(victorious orchestral music) - [Announcer] PBS Utah presents: "The Governor's Monthly News Conference: An Exchange Between Utah Reporters and Governor Spencer Cox."

(victorious orchestral music continues) - Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

It's great to see all of you as we get to be together one more time, one last time, with PBS, our last press conference of the year.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, happy holidays.

Whatever it is you're celebrating this time of year, we hope you're well and safe and surrounded by friends and family.

We feel very lucky to live in such a great state.

I thought I would just maybe take a minute to recap some of the highlights of the past year.

I'm, of course, grateful for the goodness of Utahans.

And anytime I start to feel a little overwhelmed or bad about anything, I just literally call any of the other 49 governors in this country, and I immediately feel so much better about my life.

And it's because of the great people that live here in this amazing state.

I'm particularly proud of how the state of Utah has worked on some of the most pressing issues of our day over the past year.

We've talked extensively about putting social media companies on notice, passing groundbreaking legislation there, launching a public education campaign to help parents protect their children, bringing lawsuits against TikTok and Meta, and we're certainly not done there.

Some other things that I think are really important to look back on.

I'm so proud that we had the largest increase in teacher salaries in our state's history, and I believe the largest in the entire country, this past year.

We're so proud of our teachers.

Significant investments in mental health, domestic violence prevention.

We've done more in domestic violence prevention this past year than ever before in our state, and victim services as well.

We did a significant amount for housing affordability and homelessness.

Maybe more than anything, the almost $500 million for water infrastructure conservation and agriculture optimization that will help us for years to come.

Coupled with the investments the year before in the Great Salt Lake.

We're really proud of the legislature and the work they're doing there.

And, of course, the $873 million in tax cuts over the past three years, almost triple the most by any administration in our state's history.

And voters have an opportunity to further cut taxes with the sales tax on food coming up.

So we're very excited about the good things that have happened in the state over the past year.

Now, that doesn't mean we don't have challenges, and we know that 2024 is coming soon.

I'm sure we'll maybe talk about some of those things as we have questions moving forward.

But we're looking forward to really focusing on starter homes, building 35,000 starter homes over the next five years to lower the cost of housing and make sure our kids and grandkids get to live here in this amazing state.

We want to do more to fund and protect our schools.

Of course, continuing to improve water storage, conservation, and continuing to fill the Great Salt Lake and then making sure we're filling the gaps and preventing homelessness and doing more to serve our most vulnerable, keep our streets safe for families, and making sure that we're holding people accountable.

So there's so much more we can do when we work together.

I appreciate my colleagues in the legislature.

Mayors, city council members, planning and zoning commissions, and of course, just the good people of Utah, they're doing great things every day, helping us to have the best economy in the country and making this the best state to live.

Again, Happy Holidays, and I hope you have a wonderful New Year together.

With that, I'd love to take questions.

- Governor, the Great Salt Lake Commissioner has submitted his report to you.

Statutorily by the end of this month, you're supposed to make a decision on it.

You've read it.

What do you think of it?

And what are you gonna do?

- Yeah, so I like it.

I've had an opportunity to meet with the speaker and president who have also are in the process of reviewing that right now.

We're taking a look at all of the recommendations that are there.

I suspect that that will be released publicly within the next few weeks, first of the year timeframe.

As all of those recommendations come together, we received a draft of that.

They'll finalize things and get it out to the public.

And so, I can tell you I'm very optimistic and at the recommendations that came forward, I think that there are hard decisions that we will have to make over time, for sure.

Again, depending on the hydrology of the watershed and the hydrology of the lake.

But what I think gives me the most optimism may be two things.

One, there's certainly been a paradigm shift when it comes to the general public as well as the legislature.

A real commitment to making sure that we are saving the Great Salt Lake.

Everybody agrees.

We're all on board to do the things that are necessary to save the Great Salt Lake.

So that's one.

Number two, just having the office of the Commissioner of the Great Salt Lake.

Something that we've never had.

We have lots of people.

There's kind of a tragedy of the commons issue that happens with the Great Salt Lake.

Everybody has a piece of it, but nobody has ownership of it, which has made it almost impossible to do the things that we need to do to really understand what's happening with the lake.

Now we do have somebody that has ownership of the lake, somebody who can work with all of the different departments and agencies and landowners, water owners, the federal government, local governments, everybody that has an impact on the lake.

Now we can unify around that position.

And so just the very fact that this report is being done and exists is evidence that we're going to save the Great Salt Lake.

So honestly, in the past five years, I've never been more optimistic about the lake.

- But is there any specific policy that is identified in that report?

