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♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason Perry: Good evening and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

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

Covering the week we have Brigham Tomco, Utah politics staff writer for the Deseret News; Jeff Parrott, politics editor for the Salt Lake Tribune; and Renae Cowley, lobbyist and political commentator.

Thank you so much for being with us.

The first show of the new year and it's time to start talking about the legislative session.

It's about--it's about to come January 21st, 45 days of love is about to come our way.

I want to talk about what we're going to see.

A little bit of a preview about what we're going to see.

Jeff, let's start with you for just a moment on this question here because we're going to see some major issues dealing with cuts to certain programs, particularly higher education.

Looking at right now a 10% budget cut and a reallocation is what we're hearing already from the legislature.

Jeff Parrott: So, we've already heard that the legislature is certainly looking at a different flushness of a budget that they've had the last couple of years.

Things look a little tighter.

One place they're looking for those cuts is in education and higher education specifically where the state does spend a lot of money and in all the state schools.

What 10% will look like at each university is certainly going to look different.

What's happening here at the University of Utah will certainly be different than what's happening at Utah State, perhaps in Logan.

I expect to see universities coming to the Speaker, coming to the Senate president with their own proposals of what cuts could look like before the legislature starts making those cuts for them.

Jason: Yeah, for sure and Renae, I want you to give us a little context for what's happening here, you've done some great writing about this in your column in the Deseret News as well.

You know, talking about this 10% budget cut to get perspective, like for the University of Utah, that's maybe just over $20 million worth of a cut and a reallocation.

Maybe talk about what you're hearing in terms of what they want to see in reallocations because that seems to be the big topic.

It's not just taken straight out of the universities.

It's supposed to go into certain sorts of areas that our legislature wants prioritized.

Renae Cowley: That's exactly right, Jason.

What we're hearing is that the legislature is looking at reallocations, not an across the board budget cut.

It's also going to be specific to certain areas that they want to see innovation on.

When you have tuition rising at a much higher rate than inflation, something's gotta change here.

And the legislature wants to run higher ed more like a business where the product is a high quality education that results in high paying jobs and their customers are students, parents, taxpayers, and employers.

They're trying to do all this while managing costs and bringing costs down, and that's really kind of the framework that they're looking at this through.

Jason: Brigham, how are you hearing about the reaction of people to this because it seems like you put it through a filter of a little bit like the jobs that are going to stimulate the economy, the high paying jobs are going to benefit.

It seems like there's almost a workforce alignment angle to the projected budget cuts.

Brigham Tomco: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of uncertainty about what this 10% reallocation means.

There's been kind of a playing around with words between some of the legislative leadership and Utah Governor Spencer Cox, but he seems to be framing in the same way that Senate President Adams is framing it and that this reallocation will be taken from some programs that maybe aren't as high performing that don't have as many, you know, students in the major or that don't have as high job placement.

And moving that money towards these majors that are very high demand whether it's nursing or engineering.

And so, I think the reaction depends on what department of the university maybe you're a member of, but as Renae said, Speaker Schultz has framed this as kind of a cost benefit analysis.

If these majors are producing good results, according to the legislator, then they'll get more funding and if not, then they'll get cuts.

Jeff: Jason, and to your point, certainly, the intent of curating the education for what the economy looks like in Utah.

I think we've certainly heard discussions about tech.

So, not just like things like nursing which we're always gonna need, but as we bring in more tech companies and we bring in more tech business, as we talk about AI, you know, looking at what the jobs of the future are gonna be and I assume kind of relocating money towards those programs.

Renae: The problem--The problem the legislature is gonna have though is looking at education a little bit more holistically.

It's more than just skills training.

Education is about the growth and experience too, experience in these universities and colleges.

So, just cutting humanities and other programs isn't really going to be the outcome that they're looking for.

So, just kind of keeping that balance in mind will be a challenge for the legislature.

Jason: Jeff, elaborate on your point a little bit there too in that context because some programs end up being the winners and losers potentially if that's the case.

There are some of those kind of course, you know, things in the catalog that people will be taking there.

Maybe not leading to the the job on Wall Street necessarily, but it might be an important part of the economy.

Jeff: Well, like Renae said, like parents, students are certainly the ones paying for this, but it's also taxpayers.

But if you go back to those parents and students, is the education worth the investment, right?

Like, are the college loans that I'm still paying for worth the job that I will hopefully likely find and have a chance to find after I graduate?

