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Boomerang Bills: Proposals that are popular with the public but nonstarters on Utah’s Capitol Hill just keep coming back

Among the hundreds of bills that will be debated in the upcoming legislative session are some familiar ones that, while generally popular with the public, have been repeatedly rejected by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

From a ban on driving while talking on cellphones to a workable hate-crimes law, these bills keep coming back and, sometimes, back again.

Sponsors and supporters of these proposals may be frustrated by multiple defeats, but you wouldn’t know it from their persistence and seemingly indefatigable optimism.

“If we don’t run it then we don’t talk about it,” said Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City.