Where did the Utah Republicans go?

I read the following commentary in the Deseret News, and I thought that Rep Mascaro hit it on the head. Except the fact that the Utah Republicans got hijacked years ago.

I'm wondering if you can help me find something. I have used it for more than 40 years, and you have probably used it, too. It's the Utah Republican Party. We seemed to have lost it. It was last borrowed by the tea party and Patrick Henry guys — as well as others — who have put a few nicks and dents in it. It doesn't purr quite like it used to do. It seems to screech and holler and boo and scream more than before. I think maybe they broke it. I'm not sure, because I just can't find it. And there are a whole lot of us looking for it.

Maybe we will just have to go out and get a new Utah Republican Party that respects people's differences, that understands what being kind to one another and respecting differing views really means; a party that likes to work together to solve problems — you know, the party of the big tent that President Ronald Reagan talked about. Yes, that party — the one that President Abraham Lincoln helped bring together, the one made up of Independent Northern Democrats, the Fusion Party, the Know Nothing Party, Sympathetic Whigs, Anti-Slavery Democrats, the Radical Republicans and the Conservative Republicans who came together to make our old Utah Republican Party.

Well, I think you know what I mean.

If any of you happen to run across the old, "real" Utah Republican Party and think it might still be salvageable, could you let us know where to find it?

We really miss it.

We hope to find it before it's too late.

Cycling Bill Dies

I posted about my opposition to this bill a couple of weeks ago. Well, it looks like the bill died in committee yesterday:

Utah bicyclists will have to keep stopping at stop signs or risk a ticket, regardless of whether there's any traffic.

The House Transportation Committee on Tuesday deadlocked 6-6 over a bill that would legalize a rolling stop when a bicyclist finds it safe to cross and also allow for stopping and then riding through red lights when there is no traffic. The tie vote means the bill fails to advance to the House floor.

Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan, said the change would confuse drivers and send the wrong message to children taught to wait out red lights and walk their bikes across the street. Like others on the committee, he added that he believes drivers would be sued and found at fault for hitting cyclists who make poor choices.