announcer: Funding for "The Hinkley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinkley Report," Utah's legislature gears up for the 2023 legislative session.

With a record surplus, what tax cuts can Utahns bank on?

How will elected officials address major concerns facing state resources?

And which controversial issues will lawmakers tackle this year?

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Doug Wilks, executive editor of the Deseret News; Holly Richardson, editor of UtahPolicy.com; and Chris Bleak, partner with RRJ Consulting.

So glad to have you all with us.

I want to start talking about the legislative session.

It starts on Tuesday, 45 days.

Our legislature has a lot in store for us, and we've kinda had a little bit of a preview this year, Doug, of what the big ticket items are, they might be thinking about, at least those categories.

Talk about those pillars as we know them now.

Doug Wilks: They really are pillars this year, and both constituents and I think lawmakers agree on them.

First and foremost, top of mind is water.

Certainly, can we keep, save the Great Salt Lake, and the legislature has done things last year, put quite a bit of money into that, and that will continue as well as, you know, water for across the state.

Secondly, you have education.

You also have a tremendous surplus, more than $3 billion, so tax cuts are going to come as well.

And then finally, housing.

And what can the legislature do with housing?

Well, that speaks to infrastructure.

So those things are going to dominate, I think, as well as of course all the other smaller things, but equally perhaps important things will be discussed.

Jason: Well, as you break down those pillars, Holly, it's really interesting to see what they're going to do with these funds.

As Doug mentioned, just over $3 billion dollars of new and ongoing money.

As you start thinking about those pillars, how are they prioritizing what they're going to go after and invest in?

Holly Richardson: Well, I think one of the things that you have is that feels like it's a lot of money, but there's always more ask than there is money available.

So it doesn't matter how much your surplus is or even if you're cutting in the really lean years, but I think this year they're really prioritizing education for one thing.

So, teacher salaries, WPU for students, I think you'll see discussion between the executive branch and both houses up there about whether--how much that's going to be and if it's tied to other bills.

I think you're gonna see a lot of money put into water infrastructure especially, right?

And I've heard both the speaker of the House and president of the Senate say they need generational investments in infrastructure, water infrastructure especially, moving forward.

Jason: Mm-hmm, Chris, you you served as chief of staff to the speaker of the House at some point, so you've been there when we had surpluses.

You've been there are times when we didn't as well.

Talk about what's happening behind the scenes as we start really trying to tee up where the state's going to put this money and what priorities are really going to get funded.

Chris Bleak: Yeah, I think one of the things that's important now, both the president and the speaker have a really great relationship, and I think that includes the governor as well.

There's been a lot of conversations already going on laying out big blocks where they intend to spend money.

You saw an executive appropriations meeting back in December highlighting where some of these blocks of money would go.

And so it starts to refine the conversation about where are we going to focus this?

Maybe the particulars and what exactly gets funded changes, but we know already that there are some big places that they're going.

And I think one of the other things, these themes, these pillars we talked about, the president I heard talking this week about making sure that we maintain a strong middle class here in the state of Utah, and I think these these priorities, as Doug talked about, not only are they important at the legislative level, they're important with the citizens.

There seems to be a confluence there between the interests and needs of those two groups together.

Jason: So it's an interesting point, Doug, this kind of disappearance of the middle class is what some are talking about in the legislature, the president of the Senate certainly has talked about that.

It gets to inflation, it gets to housing and other issues here, and it leads to what some legislators are really calling for and the governor as well is a tax cut.

Talk about what is sort of on the table now and the reason why we're going that direction.

Doug: Well, the governor even yesterday at--or on Thursday at the economic summit--talked about returning a billion dollars to taxpayers.

Speaker Wilson kind of tapped the brakes on that a little bit said, yeah, we'll need to see.

But clearly there's motivation to return money in various ways to taxpayers.

One is lowering the income tax, which is--what is it, 4.85 to 4.75?

Jason: To 4.75, yeah.

Doug: Which is one proposal, but there are other incentives as well that could go there.

Jason: Mm-hmm, Chris, how much impact does that have historically?

'Cause usually when we have surpluses, the legislature talks about let's give it back.

What point does that really start to have some kind of substantial impact to the issues we've just been talking about?

Chris: I think where the impact is, because people will make the argument that it's X number of dollars back, right?

Like it's $100 back or it's X number, which may not feel that large, but at the state level where where you look at it from a global perspective, moving that money back to the citizenry, that builds up over time, and it's important.

And there's arguments on both sides as to why they should or shouldn't do that, but I think the legislature feels like we should not be taking in this amount of money.

