Study of the Utah Commission 1882-96
Creators: name: Grow, Stewart Lofgren
Publisher: name: University of Utah
Year: 2012
Subjects: Elections, Utah
Polygamy--Utah
Politics--Utah

description: Cushman, in his basic work "The Independent Regulatory  Commission," states that the first such federal body  was the Interstate Commerce Commission established in 133?  He makes a list of such agencies, past and present, which  does not include the Utah Commission. Cushman further con-  •  eludes, and most writers in the public administration field  agree, that the early federal regulatory bodies developed  from the pattern set by the states in their control of railroads  and canals and that regulatory agencies have been almost  solely engaged in the control of some phase of the  2  economic process. The completeness of Cushman*s list, the  validity of the assumptions as to the priority of the Interstate  Commerce Commission in the federal regulatory field,  and the conclusion as to the derivation of national regulatory  agencies, may be subject to some modifications when the  Y  history and activities of the Utah Commission are considered.  That body, which operated for fourteen years (1332-96), was  established by the Edmunds Act of 1332, and possessed the  major characteristics of the modern regulatory agency-the status of semi-independence and the exercise of legislative, judicial, and executive powers. It differed from its later  federal counterparts in that it operated to control the  political rather than the economic process. Its mission was  to expedite the extirpation of polygamy through achieving  the transfer of political power in the Territory of Utah from  the hands of the ruling polygamist ''elite,11 centered primarily  in the hierarchy of the Mormon church, to the hands of  the non-polygamist and non-Mormon. Such transfer of power  was to be accomplished by the administration of the provisions  of the Edmunds law of 1332, which gave to the Utah  Commission the power to supervise the entire electoral process  in Utah and to enforce the provisions of that law which  disfranchised and barred from public office all polygamists.  Thereby, it was hoped that, through their loss of political  power and the diminution of their rights as citizens, polygaj  mists would be so stigmatized and penalized that the abandonment  of the practice of polygamy by the members of the Mormon  church would be hastened. Certainly this assignment of  •  transferring political control from a well entrenched, dominant  group to a naturally non-dominant group represented an  administrative problem fraught with great challenge, and involved  one of the very unusual, if not unique, objectives in  the annals of American public administration. The work of  the Commission was both aided and complicated by the necessity  of accomplishing its mission through the administration of lavis which denied to American citizens some of their more  cherished political privileges because of their religious  convictions and consequent actions. It was required to carry  on its administration and apply its sanctions among a people  possessing very deep religious and political convictions and  the firm belief that the laws administered by the Commission  were unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional.