♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for the Hinckley Report is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report," state leaders kick off the general legislative session with a bang with over 1,000 bills already on the docket, local leaders continue to grapple with the latest covid surge as a legislature asserts control over mask mandates, and Governor Cox gives his state of the state, outlining his top priorities.

♪♪♪ CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM Jason: Good evening and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

I'm Jason Perry, Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Covering the week, we have Bryan Schott, political correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune; Emily means, political reporter for KUER; and Frank Pignanelli, political commentator and lobbyist with Foxley and Pignanelli.

Thank you so much for being with us.

The first week of the legislative session, and so much has happened.

I want to get to the first big thing they addressed starting on Tuesday, and Frank, let's start with you, some context.

The question is whether or not the legislature would get after masks.

We have some places that have mask mandate into effect.

We saw in Salt Lake County in particular, but they went at that one immediately.

Senate joint resolution three, give us some context for that and what that resolution did.

Frank Pignanelli: Well, what the resolution did as it was to overturn the mask mandate that Salt Lake County had imposed and is supported by the mayor and by one vote of the Salt Lake County Council, and the minute that happened those of us watching said we knew the legislature is going to deal with it, and of course they did.

The Senate immediately passed a resolution on the first day and sent over to the House, and we can talk about what happened after that, but that--everyone is watching that, they're concerned about that on both sides of the issue, and this is a true--there has never been a true indicator of the legislative process.

We have a true representative democracy.

What's happening in the legislature is a reflection of what's happening out on the streets.

People are on either side of this issue, and that's what's happening.

They're hearing from their constituents on both sides, but there's a couple dynamics going on: number one, they are--as Bryan will point out and others have pointed out--they're getting emails three to one saying please remove the mask mandate, and anyone who's engaged in discussions with masks--gotta think we all have--you got people on the other side of this.

But the other thing people forget is that this is an election year, and you've got people with extreme positions on either side, and if you're a Republican you're facing conventional delegate discussion in a couple of months, and they know that, and they're responding to that, so it's easy to throw things at the legislature, but if you look at a political sense, they're responding to what they're hearing, and that's what really makes a great representative democracy.

You may not like what's happening there, but they are feeling the pressure from their constituents.

Jason: I want to get that pressure point on the House in just a second with you, Bryan, but Emily maybe talk about this for a second, it started in the Senate, stalled, it hasn't gone through the House yet, but what do you make of this fact that the legislature is taking this on, and this doesn't even require the governor to weigh in or anyone else.

Emily Means: Exactly, well, this was shocking, it was a doozy of--even just the first day of the legislature what the Senate has done is bypass the typical legislative process.

You know, things typically go to a committee where they can be thoroughly vetted and then the public can give input, right?

And the Senate was just like, no, we need to act on this immediately.

So I thought that was really quite shocking, and like you mentioned because this is a joint resolution, the governor doesn't need to approve this.

If the House approves this, it's done.

Summit County and Salt Lake County's masked mandates will be overturned, and I was really interested to hear Salt Lake County leadership's comments on this.

Dr. Angela Dunn former state epidemiologist, now Salt Lake County's health director what-- said, wow, I have never seen government move this fast.

And unfortunately, in her words, it's in the wrong direction for the health and safety of Salt Lake County residents.

Jason: Bryan, of course after this vote occurred in the Senate, it got sent to the House, and people were speculating that it may happen right away.

They did not take a vote right away.

Talk to us about what's happening behind the scenes in the House.

Bryan Schott: Well, the sense that I got is that the the members of the House, they were discussing amongst themselves.

They wanted to see what the 10 Republicans in Salt Lake County wanted to do with this, because they're the ones who would be facing electoral backlash.

Most of them are in really safe seats.

There are about four of them who are kind of in swing areas, so they have to look at the political ramifications of this.

So the Senate move surprised them, because it came so quickly.

So they've been trying to figure out what to do.

As reported on Friday morning, the House is going to discuss this, and we could be having a resolution very, very quickly, but you know, the problem is they are looking at those four members of the house who have a really tough vote, and they feel like they've been put in a no-win situation.

Jason: It's just such an interesting point.

Of course, they picked up a House sponsor over the last couple of days in Candice Pierucci, but Frank, will you comment on what Bryan just said too?

Because you alluded to it in your opening comment here, too, and you're a former elected official, so put this in context.