We do need to return it to the citizens and let that be spent there as long as they feel like they're meeting their infrastructure and other governmental needs.

And I think that the state of Utah has done a good job of balancing those two things, making sure that they're meeting the needs, making sure that the infrastructure is growing.

Those things can happen while also returning money to the citizenry.

Jason: Mm-hmm, Holly, you mentioned a big-ticket item is really public education.

Talk about some of the proposals on the table, because it may go a couple directions this session that are gonna get people pretty interested.

Holly: Yeah, sure, so one of the big proposals is sending money back to parents to use as they see fit for educational needs for their students.

So some people are calling those vouchers, some people are saying please don't use that word, it's a bad word, but really what this proposal would do--and Candice Perucci, Representative Perucci is running this bill again--is it would give $8,000 to families to use whether for homeschooling or private school, but it would be like an HSA, or health savings account, where you have to show that you actually used it for educational expenses.

This is not just a bonus.

But that's one of the big proposals on the table, and it's pretty controversial.

Jason: Yeah, so it's called "Utah Fits All" is the name of this bill from Candice Perucci.

Chris, you have some pretty serious history with this issue going back at least in 2007 as I recall with then Senator Steve Urquhart.

Chris: Yeah, and there have been a lot--I think there have been a lot of changes substantially in terms of how people view this issue.

Holly referred to as an HSA, which you know, a scholarship; I think that's a great idea.

The question here is do people want more options?

You know, we've been through this pandemic where people, you know, we taught kids in a different way, in good and bad, we learned a lot there, but I think people are more and more interested in saying, "I need to have more options in how I customize the education for my children."

And so this--that's where this could really start to attract a number of people that wasn't there necessarily in 2007, that could be a change from what we saw back then.

Jason: Doug, talk about what that change might be for those people who watched this closely from back in 2007; the bill passed, Senator Urquhart's bill passed, and there was a referendum from the voters that got rid of that particular bill.

Have things changed enough and to what degree that there might be a chance this year that we are there with our legislature?

Doug: Well, I think the biggest change is coming through COVID, you see the value of education, you see some students really fell far, far behind.

So I think the main question when you look at whether you're going to give money to, you know, per student to each family to use for education, will it have the intended impact of helping students and educate students?

Are there unintended consequences?

For example, if you do that, will people withdraw from the public school system, and then will those public schools say we need more money, or will they improve and it becomes a competitive environment that lifts all boats, if you will?

So really, the unintended consequences, and will it achieve the desired outcome are the two main questions for me.

Chris: And Doug raises an interesting question that you're seeing a little bit of tension around how should we judge whether this program, this scholarship, is working.

There have been those that have called for some type of assessment to make sure that students are learning and making the growth that they need to make, and that's irritating some within the homeschooling community on the far right saying, I don't want government more involved in how I'm choosing to educate my child, stay out of it.

And so I think you're gonna see some tension around that issue that could impact the vote and how they manage that could make the difference between, you know, passage and not passage.

Back in '07, as you mentioned, it passed in the House 38-37.

There were no votes to spare.

I suspect that, you know, they're within those margins again.

And so every little policy issue could impact who votes for it and who votes against.

Jason: Holly, talk about how this is going to impact public education.

There's this idea that was just just referenced, too, that maybe this puts competition into the mix, and so it elevates everyone.

Holly: Yeah, I think one of the issues that you might see is that this bill will be tied to the teacher raises, and I think teachers do not like being used as political footballs.

During the pandemic, at the beginning of the pandemic, remember there was lots of stuff on social media, "Pay teachers a million dollars a year!"

They're, you know, they're doing this heavy lifting of transitioning immediately to online learning, and then by the end of the mask mandates and everything, people are like, "Teachers suck, man," so you've got this mix of being used as a political football, and how is that going to impact morale?

How is that going to impact--I think to the buildings.

We know that there are some school districts who have lost enough students through aging out of their neighborhoods that schools are having to close down in Salt Lake City school district for example.

So I mean, there's always those issues of how does this actually play out in the real world?

Doug: There is motivation to give teachers more money, don't you think?

Holly: Well, yeah.

Doug: In some capacity with this much surplus to not give teachers more money I think would be-- Holly: Yes, but I think they're trying to tie it to this bill that's a little less palatable so that it can get through.

Jason: So Chris, talk about what's happening right there, because we have--we've heard even well before the session started when the governor put out his budget, the question was asked, you want more money for teachers in terms of an outright salary increase, and immediately people started talking about whether or not we would trade this "Utah Fits All" for--a voucher--for teacher compensation increases.

