♪♪♪ 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," after an intense 45 days, the legislative session comes to a close as our panel discusses the winners and losers and what issues were punted; the world watches as President Biden delivers his first State of the Union Address; and Utahns unite to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Ben Winslow, reporter with Fox 13 News; Emily Means, politics reporter with KUER; and Glen Mills, anchor and reporter with ABC4 News.

So glad to have you all here tonight.

So we talked a lot about the-- this legislative session.

Within a couple hours of the airing of this show, the session will end, sign to die, can't go past midnight, so we know when the love will stop coming, but we're going to talk about it today, too, because there's so many very interesting bills from the funding to the bills.

But most I want to start talking about sort of the theme of the session.

We, all of us--and you're the ultimate insiders here this evening--have really been able to follow for the past couple of years, the sessions tend to take on a certain theme, a topic or a subject.

I want to--I'm just curious what you all saw.

Ben, what did you see this session?

Ben Winslow: It felt like organized chaos.

Things actually moved through pretty well, but you know, there were some hot button issues, education certainly felt the heat this year, election security was a big issue, covid-19, but these things were--it was sort of a rollercoaster ride in the sense that, you know, these issues would pop up, they would, you know, go down, and then the next issue would pop up, and you know, that's kind of how I felt this session has been so far.

Jason: Is it a little different than prior sessions?

Ben: Yeah, moved at a different pace.

Things got moving really quickly right out of the gate and then slowed down, and now they're picking up again, but overall it's actually moved through--a lot of bills have moved through or been considered or had hearings, you know, with not a lot of problems.

Jason: We'll talk about a couple of those, that is true.

Emily, how about you?

Emily Means: Yeah, last year the main theme was really covid.

So that was very clear to us.

This year was a little trickier to pin down, but for me what I noticed was a level of micromanagement from the legislature that maybe we haven't really seen before, and that happened.

That was really evident in the first week of the legislative session when, essentially, the very first thing the legislature did was overturn the Salt Lake County and Summit County mask mandate.

So for me, that was a huge theme in the first week, but we also saw it with some of the other covid-19 bills that popped up this session as well as in education and particularly in what students are learning in the classroom.

Jason: So we almost forget that those things happened the very beginning of the legislative session.

Emily: Right, it was so long ago now.

Jason: It's true, how about you, Glen?

Glen Mills: Definitely unusual to see them coming out swinging the way they did this session, but I'm also taking a close look at a theme that's come up this year of what didn't pass, some really big issues that came up, and they did not make it and supporters of those issues are vowing to continue those efforts into interim next year.

A couple examples would be one, the Hope Scholarship bill, the death penalty repeal bill, and also the effort to eliminate the food tax, the state portion of the tax on food.

So it's very interesting to see so many big issues that made their way into the session, got hearings, made it to the floor, but did not make it, and supporters are vowing to continue that effort.

Jason: We're gonna see a lot of those continuing into the next legislative session as well.

To kind of set the stage, start talkin' about some of these bills that you all have referenced, one of our friends Adam Brown, a professor at BYU keeps track of how we pass the bills, 294 bills passed so far, and of note, over the last 9 years on average, 215 bills are passed in the last two days, yesterday and today, so that's kind of a lot of bills, so I think you're going to be a pretty good clip we see today and tomorrow.

And some of the bills we're gonna talk about today still on the board, we might not know until this evening, but let's get into a couple of those if you don't mind.

One that we started talkin' about here with you, Glen, the Hope Scholarship bill.

This was, you know, it was going to allow some money to flow with students in certain brackets.

This bill had some positive play in terms of public polling but not so much with the legislature.

Glen: Right, and you take a look at that public polling and the way the votes handled--played out in the legislature, and you kinda wonder about the public polling and if it was really-- that if it really had that much support.

Barely got out of a House committee and went down badly in the House.

Only 22 votes in favor of it in the entire House.

And if you remember the referendum several years ago, we saw a similar percentage vote.

So you have to wonder where the public is on this.

