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Show Finding a Better Way: Salt Lake City Council's Broadening of Employee Health Benefits Dave Buhler based on the common ground of fairness to each employee. Given his mostly critical comments regarding the council plan, it wasn't too surprising when, eleven days later, on February 21, Mayor Anderson vetoed it, calling it "blatantly discriminatory." Making clear that the Mayor saw this issue through the lens of providing marriage-like benefits, he complained that the council ordinance "undermines parity between employees with spouses and those with spousal-like relations..." and that it "does not guarantee parity between spousal and spousal-like relationships." He also complained that council action might prevent a state court ruling on whether or not extending benefits when focused on "spousal-like relationships" is in violation of state law or the state constitution. And although his own plan did not allow employees to add another adult beyond their partner, he complained about the limitation in ours of one adult designee (Anderson, 2006). We had actually put off our decision for a month, as we were ready to vote on it in January. But we waited until February 10 to see if the court would rule on the suit against the Anderson plan and to provide an opportunity for input from city employees. But now, with less than a month left in the legislative session, it was time to act-before they preempted our right to provide whatever benefit package we saw fit.10 For the City Council, the issue was not about marriage but about treating all employees fairly, regardless of their living arrangements. As Jill told the Deseret Morning News in January: "It may be a couple-whether it be a gay couple or a heterosexual couple. It may be two sisters, or just two long-term roommates who have been together for years. We wanted to be fair in our approach" (City Council Crafts, 2006). At our next council meeting, Jill made the motion to override the veto. In her statement she said: Our plan is better; it does not ignore employees who are living in a mutually caring situation with family members. True equality is achieved when every employee's needs and living situation are recognized (Jill Remington Love's Motion, 2006). While she noted that it "feels good" when fighting tough political battles to have "someone like Rocky Anderson to stand up for you...but you also need people who can get things done for you" (Jill Remington Love's Motion). Mayor Anderson made some in the community "feel good," but in the end, it was our approach that actually accomplished something, and something that would not be undone by a wary state legislature. ' In Utah, municipalities are "creatures" of the state, and the state legislature can, and often does, pass laws regulating what cities can and cannot do. Salt Lake City is particularly vulnerable in this respect for a number of political reasons that I will not elaborate here. The council voted, unanimously, to override the mayor's veto. And yet, it was still not "done." State Representative LaVar Christensen, the author of the state constitutional amendment, known as "Amendment Three," which was approved by Utah voters in 2004 in defense of traditional marriage, introduced legislation to pro' scribe how local units of government can offer benefits to unmarried employees. His bill, HB 327, was in direct response to Mayor Anderson's executive order. It would not have impacted the Salt Lake City Council's ordinance except for in one very important area: it prohibited the use of public funds to subsidize the benefit. Salt Lake City, like all government employers and most private employers, shares the cost of employee health insur-ance, significantly subsidizing the premium costs employees pay. Saying that single employees with an "adult designee" must pay the full cost of insurance would undermine the entire premise on which our policy was based-treating every employee as fairly as possible. I met with Representative Christensen several times during the legislative session and tried to persuade him to remove the offending language. While always cordial, he was unbending. The House passed his bill 52-16. As a former state senator myself, I knew exactly what to do-we needed to go to work on the Senate. Jill and Eric joined me to meet with members of the Democratic caucus, and then I personal' ly spoke to a number of Republican senators, and sent hand' written notes to many others. Senator Pete Knudson, the cur' rent senate majority leader and a former mayor of Brigham City, agreed to sponsor an amendment when the bill reached the senate floor to remove the offending language. As fate would have it, Christensen's bill came up to a vote in the Senate in the late evening of the last night of the legislative session. Senator Knudson made his amendment, and it passed overwhelmingly on a voice vote. The Senate then passed the bill, now acceptable to the City Council, by a vote of 21-7. Under legislative rules, when one house amends another house's bill, the bill is returned to the house of origin. The sponsor then has a decision to accept the amendment and urge his/her colleagues to approve the bill as amended, or reject it. If rejected, the bill then goes back to the house that amended it to see if they will remove it. If not, the bill goes to a conference committee made up of three members from each house to see if differences can be ironed out. If through' out this process there is no agreement between houses, the bill fails. With less than two hours left in the legislative session, I knew that time was on our side. I ran into Representative Christensen in the hall and asked him to accept the Senate's amendment. He declined. I also spoke with a member of the Speaker of the House's staff to let him know what was going on. As the final moments of the session passed by, when learning that Christensen would not accept the amendment, |