Chris: Yeah, I think it's part of the legislative process, so I don't have any issue there.

And I think that's an appropriate discussion to have.

I guess the real insider question is how closely will they tie those two issues together?

And what I mean by that is will they actually be in the same bill?

If they're in the same bill, and we go to a referendum again-- assuming they don't get the vote thresholds they need--then you're voting--then the public is voting, saying, do I want to give a $5,000 raise to my teacher?

Is that enough for the $8,000 for the scholarship?

So then that question becomes even more interesting.

If they don't tie it as directly, there's different factors that go into that, but I suspect that they will look at combining that and at least having that conversation.

We'll see where they get it ultimately.

Jason: Before that, Chris, will you please explain those voting margins and why that is so significant?

And maybe why legislators do pay attention to the percentage of their colleagues that do vote for a bill.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely.

The voucher referendum has cast a long shadow on Utah politics for a long time because of that, and in order to do a referendum--if you can avoid a referendum, I should say--if you get 50 votes in the House and 20 votes in the Senate.

If you fall below those margins, then the public has the choice of going to get the signatures, doing a referendum, and allowing the public to vote up or down on that bill.

And so that is casting a shadow.

We saw it on the tax issue from a couple of years ago.

We saw that in redistricting.

And so I suspect that there-- it's front and center in their discussions right now.

Jason: Uh-huh, it's interesting they do pay attention to that.

Go ahead, Doug.

Doug: No, I'm good.

Jason: Okay, so let's talk about just one companion to this as well, is when you have record amounts of money, it's what pot the money is in as well.

And so we're having some discussions with our legislature right now about that earmark where income tax is tied to education funding, whether or not they should address that particular fact, and you know, sales tax of course tied to the general fund--about whether or not that mix should be addressed again this year.

Doug: Well, this goes back several years where there's a very real change in society which that people are buying so much online that--the tax structure was such that you need to be in a brick and mortar store, you put your money down, sales tax is taken, and off you go.

They haven't quite solved that online even as they've tried to make changes to tax that, so there's an imbalance there.

So how do you get that back?

Well, if income tax is the only bucket, and it's all tied to education, is there not a way to adjust that and even out so that money can be spent across platforms without hurting education?

Jason: We'll watch this one.

We had a little adjustment there, even something we had a chance to vote on recently as as the public.

Holly, let's get into a couple of these other key issues, the big bills.

Give us a couple you're watching.

I have a couple I want to ask you about, but any big bills you see coming that we really should talk about?

Holly: I think some of the bills that are already controversial have to do with transgender athletes and students.

I think that we'll see bills right out of the gate that will prohibit both surgery and puberty blockers being given to minors.

I think that we're going to see bills on abortion.

We already have them coming at that issue from multiple directions, right?

So we have legislators who are Democrats who are running abortion bills.

We have legislators on the right who are running abortion bills.

And so we'll see those being discussed.

I think some of the bills that I'm following actually are less of the big issue bills, and that includes Medicaid expansion for women who are pregnant and on Medicaid, but also women who are postpartum, so after they've had their baby.

Right now Medicaid only covers for 60 days, and what Rosemary Lesser would like to do, who is a retired OBGYN, is to expand it to a year.

We know that you can have postpartum depression, for example, diagnosed within the first 12 months after the baby's birthday.

So if you only have two months of coverage but you get postpartum depression at four months or five months, right, then you're kind of left kind of in this in-between space.

So I think those are bills that I'm going to be watching too.

Jason: Those are big.

I understand the transgender bills may be up this very first week of legislative sessions.

We'll follow that closely as well.

One that you mentioned, Chris, love to have you talk about, is our legislature is definitely going to get into legislation on abortion itself.

We were one of 13 states that had trigger laws.

That trigger law has been stayed currently, but we see a couple of bills coming down that are going to address this.

Talk about a couple of those.

Chris: Yeah, I think there are a couple of interesting bills.

Maybe the one that is most dramatic that I'm aware of right now is a bill from Representative Brady Brammer, which certainly has an impact.

It deals with how the courts can rule, proactively issue an injunction, and this goes beyond just--there are injunctions filed all the time, and so I think this is an interesting probably legal discussion that attorneys are excited about in terms of how should courts--what should be the standard for determining that there is an injunction filed.

Because currently the trigger law is enjoined, and so that's one way that Representative Brammer is going to go about it.

I think the other discussion that's gone on there is, are the terms clear enough in terms of this?

