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George Pyle: A politician’s skin can be black, but it can’t be thin

A long time ago, in a state legislature that takes twice as long as Utah’s every year to do just about as much damage, members were considering one of those bills put forward by an elementary school class to designate some particular beastie as the Official State Reptile. It happened to coincide with a nasty debate about something else in which a particularly unpopular member of the House was making himself even more unpopular with his colleagues by incessantly whining about slights real and perceived.

At one point during the debate, one legislator moved to amend the bill, removing whatever creature it was the students wanted and instead designating the unpopular lawmaker as the Official State Reptile.