This is a big vote in the House, and some of these members of the House are facing--they are up for election, how do they do this calculus in their minds?

How are they deciding how they're gonna vote on this if it does happen today?

Frank: This is one of those rare issues where every single human has an opinion, and they do.

They want the masks they don't want the masks, they're confused by CDC, they want to do this or that, and so when you're-- especially if you're a member of the House of Representatives and you are facing an election, you could be facing someone from the left or from the right coming at you, that's the calculus.

And when you see three to one emails if you're Republican or three to one on the other side, they say, okay, what do I need to do?

How do I address this?

And so that's the calculus.

I know a lot of us may say that they don't care about reelection, but they don't want to have to face this issue because they know that a big chunk whatever you do is not gonna like what would you have done, so the calculus is how do I get through this?

They also know this, maybe in a couple of weeks this all goes away, and it probably goes away for most people, but people on either side are gonna remember where you were.

That's also part of their calculation too.

Jason: Yeah, the mandate may leave but the vote remains, go ahead, Emily.

Emily: Yeah, if I could just add one more thing just to give a little bit more insight on what's going on behind the scenes, what this resolution does is basically strip away county's ability to respond to the pandemic, and this is something that the legislature said, yes, we want you to do this, we want you as local government to make this decision.

Of course, the legislature also gave themselves the ability to overturn that, but another thing that's going on behind the scenes is county officials are kind of, you know, getting together and saying, wow, this is really impeding upon our local control, so it's my understanding there's some conversations going on with the Utah Association of Counties, and I think, you know, they're a formidable lobbying organization, so I'm sure they're involved in the conversation.

Yeah, great points.

Bryan go ahead.

Bryan: Frank brought up the fact that there are emails out there, and they're flooding the inboxes, I took a look at where some of these are coming from, and it's really quite alarming who some of these--where some of these emails are coming from or where some of the campaigns are coming from.

They're coming from these far-right groups on a secure messaging app called Telegram, and they are coordinating their members to send mass emails to vote to overturn the mask mandate, but also right along next to these calls to send those emails, you will see stories or posts about how the Utah League of Cities and Towns is actually an arm of the United Nations, and they are intending to put everybody in the state into a camp.

You will see lots of talk about how the vaccines are going to kill everybody the moment we turn on 5G towers.

It's these really conspiratorial groups who are out there sending hundreds if not thousands of emails, and if you're a lawmaker who's just counting the number of emails that come in and you have no idea where they're coming from, well, you're getting swayed by these groups that are frankly not really in touch with reality.

Emily: Bryan is really brave to be wading into these areas of the internet.

I will commend you for that, but I just wanted to say something about public comment.

It's interesting to me how the legislature decides who to listen to, because you know, we've seen this over the past few years with state leaders discounting certain people if, you know, what they have to say doesn't align with what the legislature already wanted to do, right?

So we saw that with the ballot initiatives and the legislature tweaking those or changing them completely, so I think they kind of have selective hearing on some of these issues.

Frank: Okay, I'm gonna impose here.

Jason: Okay, let's hear it.

Frank: This is my 35th session, and I'm just gonna say this with all due respect, I'm a lobbyist, I love to lobby, yes, I represent a bunch of interests.

When I walk into a room, that legislator asks who's Frank representing today, but when a citizen who walks or calls or contacts that legislator, that person is viewed as pure.

A well-organized citizen initiative on any issue, whether it's the environment or whatever it is will always beat the corporate interest, and thank goodness and that is one of the good things about the legislature is they are listening to people.

You may not like what they're saying, but they're very responsive to what they're constituents have to say.

Jason: Can I ask you a question about this response?

I've been thinking about sort of the editorials this week, and both papers had some some pretty harsh words.

I mean, they were direct in a way you haven't seen.

I'm curious what you all have to say about this, because we spent a good amount of time on our show last week talking about who's in charge, and we had we had a good debate about that, but this week it seems to be who's to blame a little bit.

Emily, is that the same kind of analysis?

How does that play out?

Does that help us see who might be in charge, we see who's kinda catching the blame this week?

Emily: Ah, man, well I mean, I think people want answers.

We've been undergoing this pandemic for more than two years, coming up on two years now, and people are tired of it.

But you know, the response has changed over these past two years, and right now we're in the middle of a huge spike in cases, and what is the response, you know?