One of the things the state has done is they have allowed the exemptions, you know, that often are talked about around abortion.

And the state wants to make sure that those are in place but needing to clarify some of those in terms of how that's dealt with going forward.

Jason: Representative Ray Ward is working on those definitions.

Can I talk about one of these for a second?

This this injunction idea, Doug, if we can just explore that a little bit, because you might not think it's exactly on the abortion bill it's getting to, but this is changing the rules of civil procedure.

So right now it's saying retroactively, so would--as Chris was saying, to take care of particular stay--that courts could not grant an injunction, and this would be the new standard unless the case has a substantial likelihood of success.

That would be the standard they would have to use to issue an injunction.

Doug: Well, one reason for injunction is to give people time to have the appropriate investigation, debate.

And so things can't just knee-jerk happen and then you're dealing with consequences.

It's a time to take a pause.

You look at, is this really what we want to do?

And the judges, you know, the judiciary has typically made that decision weighing, you know, how effective will it be?

Well, is it likely to pass or not?

That's pretty tough on, you know, at 10 at night when they're looking for an injunction to stop something from going forward.

So it'll be interesting to see whether that law change happens.

I don't know that--I don't know that I've seen enough to say yes, let's change, because I think I'm always looking for unintended consequences, and I think there could be many with that.

Jason: Yeah, very interesting, we'll watch that closely.

So we have some other interesting bills.

I want to ask you about a couple, Chris, but is there a big one that you're watching?

Chris: Well, I think the most important debate is around the state flag, and I only say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but this has been a great process, a public process to involve people to choose a new state flag.

And that will be front and center in a lot of discussion.

But I think Holly made an interesting point.

There are a number of bills and issues that are dealt with that are important or will have an impact that people aren't paying attention to.

Sometimes the press won't pay attention to in the same way.

One that comes to mind is there's been a lot of conversation this year about blockchain technology and how cryptocurrency is used and how some--how blockchain is used to certify documents.

And so I think we're going to see some discussions around that, some bills passed that could be really impactful as you think down the road.

And maybe the other important issue that I'm always interested in is workforce, you know, what's going on in the workforce?

Are we making sure that we're preparing our universities, our students so that they can be prepared for the jobs of the future, and that's something that Senator Millner and a number of other folks, Representative Peterson, have always been very interested in, and I think we'll see a lot of discussion around workforce again and how we can prepare our students going forward.

Jason: Very good.

Anything else you're watching you'd like to bring up, Doug?

Doug: Well, it's really the principle.

I mean, less important to me, the specific bill, is how we're talking about it.

I mean, as you talk about transgender issues, you are dealing with people, and one of the difficulties in going through a legislative process is people who are going to be impacted or affected by that say, even the conversation hurts me or it shows me something.

So you have to discuss it, but I think there needs to be real sensitivity on the lawmaker front.

Have we heard from the voices we need to hear from?

Can we keep the vitriol out of the discussion?

And can we allow the medical profession to do its job?

Can we allow the legal profession to do its job?

So, really keeping that an above board thing, I think, if that could become a Utah way, that would be really terrific.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely right.

Let me talk about a couple of things, the new dynamics of our legislature.

So Chris, we have new legislators.

We have 16 new legislators in the House, 4 in the Senate when Senator Karen Mayne--maybe talk about that for a minute because we're gonna lose--Senator Karen Mayne is going to step down.

Chris: Yeah, and I think everyone is sad by that.

Senator Mayne is a real just pillar on on Capitol Hill and somebody that we'll miss greatly.

And I know the Senate president talked about that, missing somebody that he feels like he can deal with.

But Karen was a great champion for labor, for the individual, and I think that will be missed.

It's fascinating to me since the election, we've already had two legislators step down, Senator Karen Mayne and Representative Adam Robertson, and it's a reminder that things change quickly up there, and so we're going to see new people already, people that are gonna come in here in the next day or two that are gonna have to get up to speed and get ready for this next year.

So that dynamic is always significant, particularly in the House.

How are these new members going to be reacting to issues?

How does leadership manage that?

It's always a dynamic that's interesting to watch.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely right.

I want to get some federal issues, but I want to talk about one more bill.

This is in the category, Holly, that you mentioned.

There's so many bills have a big impact and will be significant and we might not talk about them as much.

One that I thought was interesting is one from Senator Todd Weiler on domestic violence.

You get calls on domestic violence, and sometimes those things don't lead to criminal charges, but he wants to create a state database of domestic violence calls, so if something happens it's not like we have all new--we had no idea there was a problem.

