♪♪♪ 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," legislators hit their stride and pass several consequential bills in the session's third week, state leaders look to creative solutions to handle the growing impacts of covid-19, from education to approval ratings, new polling reveals what Utahns think about big issues.

♪♪♪ 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 Robert Gehrke, columnist with the Salt Lake Tribune; Sonja Hutson, political reporter with KUER; and Spencer Stokes, president of Stoke Strategies.

Glad to have you with us this evening.

Week three of the legislative session, we're hitting the midpoint, lots of bills have come out this week, some of them have really caught some media attention as well.

And I want to turn to one, Robert, a story you broke this week which I think when we're gonna be talking about for quite some time, at least through the end of this legislative session.

It's about vouchers but really not called vouchers, maybe something called backpack funding.

Talk a little bit about this bill that you've had a chance to see.

Robert Gehrke: Yeah, yeah, I mean vouchers became so toxic they've come up with other names for it, backpack funding.

This is--this bill's called the hope scholarship program.

Kirk Cullimore has been working on this for a period of time.

I don't know exactly how long has been working on it, but what it would do is it would give families money from the education fund up to $36 million total for the entire program.

The money would come out of the education fund, it would go to these parents who want to send their kids to private schools.

And you know, they call it a scholarship program.

It's up to almost $9500 for lower income people, just about $3800 for sort of upper income people.

And it could--the money could also be used--this is how they say this is different than the voucher movement we saw in 2007 is they say the money could also be moved over for a tutoring program or some sort of online education or other sort of school or class fees.

So it's a little bit broader in its scope of what the money could be used for, but I mean, very clearly, it's private money, taxpayer money going to private entities to send kids to private schools.

Jason: Spencer, I know you were involved in these discussions in 2007, when we saw that bill.

Senator Steve Urquhart was the one that that ran it.

What are the big differences between this bill that we're going to see now and what we saw then, which may give us some idea about whether or not we will be successful this time?

Spencer Stokes: Well, I think they've been more creative with this bill and taken other things into account.

You know, the the Urquhart bill was just a pure voucher bill.

I think this is something that they're trying to walk the line.

I think the education community has already spoken, this is a voucher bill.

We've seen the UEA already come out and say that, but the bigger and broader difficulty is the question of who's in charge of public education in the state?

Is It the governor, is it the legislature, is it the state school board, is it local LEAs?

And no one has wanted to grapple with that decision, because anytime you've got a group of 104 people making a decision like this, you know, oftentimes you don't end up with the most cohesive and best public policy.

And if you're going to empower the state school board, then empower the state school board.

If you're going to empower the LEAs, otherwise, let's just go ahead and not continue the ruse and say that the legislature is in charge of public education.

But I do believe this bill has a better chance of passage than the typical voucher bill in years past.

Jason: Which ended with a referendum, correct?

Spencer: Correct, right, right, came--they came right back, did a referendum, and the citizens spoke and changed it.

At some point, you know, teachers need to have a voice in this, and I think the reason why this is different is there are students who need extra help, and this backpack funding could be a solution for that.

Jason: Hmm, Sonja, it's interesting, because we followed sort of public sentiment over time on this particular issue, and I'm curious about the differences here Speaker Wilson and when he talked about this bill, he released some polling he did with Dan Jones and Associates that showed that in Utah, 69% of Utahns said they would support the money following their child with them to where they want to go, 27% were opposed, 4% don't know, what might have changed over the last several years since 2007 on this issue?

Sonja Hutson: I mean, I think that public schools have been kind of a battleground for lots of different policy issues, even, you know, partisanship, and so I think that you're maybe finding some people changing their mind because of that.

There is, you know, the school choice movement has been really big since then, we've got a lot of discussions now about curriculum in public schools, so I think maybe people might have some more flexibility now than they did in 2007.

However, I do think that if this bill passes, it will probably face another referendum.

Whether that referendum passes I have no idea, but I think that there will certainly be an effort.

Spencer: Jason, you brought up probably something that I think we glossed over quickly, and that is you said Speaker Wilson conducted polling.

I don't think I can ever remember when the legislature conducted their own poling, and I'm--I've got to commend them for this, because they never really have trusted other people's polling, but when they get to develop the poll themselves and find out what the people say, maybe they have a chance to look deeper into that polling and maybe just maybe they start thinking about what do the people of Utah want?

And so I have to commend Speaker Wilson for deciding to take that, and I'm sure it was funded, you know, not by state dollars, but the point is they're trying to find out what the citizens of Utah--and I think that's important.

Jason: Very interesting.

Robert: And I think if I could, I think it's important that they release that poll, the cross tabs, the questions that were asked, the sample size.

They haven't released any of that, so we look at that with a little bit of a grain of salt right now.

But I think it also could put pressure on some of the legislators who maybe are on the fence, who think that, oh, my constituents--just assume that their constituents don't support vouchers.

Now they've got these poll numbers, look, 69% support it.

We need to see the rest of it, we filed an open records request after Speaker Wilson refused to release it, so we'll see if they honor that.

Jason: Hey, Robert, will you give a comment about Sonja's assertion here, too, which I think is so interesting, particularly over the last couple of years with covid.

There is a lot of interest in what's happening at the school district level, and parents are in some ways trying to reclaim some of their opportunities.

Do you think that that is something that the legislature is looking at right now, and maybe that has accounted for the change in sentiment?

Robert: Yeah, I mean, I think Sonja made an excellent point.

Right now our schools are the new political footballs, the new political battlegrounds.

We've got these movements to ban books, we've got these movements to screen curriculum, we've movements to root out CRT, whatever that means, you know, to really be involved in setting the curriculum, understanding what kids are taught, and it's now turning to--you know, we saw it in the mask wars where school boards were just deluged with parents who were outraged about what was going on in schools.

They're the new political battleground, and I think vouchers are just sort of another incarnation of that.

We have Representative Johnson's bill, which I know we're gonna talk about that would have allowed parents to sue potentially schools or school districts over what's being taught.

We've got Senator Fillmore's bill and Representative Teuscher's bill that would require teachers to be transparent and put online what they're teaching in classes so parents can get outraged by it, frankly, and so, yeah--Spencer: I'm just tryin' to figure out how we have a full functioning legislature who came through a public education system that none of this was a problem.

I mean, I have no idea how we've gotten to this place with people who allowed teachers to actually teach in classroom, and this can be a future problem.

I mean, when you have the governor signing an executive order that state employees can go teach in classrooms, you know you've kind of reached a critical level of health.

How badly can you continue to treat educators before you don't have any educators?

Jason: That is interesting, and the governor did just--I'm sorry, go ahead, Robert.

Robert: Yeah, I mean, I told one legislator last week that if he wants to be a--school--if he wants to be in charge of a school, he should go be a principal and not a legislator, because you know, they're micromanaging everything right now, and you know, it makes a mockery of having these local school boards even elected, because they're gonna be the ones who make the final decisions at the end of the day.

Sonja: Yeah, I mean, I think you've seen the legislature continue to insert itself more and more into decisions about what happens at schools from masks to now curriculum to vouchers, and it's interesting, because I remember when Spencer Cox, when Governor Cox was campaigning for governor, he talked a lot about wanting to deregulate schools and just allow teachers to teach, and now it seems like the legislature has gone completely in the opposite direction of that, and so for the party of deregulation I think it's an interesting issue for them to tackle.

Spencer: It's still back to the governance issue.

I have said if they're not willing to fix the governance issue, maybe the governor could go to the state school board and say if you pass by majority on a bill, I will veto any bill you take a negative position on.

Jason: Spencer, not many know that you actually served on the state school board for a period of time.

Spencer: I've been trying to keep that a secret.

Jason: Okay, well, secret's out now a little bit too.

What does that mean in your mind, in your experience when you say fix the governance issue?

Spencer: Well, I spent four years on the state school board, and as much as I wanted people to know who I was and that they trusted in our opinions, there are 15 members of the state school board.

Put that in perspective, there are 29 state Senators.

So our school board districts were roughly the size of two state senate districts, which is massive, and nobody knows who their state school board member is, and it is an organization that there's not one-- If I ask all of you--I'm not going to put you on the spot who's your state school board member--none of you could tell me.

So let's put the highlight on the person who is really everyone thinks is in charge, which is the governor, and I think if the governor were in charge and had the veto power, he could actually negotiate some things with the legislature where the state school board is feckless on this.

Jason: Very interesting.

Any other bills we should be watching before we go on to things like money, which I want to talk about.

Spencer, death penalty?

Spencer: Absolutely, I think death penalty is one of the big bills.

They have really found a great sponsor in the sponsorship of this by Representative Snow and Senator McCay.

They're two credible people on this topic, and I think the legislature at the end of the day are--they're going to come down and say when an inmate's sitting on death row for 22 years and 40 years, does that make sense?

What are we spending to do this?

And what is the greater punishment?

And should the state be in the business of ending someone's life?

So these are all--this is a debate that's going to be very interesting, it's going to be very heated, it's going to be very close.

Jason: Mm-hmm, Sonja?

Sonja: I'm lookin' out, there's gonna be--it hasn't dropped yet, but they have hinted since the beginning of the session about some changes to the inland port authority board, and Salt Lake City, I think, senses maybe some trouble coming for them there.

You know, the inland port, they want it to evolve into this kind of hub and spoke model where there's the main inland port in Salt Lake City, but then there's satellite ports all over the state, and so they want to change the board to reflect that, and I think that'll be a big fight, and Democrats, especially those from Salt Lake City, will put up a big faith.

Jason: It's interesting we haven't heard about it yet, but I know it is coming.

Sonja: I know, it's kinda just bubbling under the surface.

Jason: Little preview there, Robert?

Robert: Yeah, I mean, I think both of those are great.

I'm kinda watching for election bills this year.

There's this initiative movement, they're gathering signatures to try to put an initiative on the ballot, but I think the legislator-- legislature has also indicated that they would like to see some changes made to our election system, especially among the people who are still believing that there was election fraud in the last election, the last election was stolen.

So I think there's going to be bills that are moving.

The governor kind of drew a line in the sand in the state of the state address that he's not going to let outright lies make policy, and so I think when those bills come, if they come, there's going to be potential for a pretty big clash between the legislature and governor.

Jason: I'll tell ya, one that just--it was a couple days ago I thought was interesting.

This is Representative--our Senator Chris Wilson on what's called wireless communication device.

So those influencers who are videotaping themselves while they're driving, giving lessons on life.

Sonja: No more.

Jason: That one may be about over.

Spencer: Well, you always know when you see someone with an influencer hat on--that's what I call it, driving down the road--beware.

It's either an old man in a hat driving really slow or a young person in an influencer hat.

You gotta steer clear of those people.

Jason: Yes, we'll watch that one closely as well.

I want to talk about money for just a moment, 'cause we're starting to see more of the the asks come into light as everyone has a request for appropriation, which is what it's called when someone's asking the legislature for money, particularly for key projects.

I thought it was interesting, the actual number's about $1.3 billion in extra revenue, about $1.1 billion of that is one time, $219 million of that is ongoing, and Jerry Stevenson chair of executive appropriations this week let us know, $201 billion worth of asks.

That's probably mostly yours, right, Spencer?

Spencer: Exactly, it's always more difficult when there's a lot of money, because everybody comes up running.

And I actually think years where there's a lot of money, it's more difficult to sort through.

Years where it's lean and nobody is going to go up there and ask, it's much easier to be a legislator.

But when the word goes out, we've got a lot of money, you always know there's going to be a ton of asks.

Sonja: And people are always gonna ask for more than they think they're gonna get, right?

It's like when you're negotiating a salary for a new job, you always, you know, start high and then see what you can get.

You never want to low-ball yourself, and lawmakers and other organizations do the same thing.

Jason: That is absolutely true.

Robert, I know you have conversations with these lawmakers, what are you getting a sense for of their priorities?

When all these asks are in, what are they caring about the most?

I know they're telling you.

Robert: I mean, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, is what they were saying right out of the gate.

Now they've got $160 million dollar income tax, they've got $40 million that they want to do for an earned income tax credit and social security tax cut, that's the bill that's making its way through the house.

You know, and then there's, you know, Speaker Wilson has made the Great Salt Lake restoration project a big priority, and I think that's very positive.

We're starting to see some of those bills starting to proceed through the system, and so I mean those are-- And then I guess affordable housing is the other thing that the governor sort of highlighted, and there's been a big commitment to doing something about that so I would look for, you know-- budget chairmen always say put the big rocks in and then fill the little rocks in around it, and I think those are maybe big rocks right now.

Mm-hmm, Sonja, are you hearing this tax cut is likely?

Sonja: Yeah, I mean, they are really--they've been talking about it since the beginning of the session, they're really into this idea, they're really excited about it.

You know, the house like Robert mentioned has added some more-- $40 million more onto this tax cut for low income people and people on social security, so I think it's gonna pass.

They're really excited about it.

Spencer: For all the noise that gets made over the pieces of legislation that pass, the legislature actually does a very good job managing the fiscal part of our state.

Do they get off on tangents on other things?

Of course they do, like anyone else, but the fiscal side of the state is very well managed.

They look at our state compared to other states around us, what are the income tax levels, what are the sales tax levels?

And they have done a very good job, and they're going to take this one-time money and look at the future.

And what do they need to plan for for the future?

I think the development, for example, of our own state parks is a visionary concept and equally as beautiful as a lot of the national parks that are out there but don't seem to get the play.

They're fixing those up, they're emphasizing those to take the load off the, you know, the mighty five.

So when it comes to budgetary issues, our state leaders have been superb.

Robert: If I could before we move on just real quick.

I mean, I think it's worth noting that this big tax cut, the big income tax cut comes out of the education.

The $36 million we talked about before with the scholarship program comes out of education fund, so this is money that normally would have been going to education.

Education has done well, so maybe that's a justifiable position to take, but people should be aware that.

I think another thing that they have to address this session, some of the staffing shortages we're seeing in state agencies and some of the salary discrepancies were seeing among state employees.

We've got a staffing crisis at the prison system, we've got a staffing crisis at the state mental hospital, we gotta start addressing some of these salary issues and some of the staffing issues this session.

Jason: These are some great points.

Can we turn to elections for a moment?

We've done some polling this last week on approvals of some of our candidates, and I'm gonna start with you, Spencer, since you have a connection to Senator Mike Lee.

You've worked with him for a few years.

His polling numbers are showing statewide down just a tad for the last couple of months, but he remains very strong with the GOP, 57% of the Republicans still supporting him.

What kind of position is he in right now?

Spencer: Well, obviously, that's the number you have to look at, because there is a Republican-- potentially a Republican primary if the other two Republican challengers get their names on the ballot through the convention or signatures.

Those are their two paths.

That is the key number.

Look, everybody's job approval rating fluctuates, and oftentimes what I have seen over the years, it's tied to what the national--what's happening in the national scene, the national stage.

So I think you would see that fluctuation happen, but you Evan McMullin adds a new wrinkle--a new wrinkle to this.

At the end of the day, it's difficult--I know there's a push out there--it's difficult to get Democrats to switch over to be Republicans.

I mean, what Democrat do you know in their neighborhood that wants their fellow Democrat to know that I've just switched over to the party of Donald Trump?

You know, that could be a hiss and a byword if any of their Democrat neighbors found this out, so I think he's okay.

Does he have to run a campaign?

Yes.

All people have to run a campaign, but the number to focus on is how he does with the GOP.

Jason: Spencer mentioned, Sonja, Evan McMcullin is in this race, of course, Becky Edwards, Ally Isom, all still trying to make their case out there as well, but and to some extent a lot of this is down to money as well, and this was a pretty good week, pretty good reporting cycle I should say for Evan McMullin on money.

Sonja: Yeah, he raked in about a million dollars, which was twice what senator Mike Lee brought in in the last quarter of 2021, but Senator Lee has a huge head start on McMullin.

He's been fundraising for, you know, years.

He has a huge war chest, so he still has about double the cash on hand, I think that that McMullin has, so funding is always an issue.

Elections very often come down to money, not 100% of the time.

Thinkin' about Mike Bloomberg in 2020 who just dumped so much money into his race and did horribly, but most of the time money plays a really huge role in who wins.

And it's interesting also when you talk about McMullin, because if--I think that if the Democrats didn't have a candidate, which they now do-- Kael Weston has declared that he's gonna run--you could have had some sort of grouping together of Democratic voters and, you know, some more moderate Republicans who really didn't like Mike Lee coming together under McMullin, and then he would have had, you know, an actual really significant challenge to that.

But I think that having both Weston and McMullin you're gonna split that group of people, and it's gonna be no match for whoever comes out of the Republican primary.

Spencer: First quarters are always great for every candidate.

It was the first report Evan McMullin filed.

If you looked at Becky Edwards's first report, she did great.

If you looked at Ally Isom's first report, did great.

The one thing you have to look at is the massive costs that goes into running a national email letter campaign to get small donors, and although Evan is trying to appeal to a national audience to come in here and take Senator Lee out, his costs are so high on that, and I--you know, I don't want to be the one that points this out, but you know, Evan McMullin still has $700,000 approximately in presidential debt, which is about what he raised--or cash on hand in this last report.

So you know, he potentially could use that money to pay off his debt, which leaves him at a zero, and I would think he would want to pay off the debt, but that's a question to be asked later down the road.

Jason: That's right, let me ask, Robert, Spencer brought up just a moment ago some of these approval numbers are somewhat connected to what's happening nationally as well.

I'm curious about your take on our our question for Senator Mitt Romney.

Which is interesting, he's had an 18 point increase in his approval ratings over this last year.

Interestingly, just kind of want to get your take on this, his approval from Republicans at 51%, Democrats 51%, unaffiliated at 54%, and it seems like maybe Mitt Romney has not changed his positions very much but even within his own party his numbers seem to be improving.

Robert: Yeah, I mean, his weakness before in the state is really dealing with his own party.

Especially among the Mike Lee Republican wing, right?

I mean, there's no love lost between the Conservative Republican wing in Utah, the Trump Republican wing in Utah and Mitt Romney because of his votes on impeachment and so forth.

So I think, you know, we sort of--we should have expected his numbers to rebound a little bit, but he's also running fairly strong among moderates and Democrats, and so you know, that's the recipe for a pretty good approval number.

You're always going to have your team, it's how much of the other team you get, and so, you know, it's shored him up a little bit.

I still think he's vulnerable, though, in two years from now if he chooses to run again.

Two years from now with the Republican primary, Republican Convention, because there is still a lot of animosity in the Republican Party.

Spencer: There's no question-- no question, Robert, he'd need to get signatures if he was going to run again.

I will tell you, just something I've been watching over the years between when, you know, you had Jake Garn and Orrin Hatch, Bob Bennett, Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch, I don't think I've ever seen a greater collegial relationship than between Mike Lee and Mitt Romney.

Their offices are right across the hall from each other, and they have actually been--and a little bit, you know, shocking so--their appreciation for each other is great, and they get along great, and it hasn't always been the case.

It's always been somewhat of a competition between the two senators, and I used to joke back in the days of Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch it was who could get to the fax machine first to send out their press release back in that day.

I think that the two of them work very well together, and they have--they each have their strengths, and they each know that they can play on those strengths.

Jason: Sonja, in our last minute, one of the factors some are talking about is sort of the Trump factor in the Mitt Romney approvals.

Your analysis as to whether or not him not--the president of the United States not taking regular shots that Mitt Romney, if that's having some impact.

Sonja: I think it's having a huge impact.

I mean, that's Mitt Romney's whole problem with his own party is his at times adversarial relationship with former President Trump, and so because Trump has kind of been out of the spotlight and not attacking Romney recently, there's been no impeachment proceedings recently that I'm aware of, but I think that--so Mitt Romney is up for re-election in a presidential election year, and I would not be surprised if former President Trump made every appearance in 2024, and so that is going to be an even bigger issue in the year that it matters most for Mitt Romney, and so that I think is gonna potentially be a big problem for him.

Spencer: His greatest gift probably was that Donald Trump doesn't have access to social media anymore, so he can't beat up on Mitt.

Jason: Okay, we're gonna have to end it right there.

Thank you so much for your great insights, so informative.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is 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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