Certainly those who support it, are passionate about it, and they would really like to see something happen, they want to be able to use that money for private education or even at home education, and really you saw this shift is well when the governor came out early saying I'm not interested in this right now.

I may get there at some point, but this is not that point, and he threatened to veto it early on, and I think that probably had an impact on how it played out as well.

Jason: Go ahead, Emily.

Emily: Something that was interesting to me and watching that debate play out on the house floor is we saw leadership make some pretty strong statements in favor of it.

The House majority leader, Mike Schulz, gave a really impassioned speech in favor of the bill.

I noticed that Senator Kirk Cullimore who's in leadership on the Senate side was a floor sponsor for that bill, so it was kind of curious to me that this didn't have the votes in the House with that backing of leadership.

Ben: But this was also the year that education groups, the Utah Education Association, other teachers' unions, flexed their muscle and really showed that they can still bring opposition to a lot of these bills, vouchers, the curriculum transparency bills.

They really showed up and mounted what obviously was a very successful opposition to it.

Jason: So, Ben, I know you've watched this issue for a while now, so we saw what started as vouchers and it was kinda backpack funding and now it's scholarships.

What's next for this?

Because it seems like there's still some appetite even if not the votes right now.

Ben: Oh, it's not done.

It will come back next year.

This is going to be probably an annual issue that we'll see.

The governor, to your point, when he spoke about this, it really did seem to let the wind out of the room.

It just fizzled, and so--but it's not done.

You may see more of a shift, there's going to be that conversation about the constitutional amendment to rework the earmark on the income tax.

That's gonna probably go hand in hand with this and the governor's viewpoint on this was if you boost teacher salaries, if you boost education funding to this level, then let's talk.

Maybe you'll see that advance.

Jason: Yeah, it will be interesting to watch.

One of the things we talked about on this very show that has a long history is full-day kindergarten, which is so interesting.

I know you follow this one, Glen, a little bit too.

We were doing some research here.

I mean, this goes back to maybe like 2000 when we saw the first bill like this.

Every session where it comes up it doesn't quite get there, this time it did.

Glen: It did, and advocates early on were very excited about it.

They thought this was the year that they were going to get exactly what they wanted, and they did get some of what they wanted and they're not happy about the fact that their funding was slashed, because it's going to limit what they're able to do.

But it is potentially a start, so they're looking at it that way.

It will be able to expand the program to some students just not as wide and as broad as they would've wanted to.

Jason: Emily, it started as a $22-million ask, it got down to $12 million, but there's some legislators that are saying this is maybe at least a start, it's the most significant bill of the session, some education-minded legislators.

Emily: Yeah, I think that people are really understanding the value that public school plays in our society right now, especially because of covid, right?

We saw schools kinda go offline and parents really had to figure out what to do with their children who are usually in school.

But the funding piece is really interesting because local school district officials have said that funding is really key for this.

They're already having a hard time hiring teachers, and for full day kindergarten they're gonna need to staff up.

And in some cases they might need to build out their facilities to accommodate that as well.

So I think the funding is really important.

Jason: Well, we have to talk about funding for just a second, because, Ben, you brought this up a moment ago, not just what what money flowed, but the discussion of this session about education funding in any event.

You brought up this constitutional amendment idea, and as we know, income tax is tied to education, sales tax is tied to the general fund, and even as they're talking about how do we fund full-day kindergarten, they're talking about there still remains a big problem that they'll have to solve.

Ben: There is--this has been a weird year for money.

The state saw record revenues coming in.

Everybody came out of the woodwork with funding requests, you know, fund this, fund this, this little thing here, and everybody got some of what they wanted, but you didn't get all of what you wanted, and I mean, there's a lot of groups that are left unhappy with the legislature because of that, but lawmakers also want to address what they believe are some volatility issues, you know, especially in light of inflation and some of the things that we're all experiencing right now, and they're trying to bring some stability while also preparing for potential economic downturns.

That's why you saw more money stocked back into rainy day funds.