Talk about this, 'cause this is gonna have impact in our homes.

Holly: Yeah, this is an issue that's really being championed also by the lieutenant governor, who lost her cousin to a domestic violence homicide this summer.

And one of the things that they realized as they started unpacking her cousin's specific case is there was not any formalized cross-department communication.

And so even though her ex-husband had been threatening at her place of employment, it was in a different county than where she lived and where she was actually killed.

And so by the time they got all the wheels kind of turning together, she was dead.

And that's I think one of the issues that's gonna be brought up by this database is we have to know who's out there making threats.

And I think one of the additional bills that they'll look at is a lethality assessment that looks at the risk of this person committing assault.

'Cause right now the lethality assessment looks at the victim and are they at risk of dying from this person, but this other one would also look at how much are they at risk of actually committing this crime.

Doug: You can see, I mean, in other states and in some communities in Utah where the dialogue or there's an escalation of threat violence, and if law enforcement knows that, if we can get the word out, not--you know, to everyone about that, then you can prevent things before they happen.

And of course, this weekend they're burying a family in Enoch that suffered this.

Now, whether this would have prevented that, it's likely not, but--because they do have a semblance of this in that community.

But this was on the radar even before that horrible event, and it's probably time for this to happen.

Jason: Yeah, seems like that's absolutely right.

Let's just end with some federal issues.

It's interesting, Chris, we have a new speaker of the House.

The Republicans have control of the House in Washington, D.C, but at what cost?

Talk about that for a moment.

Chris: Yeah, I think it was certainly interesting to watch.

I stayed up and watched the last votes and was fascinated how that process played out.

I've seen that here in the state play out in kind of a mini-level.

One of the things that I found that I think is most significant for Utah, this was very good for Utah representatives.

You see Representative Blake Moore has now taken a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, which is by far the most prestigious House committee.

What a significant opportunity for him.

You have Representative Curtis on Energy and Commerce, and Representative Stewart on Appropriations.

So clearly those--the four, you know, including Representative Owens who stood with Speaker McCarthy, it's been beneficial for them, and I think ultimately beneficial for the state of Utah.

So despite the messiness, which I think is part of the fun and probably not that big of a deal, but it does show there there could be some problems down the road as they have to deal with that, that small band and how they manage that.

Jason: Well, I want to read a tweet that came out from one of our members.

This is from Congressman Stewart.

Doug, if you'll talk about this for a moment, because it's just very interesting to see what kind of implications there may be long-term on this.

So let's just talk about this for a moment, because we'll see how this plays.

This is what Congressman Stewart says--there were 15 rounds of voting.

"As this drags on it's becoming clear that the small group of dissenters aren't going to do this for the good of the country.

They're doing it for themselves.

They've been given virtually everything they've asked for.

It's nothing more than unserious lawmakers holding up serious work."

Doug: Yeah, well, I mean, I don't disagree with anything, you know, Stewart said, Congressman Stewart said.

I don't think it has a huge lasting impact.

More important to me is will they be able to govern with a small--what do they have, nine or ten more Republicans than Democrats?

They're dealing with George Santos right now; that becomes a huge distraction because of how he was--how he came to be seated.

So I think Utah has always played above its weight, punched above its weight, I should say, and I think they'll continue to do that.

But yeah, we'll just have to wait and see how effective they all are.

Jason: Holly, how do you see this playing out?

Is this just more of the standard show of the game?

Holly: I actually think that it will have implications down the road as you've got this rowdy group of legislators who know that they can stop the process really at any time.

And I think that's what we might see is if they bring up bills that this small group of dissenters doesn't like, then they'll just call for a no-confidence vote in the Speaker or try to gum up things.

That's what I think will happen is that they'll--it'll end up being more dysfunction in Washington and nothing will happen in the next two years.

Chris: Hey, Chris, you got 30 seconds for some optimism.

Chris: Well, I will give some optimism.

I do think there are enough lawmakers that despite that small margin that want to come together and govern on some of those big issues, whether it's debt limit or passing a budget and some of those types of things, the question--and Holly is right on this--is how will people react?

Because right now if you've got one for a motion to vacate the Speaker, get rid of the Speaker, how will the rest of the folks vote on that?

And will there be some people coming across the aisle to look at that or deal with that?

And so, but it is absolutely a challenge Speaker McCarthy has and the Republican Congress has to govern.

Jason: Okay, we'll watch that one and these other issues closely.

Thank you so much for your insights this evening.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available 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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