Major new laws take effect that may seem more likely in a liberal, blue state: gay-rights protection, giving many drug offenders treatment instead of a prison cell and toughening seat-belt enforcement that conservatives fought for years.
And there's more: Tax hikes take effect later in July for transportation and education, and lawmakers cleared the way for local governments to put sales-tax hikes for roads and transit on the ballot — the sort of increases normally denounced by Republicans.
These new laws emerged as Republicans hold the second-biggest supermajority in the Utah Capitol in the past 80 years: 63-12 in the House and 24-5 in the Senate.
Even "The Economist," a London newspaper, wonders what's happening. It opined that the GOP-controlled Utah Legislature followed a "surprising political path," but lauds it for "quietly forging a model of constructive Republicanism."
"I don't want to label anything Republican or Democratic. It was just responsible," Rep. Johnny Anderson, R-Taylorsville, author of the bill raising transportation taxes, said about it and the other soon-to-be laws.
Seeking practical solutions to longtime, thorny problems had lawmakers this year "looking at issues in ways that don't follow traditional battle lines," said House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper.
While he and others acknowledge that the biggest of the 387 new laws that take effect Tuesday address issues normally pushed by liberals, they say the GOP-controlled Legislature gave them a conservative spin.
"We did pass gay rights, but we attached religious liberties to it," said Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy. ''We did raise the gas tax, but it was the right thing to do." He noted the 5-cent-per-gallon bump effective in January will be the first in 18 years, during which time the tax has lost 40 percent of its buying power.