- [Governor] Yeah.

- That you say you need to adopt?

- Well, and you'll see those when they come out.

So I don't wanna step on the report.

When that that report comes out, we'll have more conversations about the policies and the questions.

You know, setting ranges for the lake, where it should be, something that we'll work on with the legislature to do.

Again, it will help set that baseline and then help us understand how we can get there.

So yes, there will be policy pieces that come out of that and we'll be supportive of those policy pieces.

- Have you spoken with Sean Reyes about his decision to not run for a reelection?

- I have spoken with Sean about his decision not to run.

Yeah.

- How did that go?

- It was a great conversation actually.

I know it was a hard decision for him.

He's been in that position, will have been in that position, for over 11 years, I think almost 12 years.

He was appointed, again, partway through a term, so it won't be a full 12 years.

We talked about the things that he's accomplished, the things he would like to accomplish over the course of the next year.

And so I would say it was a very positive conversation.

- So obviously the stories surrounding a lot of this has to do with Operation Underground Railroad.

And even in his announcement speech, he talked about how the AG's office would be conducting a criminal investigation and that he himself would be recused.

OUR has donated a million dollars to the AG's office, so do you think it's appropriate for the office at all to conduct an investigation?

- Well, again, I have great faith in the professionals that work for that office.

It may be, again, hard to kind of understand and comprehend what that means, but the AG's office, the Attorney General's office, is more than just a person.

It's a collection of attorneys who all have ethical obligations, who are officers of the court who, again, have all taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of this state, an oath to be impartial, and have a duty to do so.

And so, I trust the professionals and I've worked with many of them.

They're great people.

And so I do think that they can conduct an investigation impartially, and I hope that they will do that.

I would also note that in that announcement that the Attorney General himself talked in, I would say, very clear and harsh tones about what he had learned about Operation Underground Railroad and Tim Ballard and the victims of that, of his actions, the alleged actions there.

And so, I felt like that was really important and an important message to get out there.

And I think it also sends a message to the other attorneys who may be conducting this investigation, that they have the full blessing of the Attorney General himself to conduct that and take it wherever it leads.

So, I feel comfortable.

I know there are other investigations going on, and so it's not just the Attorney General's office that will be conducting that investigation.

And I certainly hope that truth will prevail and that if those allegations are true, that criminal and otherwise that people will be held accountable.

- Can you go into any more detail on what those other investigations are?

- No, I can't.

I mean, I assume that there are.

We know we've had county attorneys that have looked at this.

There are new allegations that have come out since that.

And so, I anticipate that anybody that has jurisdiction over this will be engaged in looking at it.

- Your Honor, if I could go back to the Great Salt Lake real quick.

People on the Wasatch front have been acutely aware of air quality over the past week, dust being kicked up from the dry lake bed has been part of that, not necessarily in the wintertime, but in the summertime.

Is dust mitigation seriously on the table as a method to improve air quality?

- It is, yes.

And that's part of the report.

We, the Commissioner of the Great Salt Lake, looks very closely at those projections, what we know about it.

There's going to be a need for more scientific work around that, more research, to understand where the dust is coming from, how it moves, the toxicity of the dust, what can be done to mitigate that dust.

I mean, obviously the best way to mitigate the dust is to have a fuller lake.

And that's the assumption that we're all working under, is we do need to fill that lake.

When lake levels are lower, what can be done?

Can you flood part of that area?

How often does it need to have water on it to keep the dust down?

So we could engineer some things like that.

Obviously, you know, we've seen it's very expensive what California has done with their drying lakes to mitigate dust and some of the efforts that have been done there.

So we do know that the cheapest way to do that is just to get water on the lake.

And that's our goal.

But as far as air quality goes, dust mitigation is very important.

Less of a concern during the winter months, but certainly during the summer months.

- Is there a rough timeline on when we might see some of these proposals?

- Yeah.

Well, again, I think the report will come out in January.

I think you'll see some of those proposals as early as this legislative session.

Others that we can work on without legislative approval.

We have funding that has been approved over the course of two sessions that we can start to use for some of these efforts.

- Governor, looking forward to 2024.

You've drawn national attention as one of the few Republican Governors whose pushback against the legislature's proposed restrictions on transgender youth.

So as the legislative sessions are convening around the country, we're starting to see a large quantity of draft bills in other states that are building upon those restrictions.

So what would be your message to Utah lawmakers who might consider similar proposals in the upcoming year?

- Sure.

Thank you.

And welcome, Hannah.

It's great to have you here.

So my message will be the same as it was before this past session.

That is that these are very difficult issues.