There's just a lot that they have to do, and this is partly why the sales tax on food was not addressed, as well, is the speaker said personally that he favors repealing the sales tax on food, which you know, that you'd think well then that bill would probably get through or get a hearing at least.

No, because they have the volatility issue with the sales tax and the general fund.

It's how you pay for everything, and they want to have this conversation about whether you remove the income tax earmark, but that's a constitutional amendment.

So that's a conversation you have to have with voters, and that is going to be an uncomfortable conversation, because voters just approved shelving social services under the income tax for education, which lawmakers thought would buy them more time before they had to have this next uncomfortable conversation.

Yeah, this is a weird relationship that the legislature has with voters and now they gotta sit down and go now we gotta talk.

Glen: Interesting, though, is as we come down to a year where we have surpluses and they're tryin' to figure out where to spend this additional money, people are still coming up short and saying I did not get what I want, and that's just the budgeting process.

Other industries were extremely happy with the funding they got from the state legislature.

Vulnerable adult services, people I've talked to an industry said they were ecstatic over the funding they got.

Higher education is coming out pretty well in this year, but still even in years where things are good and you're tryin' to find money ways to spend money, people are still coming up and saying we didn't get what we wanted.

Emily: I want to add something to that.

One thing that did get funded was that nearly $200 million tax cut.

That was a huge priority for leadership, and what's really interesting is kind of comparing that to some of the things that didn't get funded, in particular housing, affordable housing, which I think many Utahns agree is a huge crisis facing this state.

Just look at the cost of rent, the cost to buy a home, it's exploded here because of our growth, and one thing that state leaders say is really important in addressing that is supply, and that's what this funding would've gone toward.

So for me, I'm kind of confused as to why they didn't fully fund this request--in fact, it was just a fraction of what Governor Spencer Cox asked for--when they believe that the solution is building more housing, So.

Jason: Before we leave that one entirely, Glen, there is a bill that's still in play from Senator Jerry Stevenson, the income tax amendments.

It's really just changing the name of that education fund to the income tax fund.

We talked about this a couple times during--on this show but through the session--but that bill's still in play.

Where do you see that one going?

How big of a deal is it that it really just gets a name change?

Glen: I mean, I guess it's semantics probably as far as a name change goes, and we'll see how it plays out in the final hours today.

Obviously, it's got the backing from him.

He's a big player in the Senate.

So anytime I would say his name is on a bill--especially when you're talking budget--it has a chance of going through.

One of the things I was going to mention a little bit earlier when you talked about the final hours, one of my favorite things is to watch lawmakers from the Senate and the House just frantically running back and forth on closing night trying to get their bills through, and this may come down to a scene like that tonight as well.

Jason: Yeah, very well may be.

That is the fun part of the session for sure.

You brought this up a moment ago, Ben, is there were several bills dealing with curriculum, parental involvement, the legislative involvement, talk about those, because they didn't really get a uniform approv-- get uniform approval from our legislature.

Ben: No, and there were definitely a spectrum of viewpoints on these bills.

You had certain groups that absolutely hated the beginning of these bills but were okay with how they ended up.

You know, and this is the legislative process.

People weigh in on bills, and they get modified, and a lot of these bills either didn't advance or they have been modified enough to make people happy to clearly pass a chamber, and yeah, it was interesting to see these bills.

I don't think they're done.

I think a lot of the advocates for these types of bills are going to probably have them brought back in the interim if not in the 2023 session.

Jason: When you start talkin' about these education and current curriculum, Emily, people have talked before the session about a potential bill on critical race theory, for example, divisive concepts.

Senator Johnson proposed sort of at the 11th hour and it lasted about a nanosecond.

Emily: Right, I think that what we're seeing here in Utah really mirrors what we're seeing at the national level.

This debate around critical race theory and what some people think it means and for a lot of educators from my conversations with them, this distracts from what they really need, which is more support in the classroom.

Again, I mentioned that they're having a hard time staffing up in schools, so I think that they view these bills around curriculum as just noise.