And if we can do something to bring this cost of those loans down or to make sure I have a job that's gonna be able to pay for those loans, there is an argument that investing where success will hopefully be is, you know, hopefully a good thing.

Jason: We'll keep watching this one.

I know I'll personally be very much involved in this one going forward as well.

I want to talk about this next big category of bills coming out dealing with elections.

Brigham, let's start with you on this one because we've already seen a couple, you know, early warning shots from our legislature on some bills that will be coming, but one that I think just came out this week in fact was one about criminalizing how people, you know, whether or not that you are looking at someone's ballot, not their ballot necessarily, but how they voted, criminalizing this.

This is the Utah County issue where we had a clerk who was sort of keeping track of some elected officials and how they were submitting their ballot, not their votes necessarily, but how they were voting, how they're submitting their ballot.

Brigham: Yeah, you're right, so this bill was introduced in response to that instance in Utah County, but it kind of feeds into the broader debate that we saw during the 2024 election cycle between the different ways that voting can take place in Utah.

And so, that particular instance stemmed from some controversy about lawmakers are supporting or promoting voting through the US Postal Service.

And then one county clerk, Aaron Davidson in Utah County, you know, wanting his constituents to know that maybe a more reliable or dependable way to vote is through the dropbox or through in-person voting.

And so, that touches on lots of election reform bills that will be introduced this session, whether it's requiring voters to opt-in to the vote-by mail system.

Or whether it turns into a sort of compromise or hybrid in between vote-by-mail and in-person voting where ballots are mailed out to all the voters in the state like it's currently done but then voters have to return these ballots in person with the voter ID system as is the case for in-person voting.

And so, these are all bills that are going to be introduced this session that will kind of, you know, renew the debate, I think in Utah about our vote-by-mail system.

Jason: I wanna get to the opt-in for just a moment, but let's finish on this one issue about criminalizing, Jeff, because you've read through this bill.

Talk about there's a potential criminal penalty involved with this now.

Jeff: Yeah, we actually saw that bill file come in last night from Rep. Stephanie Gricius, a representative that I don't know if victim is the right word, but certainly had from what we understand her ballot looked at by the clerk from Utah County, presented a bill.

It's HB-69, and I'm going off notes here, it would be illegal without consent to access a voter record, making it a class B misdemeanor, roughly six months in jail, $1000 penalty.

The legislature is certainly serious.

Jason: Yeah, they certainly are.

Renae, give us a little bit of a background on this opt-in idea about the ballots.

Right now if you're a registered voter, you get a ballot in the mail.

So, one of the discussion points is you have to decide officially say I want to opt-in to getting my ballot by mail.

Talk about a little history there and where you see this one going.

Renae: Well, Utah really led the way in pioneering the utilization of vote-by-mail ballots.

It wasn't that long ago that the opt-in was the standard in Utah, and to be frank, it was Republican strategists who utilize this the best to turn out their vote.

It gives them a longer window to chase those ballots as the term and to ensure that they turn out their supporters.

So, by going back to that opt-in, I think that one, you'll see the strategists utilizing those same tactics again trying to encourage their supporters to opt-in.

But the governor's right, we're not gonna get away from vote-in-mail ballots anytime soon.

Voters are comfortable with it now.

The Deseret News-Hinckley, poll that just came out said nine out of ten Republicans do trust state elections.

You don't have a majority of voters clamoring for this change, but if they did change, I think you will see a significant tranche of voters do that opt-in really on the front end.

They enjoy being able to the convenience of it, being able to research candidates, issues, and otherwise, in the, you know, comfort and convenience of their kitchen table for days and weeks beforehand rather than standing in line for hours on some random cold Tuesday in November.

Jason: So, Brigham, talk about, you know, your interviews and your reporting on this as well because it seems like Utahns by and large do very much support the mail-in ballots and getting them there.

Why are we still seeing so much controversy about that?

Why is that still what you're hearing from elected officials?

They still want to sort of tweak the laws around it.

Brigham: Yeah, during the 2024 election cycle during the Republican primary and the general election, there was a lot of talk from particularly losing candidates in the second congressional district Republican primary and also the gubernatorial race pointing out what they saw as weaknesses in the election process here in Utah.

And as I've talked to conservative lawmakers and more moderate lawmakers there actually seems to be broad-based consensus on there being room for improvement in the election system.

Maybe they don't draw the same conclusions that, you know, there had been election fraud, but they agree that there are some problems that need to be worked on.