They're thorny issues, they're issues that everyone is trying to grapple with, not just in the United States, but other countries as well.

And my hope is that people will take time to meet with the transgender community, to get to know each other better, to understand that these are real people that we're talking about, that these are real lives, that sometimes policy gets disconnected from the humanness of it all.

We're not all in an episode of "West Wing," although it may feel like that sometimes.

Like these aren't TV shows and these aren't high-minded debates.

Like these are real people.

It may not change the outcomes, but I certainly think it changes the way we debate these things.

I've seen that here in the state of Utah, there are hard choices that have to be made in these debates.

And sometimes your side wins and sometimes your side loses.

But my hope is that it can always be done with respect and dignity and with as little harm as possible.

- On that note, today mark's 10 years since Kitchen v. Herbert was decided by Judge Shelby.

Your thoughts on that?

- It is today.

It is, yeah.

10 years today.

Wow.

I always remember because my anniversary is the 21st, and Abby and I had actually left to celebrate our anniversary.

We were at a movie together, and I turned my phone off and came out, and my phone kind of melted.

I'd received hundreds of text messages trying to figure that out.

Look, so it's been interesting to see what has happened over the past 10 years.

It's been interesting to see Gary Herbert and former Senator Kitchen who became a senator after that, and how their relationship, excuse me, changed over time and just to see what has happened there.

Interestingly, we've had a legislation at the national level.

Federal Congress passed legislation that was supported by all four house members in the state of Utah, Republicans who voted in favor of upholding basically that ruling, that the Supreme Court ended up ruling on later.

So certainly I think there has been a major shift in making sure that we're protecting people's rights.

And, you know, I wish nothing but the best for those couples who have been married and are trying to make marriage work for them.

You know, obviously, I have a different personal view of what that is and what that should be, but from a legal standpoint, I think that that's really important.

And I'm grateful to see that this is one area where we have seen people coming together to help each other and to protect each other's rights.

And so it is an interesting opportunity to reflect.

Thanks for pointing that out, Ben.

I didn't realize it had been 10 years already.

Time kind of flies.

It's hard to believe it's been that long already.

But I think we've found a better balance here in the state and across this country.

- Governor, you've talked about speech on college campuses and how DEI is affecting higher education.

In Wisconsin, they've tied funding for higher ed to some changes in the DEI and the public colleges.

And I'm wondering if you think the Utah legislature has a role to play in how this is handled here?

- Yeah, I think they do.

And I think for sure you'll see legislation.

We had legislation last year focused on the huge proliferation of DEI programs and policies on our college campuses.

I think they've been highlighted in some of the things that we've seen at the national level, maybe most famously with some congressional hearings with the presidents of Harvard and Penn and MIT.

And certainly we are seeing some pushback.

You know, I'm one of those people who have been pushing back on the proliferation of those programs.

I think the, again, I wanna be very careful about how we talk about these things, because I think it's important.

It's very easy to just fall into the polarized tropes around these types of things, on both sides.

But I think if we're having an honest discussion, I believe that diversity is very important, and I think it is a worthy goal.

I think that inclusion is absolutely critical.

We value and we pride ourselves on being a state that is incredibly welcoming.

With refugees and immigrants and others, we've kind of been the poster child for how to do this the right way, how to respect people and help people find success.

We lead the nation again.

A new report just came out yesterday or the day before that I saw around social capital and upward mobility, that Utah was number one again when it comes to our ability to, you know, if you're born in poverty, you don't have to stay in poverty.

And so these things really matter to me.

Maybe more than all of them, equality, which is part of our founding documents.

The Declaration of Independence makes it very clear.

I loved the idea that all men are created equal, that that comes before life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And I think that was very intentional.

And so these are worthy goals and important goals.

Sadly, I don't believe that what we're seeing with some of the programs, maybe many of the programs, in our university is actually accomplishing any of those things.

Two things have happened.

One, there's just been an explosion in these administrative programs.

I mean, if you just go back and look at the number of people in these offices, it's astounding to me.

I had no idea that there were these many programs and these many people working in these offices.

And so, then the question is, "Well, what are the outcomes?

Are we actually making a difference?"

And we're not seeing any evidence that they're actually working.

And in fact, what's happened is kind of this identity politics and philosophies have kind of infiltrated these, what I think were very well-meaning ideas and programs.

What we're actually seeing is the reverse.

That we're drawing battle lines and that we're using identitarianism to force people into boxes and into victimhood.

And I just don't think that that's helpful at all.

In fact, I think it's harmful.

I appreciate scholars like Eboo Patel who has talked about this.

