting a bill to reflect the commission’s recommendations and, then, running the bill through normal legislative process, the Governor and the Legislature decided to ram a bill through in an August 2015 Special Session, instead of waiting just 5 months for the annual General Session where the issue would have faced committee hearings, public comment, and a greater possibility of amendments, substitutions, and improvement. And, yes, the General Session could have threatened delay, reversals, and those other sticky obstacles that trip up legislators’ best-laid plans.
I was one of only 7 Senators to vote against the bill. I was not opposed to moving the prison or even moving it west of the airport. I was opposed to the fact that the public was shut out of the process at the point that mattered most, when the final recommendations were put together. Often, when asked about supporting an idea, legislators will say they can’t commit until they see the idea spelled out in an actual bill. They know that the real process starts only when the bill is drafted. But, regarding the prison move, once the bill was drafted, the public had no opportunity to participate. During consideration on the Senate floor, I said, “Once we actually put a pin in the map and say, ‘This is where we are going to locate it,’ then, it gets real for a lot of the public. Then, they should come, and our bosses should give us their input, their instructions at that point. I wish that we were doing that. Because we are not, I vote ‘no.’”
But the decision-makers had heard enough. They believed the people who had been opposed to the move during the multi-year commission process would still be opposed. That the media who criticized the move during the commission process would continue to criticize the move. Nothing would change. Nonsense.
Legislative process is simply a mechanism to make decisions and solve complex societal problems. It is magic. Bills are debated, amended, stopped, revived, substituted, and mangled in so many ways, but the results are usually workable and even good because of that arduous process. Because Utah is mostly faithful to good legislative process, our results typically are workable and good. They are rarely off by $142 million or $310 million or whatever the price tag ends up being for a prison that will be too small when it opens. The results are so bad, because the public was shut out of the decision at the critical moment. Whatever benefits legitimate legislative process had to offer the prison move were lost.
This will be an expensive lesson. But it needs to be a lesson. The people govern Utah through elected representatives. Those representatives do not get to grow tired of participation and instructions by their bosses.