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Show Teacher-legislators served summons 1 Court summons were served late Thurs-y Thurs-y on 19 Utah teachers who also happen be legislators. The action arose out of a Introversy concerning the constitu-inality constitu-inality of an educator's election to the ite congress. The state constitution provides that no blic employee may be elected to either i(i state house or senate, presumably "(-cause of a conflict of interest where . propriations for public agencies are confined. con-fined. In other words, a teacher or any Jier state employee in the legislature i ght be tempted to use his office to raise ! own salary. ' Sixteen educators are involved in the It, including Peter Grundfossen of the liversity Dean of Students' Office. In dition, three retired and inactive edu-i edu-i tors have been summoned. It is not yet . parent why these three were included. The suit, filed by the Utah State Em-jyees Em-jyees Assn. through their executive sectary, sec-tary, Richard B. Kennersly, gives the educators 20 days to show cause why they should not be removed from office. The State Supreme Court earlier this week refused to rule on the case, saying that the matter should go through the lower courts and then be brought to the State Supreme Court on appeal. The Third District Court is now handling the suit. The 16 teachers include: Moroni L. Jensen, Wilma Barnett, James McFarlane, Carl E. Petterson, Monte Bailey, Ernest Dean, Carl Swan, Peter Grundfossen, Gerald Ger-ald Woodmansee, C. Elmo Turner, L. Glen Cottle, Stanley Leavitt, Robert Bowen, Rebecca Nalder, John Garr and Dewayne Washburn. The three retired teachers are: Samuel Taylor, Mort Bagley and Brian Florence." Former Sen. Leon Savage (R-Granger) "got the ball rolling," in his words, when he asked for the opinion of Atty. Gen. Vernon Romney on the issue on Dec. 14 of last year. Romney refused to offer an opinion and suggested Mr. Savage go to the courts. "I didn't have the finances to take it into the court system, so the state employees em-ployees called me up and they asked me how I felt about it, and I said it ought to be tested, but I don't have the finances. They said 'We do, and we'll take it.' " Mr. Savage offered five points to the State Employees Assn. which they adopted in filing their suit. He said the first of his five points is: "The state legislature appropriates the funds from which the state public school and state university employees are paid, and teachers in public schools and universities univer-sities are classified as state employees. In other words, is a school teacher a state employee?" Mr. Savage's second point asks if it is constitutional to discriminate against those state employees who are not educators by now allowing them to participate in partisan par-tisan politics. The third point gets to the heart of the matter. If such discrimination does exist, Mr. Savage asks, is a teacher a valid legislator? The fourth point offers an alternative to the dismissal of educators from the legislature. If a state-employed teacher is a valid legislator, the point asks, is it not then unconstitutional to deny other state employees the chance to be elected? This suggests that teachers could be allowed to remain in the legislature if all other state employees were given- the opportunity to be elected to a state office. The fifth point suggests another, albiet far-fetched, solution to the problem. If teachers are valid legislators, it asks, should they be allowed to vote on educational appropriation bills? In other words, could teacher-legislators be allowed somehow to vote on everything except education money bills? Savage explains his motives thus: "I'm not pointing my finger at the schoolteacher, school-teacher, not in any way, I'm only asking that other state employees, such as Highway High-way Patrolmen, be included in the legislature. legis-lature. They have plenty of valuable information infor-mation to offer us." |