It's not saying that we all need to be the same or that we shouldn't understand our differences.

In fact, we should celebrate our different cultures, different backgrounds, different experiences, different languages.

All of those things make us richer and make us better.

That's why diversity is so good.

All of the studies show that if you get people who are different working together to solve a problem, they can actually solve that problem better than people who are the same.

And so these are good things, these are worthy goals.

But instead what we get is we get professors or employees who have to sign these DEI statements before they can even qualify for a job, and these statements are very political.

And so, I thought for sure that's not happening here in the state of Utah.

It is happening here in the state of Utah.

But I can assure you, after this legislative session, it will not be happening here in the state of Utah.

These diversity statements that you have to sign to get hired.

I think that is awful.

I think it's, I mean bordering on evil that we're forcing people into a political framework before they can even apply for a job by the state.

By the way, from the state.

These institutions are arms of the state.

So these are government institutions and they have a duty to uphold freedom of speech.

And all of these, again, constitutional issues that are so important to us.

And so, these are the things that we're all trying to grapple with.

How do we do the right things in the right way and do them in a way that helps everyone and lifts those.

So I mentioned Eboo Patel who says, "Again, it's not about sameness.

We want everyone to come to the table, but it should be a potluck."

Right?

Bring the best of you and the best of your culture and your background, and let's come together and let's have an amazing feast together.

Sadly, instead of inclusion, the I in DEI, it's become exclusion.

It's, "We all have to get into our tribes.

We all have to get into our own groups."

And I think that's harming real people on our campuses.

- So on that note, I take it the legislation will get signed?

- Well, obviously- - Any DEI offices in Utah?

- We'll work on the legislation and understanding what it is and what we're trying to do.

I wanna know, you know, it's easy to just say, "DEI offices are bad."

I'm more interested in, "Okay, well, what are we actually trying to do to help students who are struggling?"

It may surprise you to learn that basically, if you look at the diversity makeup of our state and we used to be, it used to be said that, you know, "Utah's the whitest state in the nation."

That's not true.

There are I think 17 states that are less diverse than us right now.

So Utah has changed and continues to change.

It may surprise you that Ohio is less diverse than Utah, Pennsylvania.

We're right there in those kind of that category of states.

So when you look at the racial makeup of our universities, it matches really closely what our state is right now.

And so I think that's great.

It shows that minority kids are actually going to college at higher rates than ever before in our state's history.

So that's good.

Now, if you look at completion rates, if you look at those that are graduating, there is a gap there.

And that gap worries me.

Some of our multicultural students, they're starting, but they're not finishing.

So we should be asking ourselves, "Okay, how do we help that?"

Right?

What does that look like?

These proliferation of DEI programs haven't changed that, they haven't made a difference at all, which is where the focus should be.

And also, again, we should be using these offices to help everyone.

I want everyone to finish.

There are too many white kids that are starting college and not finishing.

But telling kids that the reason you're not doing this or can't do this is because of your race is very unhealthy.

Let's remove barriers.

Let's work together to help everyone.

And we can do that.

You know, who else is struggling right now in college?

When it comes to starting college and finishing college?

Men have dropped off a cliff over the past 20 years.

We don't talk about it much anymore because it used to be the other way, right?

It used to be there was a huge gap between men and women.

Women were not going to college, women were not graduating from college.

Now it's completely flipped.

And so, we should be very worried about that.

That's something that we should absolutely be working on as well.

Rural kids.

Rural kids are struggling.

Rural kids do not go to college at the same rates as their peers, even minority peers in other places.

And when they do, again, they're not finishing.

So how can we lift everyone instead of trying?

This is not a zero sum game, and I'm so tired of the false choices.

If you're opposed to kind of the identitarianism of DEI, then you're racist.

That's not true.

I care deeply about our brown kids and our black kids.

I care deeply about all of our children, and we should be trying to help them.

We absolutely should be trying to help them.

But the way we're doing it right now, one, it's not working, and two, I just don't think it's positive or helpful.

Sorry, that's more than you wanted, but again.

- Just real quick.

That's all the time we have for our television broadcast.

We have about 30 seconds.

Do you wanna wrap up with any quick message for the end of the year?

- Well, again, my message is we live in an amazing place.

2024 is gonna be a great year.

We have an opportunity to fix some of these challenges and lift everyone.

That's what we do best here in Utah.

And I can't wait to work together to do it next year.

- All right!

Thank you so much for joining us for "The Governor's Monthly News Conference."

- [Announcer] This has been the "Governor's Monthly News Conference."

For video and more information, visit pbsutah.org/governor.

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