And I guess I'll just add, you know, I talked to House Speaker Brad Wilson in the run-up to the to the legislative session, and I asked him how is the legislature working to end the pandemic?

And he kind of laughed, he brushed it off, and he was like what are we supposed to do about a global pandemic?

And I think that's a fair point, but the legislature has a ton of power in the state of Utah, and you can look at multiple pieces of legislation, the pandemic endgame bill, what we're seeing now with SJR003 and undoing the mask mandates, those are legislative actions that arguably have hindered our ability to respond to the pandemic, so I do think that the legislature has some responsibility.

I'm not saying they're to blame, but they have power, and they can use it in this instance.

Jason: Bryan, one of the ways that Emily was just alluding to is a piece of legislation from Senator Todd Weiler, this is SB113, which essentially ends the test to stay program but puts other protocols in place, a process from our legislature about what can happen once as a school inside of school district gets that 2% threshold.

Can you talk about that just a little bit?

Well, SB113 is exactly the same as HB183 from Representative Jordan Teuscher.

HB183 is going to be the bill that goes forward, they got their wires crossed, and so those bills were introduced about the same time.

The Senate couldn't pass theirs before the House passed theirs, so Senate Bill 183, what it does is it put--it pauses the test to stay because we don't have enough tests, and it's an unwieldy process, and omicron is just causing all sorts of havoc, so it pauses that.

It can be re implemented if there is agreement among legislative leaders and the governor and state health department.

The other thing that it does is schools can go remote because of an outbreak but is a long process in the fact that the school has to request to go remote, then the school board has to have a public meeting in which they take a vote.

They don't have to take comment, but they have to take a public vote.

If they get through all of that, then they have to get sign-off from not only the state board, the state superintendent, but the governor, the speaker of the House, and the president of the Senate.

So there--it's a consolidation of what the schools do or the power of the schools into the executive and the legislative branch, right?

So you've got the speaker of the House and you've got the president of the Senate, and this is really unprecedented where they get to decide what happens with local school districts and how they respond to the pandemic.

Can they go remote?

Well, you have to ask for permission.

It's this really arduous process.

It's not really the best way if you need to respond quickly to something.

Jason: Frank, any comments on that?

Frank: Yeah, what they're hearing from, they're hearing from parents that are very frustrated, they're hearing from teachers that are very frustrated.

I've heard these stories, they have these kids, or the students, in the auditorium, they're testing 'em, and they're running out of tests, and so the system that was in place worked well for delta, it's not working for omicron.

And then they're hearing from both national experts and local experts that remote learning is not working, it's putting students behind, so again, it's the legislature responding, saying we don't think remote learning going to work, and we only want to put it in the most extreme circumstances.

Therefore, they've created this kinda superstructure when will they do it.

So again, and I've talked to a number of people who've contacted their--and it's in Salt Lake City, it's in Uintah county, you name it, they've said we don't like remote learning, and we want to make it as hard as possible to get to that unless it's the most dire circumstances, so it's a reaction to that.

Jason: Any other bills you all are watching, you think we're gonna see some fireworks or otherwise in the next couple of days, the next week, Emily?

Emily: Put me on the spot there, Jason.

Well, this is only the end of the first week of the session.

One thing that I'm looking for, and I'm looking for it because it was in the House majority's priorities is this year's bill about the inland port.

Every single year there is a bill tweaking the inland port authority in some way or another.

This year House Speaker Brad Wilson says he wants to kind of change the makeup of the of the port authority board maybe to include more industry representatives or more representatives from other parts of the state.

So I am really interested to see how that impacts representation for Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County and areas that are directly impacted by the port.

Jason: Yeah, this one had a lot of airtime for a while, so I think we're gonna get that again, that's a great one.

How about you, Bryan, what are we about to see?

Bryan: You know, it's going to calm down.

I don't think the legislature is going to be as exciting as it's been the last week in terms of all the backroom intrigue.

There will still be a lot of that, but it's mostly going to be over tax cuts, you know?

The lawmakers are really targeting some tax cuts.

It's an election year, they've already put aside $160 million for tax cuts.

The governor has said that he wants to do a food tax credit, that's not gonna happen.

They've already decided that they're gonna do an income tax rate cut, because they've done some targeted stuff in the past few years, so I would expect them to do that.

How low is it gonna go?

We could see tax cuts of 250 million 275 million, though 100 and 160 is just a starting point, so it could go up.

Jason: These are very interesting points.

At least it's something interesting, Frank, 'cause you have a great article coming out this weekend talking about this very interesting thing happening with our legislature, they call it policy pillars, and I look forward to read it reading your article.

Talk about this, because we've all alluded to some big policy issues the legislature is taking on, but it's almost a little bit of a different view and role that we've seen the legislature take in the past.

Frank: Absolutely, as I commented, this is my 35th session.

I've never seen anything like this.

So last week the House majority caucus produces these five policy pillars, five statements of things they want to accomplish, and that's been done before, but then they had this document, and it as you pointed out, Emily, it's a very pretty document, but it's a very substantive document, and it provides all the different ways that the--the House majority caucus I believe has the support of the Senate majority caucus-- they wanna accomplish, everything from the Great Salt Lake to air to lifestyle to housing to transportation, and it's remarkable for a couple reasons.

Number one, it's usually the governor, and the governor came out with a really nice document back in December, but the legislature usually responds, but we have a very strong legislature, and they planted the flag saying this is our vision.

The second thing--and again, I respect their courage on this-- is accountability, and this the thing to watch during the session.

They've laid all these different programs they want to accomplish, and we'll watch and see how that is accomplished.

The third thing is is that it is really--and I think people should take heart in this--this document is not partisan at all, and they're not taking shots at anything, but it really shows a reflection of we're growing up as a state, we need to get a handle on all these different, issues and this is how we want to solve these problems.

I thought it was refreshing and brilliant.

Jason: Go ahead, Emily.

Emily: I don't want to rain on your parade, Frank, and I don't want to rain on the House majority's parade either, but this is being pitched as the Utah way forward.

It's supposed to be a forward looking document, right?

But some of the issues like affordable housing, air quality, water conservation, we're like decades--maybe not decades-- a decade past when we should have been responding to these things, so I do think it's really important to look at how we can make improvements going forward, how we can grow in a productive manner, but some of these issues I do feel like the legislature and the state is just a little bit behind on.

Jason: These are some pretty big issues, Bryan, that are in this--these policy pillars document, and it is interesting, I'm curious what you think about Frank's comment to that this is the kind of thing sometimes you see from a governor's office or someone that's charged with this.

It is a little unique to see, it's this glossy, beautiful document paving the way.

Of course, talk about why we see the House of Legislature leading out in this particular way, and maybe a comment, too, because once you do this, of course, people start trying to ask you how you're doing on them also.

Bryan: Well, here in the state, you know, we're supposed to have three equal branches of government, but the legislature sees themselves as number one among equals, so they're-- I'm not surprised that they are trying to set the agenda.

You've got a governor who's in his first term, it's only his second year in office.

He only got the Republican nomination with 36% of the vote.

He doesn't have much of a mandate, he doesn't have a lot of political capital to spend, so of course you're going to see Brad Wilson and Stuart Adams who have been in their positions for a while and have consolidated their body--the power of their membership, so they are much--they have much more political capital to spend, so I'm not surprised that you're seeing these sort of things.

These are some big swings, and we'll see if they're able to get there.

It's gonna be tough.

You know, Speaker Wilson's been talking a lot about the Great Salt Lake, it's--he's really gotten into that over the last year, and we'll see if they can land some of these things, you know?

And basically, they're driving the car and the governor's office is going to have to get and come along, because they're really not holding the map either, so.

Jason: So let's talk about how they're coming along, or not, or the governor is, to use Bryan's words, because it's interesting to see that these two dynamics at play, particularly last night, Frank, with the governor's state of the state address.

He's there with his former colleagues, he's talking about his policies, and oddly enough, some of the same things he mentioned are the same things in this policy pillar document.

Frank: I know that some people-- I mean, he was--he didn't really refer to a lot of points in programs he mentioned in December.

What I thought was interesting about his speech is that he's a new governor, and he's looking at the landscape of both the state and the country, and he sees here in his own state all this divisiveness over the masks and things like that, and he sees all these battles happening in Washington.

What I liked what he was doing was more of an ethereal 30,000 foot, which is this is a great state, this is a great country, there's things that we need to do.

He outreached to a lot of different diverse groups and things like that, so to me, he used his time, his 25 minutes whatever, to say, please, let's come together.