Ben: But a statement that the legislature did make is what they did pass is a bill for ethnic studies curriculum in Utah schools, and what that does is it requires the state board of education to create a curriculum talking about the contributions of ethnic and racial minorities to Utah history, which is sort of the inverse of all of these bills, and that was run by Representative Sandra Hollins and Senator Kirk Cullimore, bipartisan legislation and passed with large support throughout all the chambers.

Glen: And I think to that point a lot of Republicans are saying this may be our way to get ahead of this conversation that you mentioned with CRT in passing something like that, that they'll have more control over as far as K through 12 education.

Jason: One of the interesting funding items last night that we saw, there's a $25 billion budget was--Ben: So much money.

Emily: But somehow not enough still.

Jason: Higher ed, you know, keeps asking for more.

It was interesting to see on the sheet that came out a $1 billion allocation of ARPA funds for transportation infrastructure.

Emily, talk about this for just a minute, because this is what everyone was talking about, and our legislature sees this as a huge investment in the state of Utah.

Emily: Listen, I'll be honest, I haven't been following this that closely, but I can tell you that the state is growing.

We're if not the fastest growing state in the nation, one of the fastest growing states in the nation, and transportation has to be a huge part of that consideration.

Ben: It is, it is.

This is a lot of money.

They have come to the conclusion, legislative leadership, that look, we can't double tra--or double, you know, decker I-15.

You cannot build enough lanes to accommodate the massive growth we're facing.

Transit is going to get some huge investments, you gotta deal with that.

Double tracking front runner, that's a project they're going to pay cash for so that they can get it for a little bit less money.

That's going to be huge because it speeds up the trains, its frequency.

That's one of the reasons people look to get on the trains is if it's faster.

They are doing this to address growth issues, and they've made this decision that, look, transit has to be an option.

Those are expensive projects, so you've got to throw money in there.

At the same time a lot of rural areas are going to see road improvements.

You still have to pay for the roads.

An interesting bill that kinda goes with this, road user fees.

For all the people out there who have your electric vehicle, you're gonna start paying, and that's--they've determined that it's a penny a mile with a cap at about 180 bucks with your registration fee.

This is similar to other states.

I believe Hawaii has this, Oregon might, but that's another thing that they're doing because they still have to address the road repairs while dealing with fuel efficient vehicles while dealing with electric vehicles as those are, you know, taking off.

But this billion dollars is gonna go a long way to keeping the roads repaired and then keeping transit moving.

Glen: And if I could just add one thing.

That's something the general public is looking at state leadership for to really get on top of, 'cause we all feel that as we're out and about, you know, whether we're sitting on I-15 in traffic or hitting the potholes on Redwood Road, whatever it is, it's something we feel on a daily basis, and that's something the public expects the legislature to get ahead of.

Emily: And one thing that I was kind of surprised.

In the same vein that they decided not to move forward with his free fare for transit.

If transit is a priority for the state, you know, one barrier to that, one barrier to getting people on busses or on the tracks train is how much it costs to get on, so.

Ben: But I feel like free fare February of which I used quite a bit is kind of the experiment.

Like, let's come back with some data.

Representative Briscoe who ran that bill told me that--'cause he pulled his own bill in committee--and he told me that he just wants to grab the data and have this conversation over the interim with lawmakers, and I think that this experiment that they tried all along the Wasatch Front with UTA might provide some valuable data.

They've already had--at least the early data shows that, yes, it saw increases.

People did--a 20% jump on weekdays on busses and trains, which is good.

So they I think--I don't think that's dead yet.

I think that's one of those-- but it's an expensive proposition.

That's 40 to 50 million right there to fund free transit for everyone, and I'm not sure if, you know, any other state's ever tried this.

Glen: That's what I wanted to bring up.

That's the major hurdle in this conversation.

We can say free fare, and yes, it's free for the rider who gets on that day, but it's not free.

People are paying for it, so the question becomes do those who not use transit subsidize it for those who do?

And that will be the major obstacle that supporters will have to overcome.