And one example of this is in the second congressional district race we saw that that hyper close race that ended up in a recount could have been influenced by the fact that when people submit a ballot via the US Postal Service, there's no guarantee that it will receive a postmark by the deadline, which is the day before the election day and in many cases it does, but for some people who submitted their ballot potentially towards the end of that window, it may have been rejected because of that late postmark or maybe their ballot had been lost in the system and counted much later.

And so, that's one example of a real life hiccup, I guess, in the election process that has led lawmakers to want to potentially change the postmark deadline or some other reform.

Renae: Brigham, you're exactly right.

I think that postal service issue that happened when those ballots were routed through Las Vegas is a problem.

For all my fellow online shoppers out there this last holiday season who think that you can rely on the postal service to deliver everything on time always it's just not reality.

It's a federal agency and they have problems as well.

And so, I think you are gonna see a pretty significant push for either moving those deadlines up, encouraging secure drop boxes, encouraging more in-person voting, but it's an issue that needs to be addressed.

Jason: Jeff, before we leave this topic, any other bills we're going to see in elections that you already know about.

Jeff: Senate Bill 53, excuse me, another bill we saw will come out last night from now Senator Calvin Musselman.

Removes Utah's residency required for folks that are actually going out and collecting the signatures for Utah's signature process.

So, you would no longer need to be a Utahn to be someone out there collecting signatures.

It opens the window for someone to remove their signature later.

So, once you've, let's say I wanted to vote for Brigham in this upcoming election and I signed up to vote for him, to cast my ballot for him in the fall, but I changed my mind.

Something happened and I've decided to change my mind.

I can then contact an official, an elections official, and then have my name removed.

That's one option.

And then I think the other thing, you know, I haven't had a chance to talk to Senator Musselman yet, but what I think he's trying to do here is speed up the return of the canvassing process.

So, as the county canvassing boards do the final tally of the votes, speeding up that window from when they finish their tally to when they submit to the lieutenant governor's office.

Who, as we know, oversees Utah's elections.

Jason: Wow, we haven't even started yet.

So many interesting bills to monitor.

I want to get to one interesting, let's get to another branch of government for a second, Renae.

So, it seems like the Utah Supreme Court in particular, they were just put forward by the Tribune as the Utahn of the year, all of them, but it looks like there might be a little bit of scrutiny and put some potential bills directed towards the Utah Supreme Court.

Talk about what you're hearing there.

Renae: Well, the frustration from the legislature towards the judicial branch is quite palatable, and it's very clear that members of the legislature don't serve on the editorial board of the Tribune because I'm not sure they would have endorsed that.

The reality is that this is an important discussion that probably needs to be had.

A bill is gonna be introduced and the merits should be discussed of appointed versus elected.

Different states do it differently.

It's also a discussion that's been had over the years with the Attorney General's office and criticisms over individuals holding that office as well.

It merits discussion, but I'm not sure this is an issue that voters are really clamoring for their legislature to take on.

I think that you know time cools temperatures as well, and the reality is the legislature was so concerned about opening the floodgates for initiative and referendum.

That's really what drives a lot of this concern is they don't wanna make Utah more like California, governed by initiative, and I share that concern.

I think with this new reality that we're living in, we'll see how many initiatives get filed and how voters really feel about it and if it changes their perspective.

Jason: Brigham, and the people you're interviewing with our legislature and otherwise, is this--is this really kind of a mostly an inside baseball sort of thing with our Utah Supreme Court or will we see the legislature really kind of pulling them into some of these issues that they decided whether it's on our amendments, initiative process, even abortion or redistricting?

A couple of these big issues right over this past year that our legislatures got involved with.

So, talk about where you see this going, including what could be what Renae just talked about where you even changed the appointment process.

Brigham: Yeah, well, it does seem to be a priority issue among legislative leadership and some of the heavy hitters within the legislature, Representative Tusher and then Senate President Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz have all said this is a top issue going to 2025.

And the reason that they are placing such heavy emphasis on this issue is they feel like the Utah Supreme Court has stepped out of bounds in terms of the separation of powers between the three branches of government.

Which is an interesting response to decisions by the court that may be interpreted as the legislature stepping out of its bounds in terms of the separation of powers.

And so, they'll definitely be this tension between those two branches of government.

Jason: Yep, almost like that was how it was designed a little bit, I guess.

Any other bills that you see coming that we should talk about?

Some big ticket items for this legislative session.