And while it might've been short in some of the details of the programs, in my opinion, he fulfilled his responsibility of saying this--please help us, we've got a great program, we've got some great programs, this is a good place to live, please respect the Constitution, respect the elections, and respect the process, and we can all do this together.

I thought it was a heartwarming speech that needed to be made by the chief executive of our state.

Jason: Emily, key takeaway from that speech.

Emily: What I heard was exactly what was in the House majority's pillars, like talk about housing affordability, being able to grow smartly, talk about infrastructure, things like that, so I think Bryan is exactly right that the legislature is driving the car, and the governor is just like, okay, well, I better get on board with this.

But I also heard the exact same thing from the Democratic response, those same points about housing affordability, infrastructure, and education, that was another big one.

So it seems like everyone is kind of on board with these goals.

The question is, is how how do we go about achieving them?

Jason: Uh-huh, Bryan, can you give us--like you always do-- the behind the scenes view a little bit too?

Because you know, maybe if you say there's maybe some general agreement about some of these big policy issues for the state of Utah, this tension between the executive branch, the governor, and the legislature doesn't seem to be going away very quickly.

Bryan: Well, it's not so much tension.

I mean, you're not gonna see the governor pick too many fights with the legislature.

When he first came into office, his very first budget recommendation just happened to look almost exactly like what the legislature wanted to do.

There's a pretty good reason why that happened.

This year's budget, really the only major thing that he did different was proposing the food tax credit rather than an income tax cut.

You know, everything else pretty much aligned with what the Republican majority in the legislature wanted to do.

That's 'cause they talked about this sort of thing.

It's gonna be really--you're not gonna see Governor Cox pick too many fights with the legislature, and there are people who think he should.

You know, go back to to redistricting, why didn't he veto the maps if if he didn't like 'em?

Well, because it was a fight he was going to lose and was a needless fight to pick.

You know, he's gonna have to pick his spots.

If he's gonna try to stand up to them, he's going to have to be 100% sure that he's gonna win; otherwise, that will weaken him in the eyes of the 104 members of the legislature, and then they're just gonna start to roll over him.

So you know, he's not going to test them unless he really has to.

Jason: Uh-huh, Frank, that's one thing people don't really realize is that there is a lot of coordination between these offices during the session but particularly when you get to the end of the session.

Frank: There is a lot of coordination, and those of us, you know, in the chattering class love to talk about all the disagreements and things like that, but there is a lot of coordination.

They actually meet on a regular basis and then obviously come up with and finalize the budget.

That's why we've never seen a budget vetoed and things like that.

But what is refreshing, though, which you have--and it's almost like a little bit of competition, 'cause you have-- the governor was out there in front of the Great Salt Lake, you had the speaker had a big get together there a couple of weeks after that, so it was a little bit--we have all these people who want to solve these problems, and what's refreshing--this is a conservative state, and so you have a governor that's being very active, and you have a legislature as being very proactive, and I have to tell you it's easy to dismiss all this, but the discussions that are happening are how do we solve these different air quality problems or water issues and things like that.

I was worried this last summer, it was a hot, dry summer, and boy, everyone's moving in, try and find how do we deal with this and using the federal funds in appropriate manner, and one of the great things that we discussed is we don't want what happened in California happening here.

When I first started serving in the legislature, it was how do we get rid of water out of the Salt Lake.

Jason: That's right.

Frank: But now it's putting it back in, so to me, I see a real conscious effort by all branches of government to try to solve these problems.

And I am really enthusiastic about that.

Jason: Emily, our last 30 seconds, it's--sort of a thing that you brought up a little bit, too, some of these big issues it seems like you have not just the--all the branches of government sort of rowing together, but we also see the other side of the aisle in the state Utah, the Democrats in our legislature kind of on board with several of these things, even maybe it's to the degree is the difference.

Emily: Right, I was kind of surprised, honestly, with their response to the governor.

Not that they agreed with him on things, but that they didn't disagree with him on more things and that they didn't make more of a statement about how things are going in the state, because you know, with a super majority Republican legislature, there's not a lot Democrats can do.

One thing they can do is speak out, be loud, and you know, make a fuss about some things that they see are not going the way they should be.

Jason: Thank you for your insights this evening.

We've run out of time.

This is going to be a very interesting next couple of weeks with our legislature.

Thanks for the insights this evening.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show's also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.org/HinckleyReport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us, we'll see you next week.

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