Jason: Mm-hmm, we'll watch this one closely, a lot of very interesting conversation around transportation this year, also about water.

Emily: This was kind of the year, the year for water.

Jason: It was, talk about this.

Emily: Well, I think House Speaker Brad Wilson really set the tone for this.

Right before the legislative session started, he held a summit on the Great Salt Lake, said this was one of his top priorities, restoring the lake after it hit record lows last year during our drought.

So what we saw was a lot of water conservation bills generally, but we also saw some big bills specifically intended to help the Great Salt Lake.

One of those sponsored by House Speaker Wilson, and basically the hope is that we will be able to to put more water in the lake and that should hopefully mitigate what could be some apocalyptic impacts of a drying lake.

Ben: It's an existential crisis.

I mean, I don't think anybody wants to breathe arsenic tinted dust storm air.

I mean, that's just bad.

And we--the Great Salt Lake has shrunk 11 feet since it first started being measured by Brigham Young.

This is really, really bad, and so they are trying to get ahead of it.

There's another bill that actually goes with that that I thought was interesting that is passing.

It requires all future water planning to take in--keep in mind the impact to the Great Salt Lake, which down the road this could affect some big development projects.

You know, just remains to be seen what happens with that.

The bills on secondary water metering are getting through.

That's a big thing for the state, because it affects all of us.

If you have a lawn, you're going to have a meter hooked up that's suddenly going to tell you how much you're using.

Proponents of this legislation say, look, it results in a 30% savings right off the bat, because you realize, oh my gosh, I'm really using a lot of water.

Doesn't charge you yet.

Yet is the important thing.

I'm also waiting to see what happens with the bills that prohibit HOAs in cities from requiring only turf lawns and allowing for zero-scaping and waterwise landscaping, those are still going through.

A lot of the water--water conservation was a big one.

We have the incentives, they're gonna offer incentives for people to flip the strip and agriculture to switch to more water saving technologies.

This was a good year for water conservation.

Glen: And that was all set up by last summer.

We all know how dry things were and how dire things were.

I mean, cities were running out of water supply.

So another interesting thing about how sessions usually play out is what's top of mind.

You know, when it's a really poor air quality year, air quality is always up there.

And when it's out of sight, out of mind, it kinda steps back, but that was a major priority coming in, and this winter has not been great by any means.

And so we all know what's likely coming this summer and that really helped get some energy behind a lot of these bills.

Jason: Yeah, completely bipartisan.

Emily: I'd like to mention just one more thing about water, and Ben kind of alluded to this, like these future projects that could impact the Great Salt Lake.

There's a project that could impact the great Salt Lake, it's the Bear River diversion.

The Bear River is a main tributary to the lake, and essentially they want to divert water from it so that we can support population growth in northern Utah.

At the beginning of the session--we're goin' all the way back--Senate President Stuart Adams said in his opening remarks we will be building the Bear River diversion.

So I think that state leaders are going to have to make some tough decisions when it comes to how they prioritize water in this state and whether the Great Salt Lake remains a top priority.

Jason: We'll watch it close.

I want to switch gears for just a moment, Glen, 'cause you and I have talked about this before, going into the session a lot of talk about we may see a few bills on election reform, election security, and there certainly was a lot of conversation but not a lot happened.

In fact, you know, everything from an initiative to a couple of bills that came forward, they just stopped, they just died.

Glen: They did, there wasn't a lot of appetite.

It was driven by a select few, no doubt about that, but we live in a Republican state where the Republican governor, the Republican lieutenant governor are speaking out heavily against this, and they're supporting the election system and the security of the election system, and so I think that sets a different tone here.

However, there are those that still have this perception that things went wrong during this last election, although they've failed to provide proof of it.

So we did see some bills and some efforts to try to eliminate vote by mail, to try to eliminate drop boxes.

They failed miserably.

The signature gathering process came up terribly short.

I think they got like 5,000, somewhere around 5,000 Signatures, Representative Phil Lyman's bill to do those things.

I was surprised it came out of rules.