Renae: Yeah, I think that energy production is gonna be pretty significant in this upcoming session.

You know, we're seeing concerns over the availability of energy in our state, frankly with the emergence of AI and new technologies, the tremendous population growth that we're having in our state.

It's--it warrants more exploration of energy development.

We're at capacity.

It takes ten plus years to bring on the type of capacity that we need in the traditional sense.

Utah is a very, very rich energy production capacity state.

We're just not utilizing all of it.

I think the legislature will be looking at different opportunities and everything is on the table right now.

It can be nuclear, behind the meter, it can be geothermal, more natural gas.

I think that the need is so great that you're gonna see some pretty innovative solutions brought forward.

And it's something that other states may model in the future.

Jeff: It's certainly not an issue that Utah can do alone though.

I mean, the federal government is gonna have a huge role, especially in the next four years, I think, working with or not working with Utah and what Utah's goals are.

Jason: Yeah, any other bills you wanna talk about?

Brigham: Another one that may have to do with the constitutional amendment and that's kind of been a heavy theme of the last few months is the legislature trying to put constitutional amendments on the ballot.

Some of those are rejected for a variety of reasons, but I think that they'll try to put constitutional amendments on the ballot again in 2025, and one of those might have to do with the way elections are overseen in the state.

Fifty years ago, Utah was like most other states in the Union where we had a secretary of state, a separate position overseeing elections, and then a lieutenant governor position was created that has overseen elections in the years since then.

Last session in 2024, Representative Ryan Wilcox introduced a bill that would kind of revert back to that secretary of state model and join the other 48 states in the country that have a similar kind of position.

And so, we'll be seeing something like that this next session.

And that would require a constitutional amendment is my understanding.

Jason: Thank you, we'll watch all these very closely.

I want to talk about the budget for just a moment because we're still looking at the revenue numbers.

They do still appear to be flat but within our legislature, Jeff, we're still hearing our legislature and the governor very much wanting to talk about this tax on Social Security going away.

Jeff: Yeah, it would certainly be a tax that of course would impact seniors in our community, seniors in the state.

It's--if that's what the--it's certainly what Spencer Cox has said that he wants one of his priorities to be, along with those, you know, priorities being housing and energy like we talked about, but the governor is certainly gonna have to get the legislature on board if that tax cut is going to happen to, you know, what effectively would help seniors in Utah.

Jason: Yeah, so Renae, this is something a lot of our legislators talk about is these tax cuts.

This is one.

Are we going to see any other potential bills come forward on reducing tax and other rates that you are hearing right now?

You know, this is a flat year which makes it a little harder to talk about these tax cuts.

It's 130-plus million dollars ish, something like that, for the Social Security tax cut if they do that.

What are you hearing there and what is the appetite right now?

Renae: There's always a discussion about changing the different mix of what our taxes look like.

The Republican legislature is very interested in taxing visitors to our state and not residents of our state.

Again with this down budget year, it's gonna be difficult to make really big sweeping tax breaks that they would like to do.

And as we look at future needs as well, we have a lot of infrastructure capacity that needs to be adjusted.

We have the Olympics on the horizon.

We have some major things that the state needs to be investing in.

And so, the best bang for their buck this year is really going to be eliminating that tax on Social Security.

With inflation at the rate it's been for the last several years, of course Utahns are very frugal, they've been tightening their belts.

They've been reducing their spending and that's why revenues are down.

Not necessarily an indication of a slowing economy, but I think that those who feel the sting of inflation the most are those senior citizens living on fixed incomes, and the relief that they would get from this reduction or elimination of tax and their Social Security benefits will be the most impactful that they could do this session.

Jason: Go ahead, Brigham.

Brigham: Yeah, I think that another piece of context that this tight budget year, you know, where it comes into play is that we come off of a few years of record spending on homelessness in the state in 2019, 2021 there was tens of millions of dollars directed towards this problem that has only gotten worse in the last few years.

In fact, chronic homelessness has doubled, I think since 2019 in the state and the state has tried to take a new direction, kind of reimagine its approach to homelessness once again by finding a location for a central campus along the Wasatch Front that could have beds for 1200 people but would have wrap around services to hopefully get people off of the streets permanently.

And they are going to announce a location for that potentially in the next week or so, but as far as funding the construction of this building and these wrap around services, it could be that that's put on hold because of this tight budget year.

So, there'll be some really tough decisions as far as reallocating money from existing programs to these new homeless programs that they're wanting to pursue.

