The truth is the Legislative staff are paid to be non partisan. Mike Christensen, John Fellows, Jonathan Ball, and John Schaff along with many others, include our drafting attorneys and house clerk, etc. If one of these were to step down, it is the Legislative Management Committee, made up of 16 members, 4 members from each party from each house, and 3 subcommittees that take care of selecting replacements or removing them. The staff do work for the legislature and not the republicans or the democrats. Yes, the selections are voted on by the entire legislature, but staff being non partisan is key and very important. Are there perceived issues with some audit requests, yes, but is that out of funding or some other reason? Certainly there are other ways to fix that if it needs fixing.
While we give some specified power for the LMC to act as an executive
legislature in some cases like approving UDOT settlement deals under a
certain amount, it is the non partisan staff that are at risk with this
bill, and if you don't believe me, ask them. They certainly will not
jump into this on their own.