I was not expecting that to happen.

It did, it got a committee hearing, three votes in favor, seven against, and it went down fairly quickly.

Jason: Two bills we're going to hear today that I wanna make sure we get to before the program.

Emily, start with first one, transgender athletes, okay?

So, is this going to come back?

It's sort of in a limbo spot right now, it's been circled, what are we gonna see?

Emily: That's a good question.

I think Ben might have more insight, but this is a bill that we saw come up last year as well, and it didn't find success.

This is a bill that would essentially--well, last year anyway, it would've banned transgender athletes from participating in high school sports, at least in the--Ben, you can kinda helped me on this.

I think you have more detail.

Jason: Yeah, talk more about this condition a little bit.

Ben: Yeah, this bill has been modified.

It is not a ban, which other states have done.

This creates a special commission to evaluate whether a student athlete who is transgender can participate in a sport that matches their gender identity.

This bill has been the subject of some very intense negotiations over the last few weeks.

This is a bill that leadership would like to see advanced.

What they what--I'm told that they're expected to do is eliminate the requirement to measure children's physical characteristics to determine eligibility.

That will certainly go a long way to making transgender rights groups a little more comfortable with this legislation.

They still don't necessarily like the special commission that would be created.

Social Conservatives on the other hand dislike this bill because it is not a ban.

I think you will expect this to reach some form of a--an agreement on this.

I don't know if you could call it a compromise.

I don't know now if you could call it a deal, but some kind of a bill will advance with this, and you know, this is kind of a different way.

It's Utah way of handling this type of contentious issue at least when it comes to determining this issue that's catching fire in other states.

Glen: This has been one of the most fascinating bills for me to watch the process.

They call the process sausage making, right?

And this one has been wild.

You have these two groups very passionate on both sides coming together, and a lot of times when you reach an agreement or a compromise as you talk about, both sides walk away feeling like they got a little bit of what they wanted, not everything.

In this situation, early on it seemed like they were going to come to agreement that everyone was going to be on board with, but in the end it's like neither side likes it.

So they're to this point where both sides are not at all happy with what's going on, and that's rare.

Ben: It's a weird situation where if this bill does not make it through, I don't think the Eagle Forum or Equality Utah will be necessarily upset with that, but to Representative Kera Birkeland's credit, she has tried really hard to get all sides to at least give input, come to some kind of consensus on this.

Because every time I run into her in the hallway and ask what the status of the bill is, she's like I'm still working on it, and there's an amendment coming and we just keep hearing gets coming.

When that amendment is filed, I imagine that's when the Senate will finally vote on this bill.

Jason: Just 30 seconds on the vaccine passport, Glen.

Glen: We'll see what happens there.

That's another one that we're going to have to kinda come down to the final minutes and see what happens.

It's sitting in the Senate right now, so whether they decide to keep it up or not we will-- we'll see as it plays out in the final hours.

Jason: So interesting, 'cause it's still in play, businesses not being allowed to decline someone from coming in based on what they call their their immunity status.

Emily: Another example of that micromanagement from the legislature in a way in businesses, and that's not something that the legislature usually likes to do.

Jason: Ben, in our last couple of seconds, big support from Ukraine from the state of Utah.

I want to talk about this rally for just a minute.

I know you covered, you watched it, talk about that, Utahns uniting for Ukraine.

Ben: It really was a lot of--a lot of support on that, and you know, even support what I saw strangely was when the governor ordered Russian-made vodka pulled from state liquor stores.

You know, it was a small gesture, but people were largely supportive of the governor's actions, at least from what I observed.

And of course, the huge crowds out there and then governor announced this fund for people to donate to help people in Ukraine, made $2 million just right out of the gate.

You know, Utahns have feelings about this, and they are certainly speaking it.

Glen: It's something that seems to be uniting us when nothing else seems to be able to.

People are getting behind Ukraine and not liking what they're seeing with the Russian aggression in that country.

Jason: That's gonna have to be the last word.

Great legislative recap, thank you so much.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This shows 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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