Jason: The needs are many for many of these programs and limited funds.

I want to get to a couple other events and changes happening.

Jeff, let's talk about a very interesting one.

Representative Kera Birkeland this week announced her resignation.

She has another job that she's taking, but she's, you know, cited the need to be with her family.

But very interesting spot right now from an interesting part of the state.

So, give us some of the context there, and Renae, this would be your representative that will be there too, so I want to talk about the process for replacing her.

Talk about the circumstances there, Jeff.

Jeff: So, Representative Kera Birkeland, will not be in the legislature this year.

She already has some bill files opened as lawmakers can do well ahead of the session, yet to be determined what will happen with those files, whether someone else picks them up or whether they just go away, yet to be determined.

It's still a little early.

Kera Birkeland, picked up a what she said was a remote lobbying job in Montana this summer.

As the, you know, the legislature got closer, as Montana's legislature got closer, I imagine it was probably hard to see where to make it all the busy schedules work, but I don't know.

I haven't talked to her about why she made this decision.

Maybe you've got some more insight.

Jason: Go ahead if you have some right there, Renae, and then talk about this because we have eight candidates who have filed to replace her.

This will--they'll be selected by 67 Republican delegates.

That's a pretty small group picking someone from this position, but that's the way the process is going to work.

Talk about that for just a moment, any context you have.

Renae: And in a very short timeline as well.

Well, Representative Birkeland being my representative, has really made a significant impact during her short period of time in office.

You know, wish her and her family well in their next endeavors.

Those vying--those candidates vying to fill that vacant seat now have a very truncated timeline to reach out to these 67 delegates.

It's a deep field so that means I predict several rounds of balloting.

We're going to have a pretty narrow margin I think too just because you have so many different people with so many different diverse backgrounds.

You have Chris Campbell who changed parties in order to campaign with these state Republican delegates.

I think it'll be interesting to see how they receive that.

You have Ari who just lost a Summit County council seat by 1% point.

So, a Republican with some name ID in Summit County.

This is a multi-county seat too, so you have to look at individuals like former Representative Logan Wilde who's running for this seat again.

He had a lot of respect and a good track record too when he was in office.

You have a county Republican chair.

You have a well known attorney.

Everyone that's running for this kind of brings their own unique perspective to what this office is gonna need, and it's just up to 67 delegates in a very short amount of time.

Jason: We're watching this one closely here because Kera Birkeland had a lot of bills that generated a lot of attention here and we'll see if that continues to be the case from that particular district.

Brigham, I want to talk for just a moment about the passing of former President Jimmy Carter, 100 years old, had some ties to the state of Utah.

Talk a little bit about sort of the history there and the connection to the state.

Brigham: Sure, so Jimmy Carter left a long legacy of maybe setting an example for what a post presidency can look like at the end of his first term and only term he had I think a 33% approval rate but within I think 20 years of being out of office he had a 66% approval rate.

But during the middle of his first term in office, he actually came to Utah in 1978 to a National Families Conference and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints awarded him a Family Unity award that said love at home, and I think that Jimmy Carter was one of the most outwardly faithful or Christian presidents that the nation has had.

And so, in that sense he leaves a legacy of being very open and transparent about how his faith influenced his priorities as a politician but then also in how he chose to use his time afterwards in contributing to Habitats for Humanity and doing service projects across the globe.

Jeff: And perhaps faithful to his values and to what he thought was important to his own political detriment, you know, I think a lot of time political--politicians take in a little bit of calculus as we've seen.

The difference like between the two senators in this state even where part of your calculus on whether you're getting reelected and what kind of power you have, maybe doesn't initially line up with like where your values were at the beginning, but the former president, you know, certainly lived by his values through his presidency, through trying to get Iran, the hostages in Iran out, to as Brigham said, you know, like living a humble and service driven post-presidency life, but it certainly set up Democrats to lose the White House for more than a decade afterwards.

Jason: As he talked about Renae, in our last 20 seconds here, it's interesting regardless of party we had people throughout the state, including most of our elected officials, giving statements about former President Jimmy Carter.

Renae: Well, the past presidents time in office did precede every panelists existence on earth, but what we do--of course, but what legacy he leaves for us is his dedication to faith, family, civility, and service, and I think that that's a wonderful legacy and it really the gold standard as Brigham said.

Jason: Okay, very good, thank you, thank you for your insights and the great preview for what's to come for this legislative session.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

The show is also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

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