Jason Perry: On this episode of "The Hinckley Report," tensions rise as leaders grapple with another government shutdown, legislators prepare for a special session with a sharp focus on congressional boundaries, and our panel discusses the national headlines that impact our state.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason Perry: Hello, and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

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

Covering the week we have Dennis Romboy, editor and reporter for the Deseret News; Representative Jennifer Dailey-Provost, a Democrat from Salt Lake City in the Utah House; and Thomas Wright, a Utah business owner.

So glad you're all here.

This is a very interesting week in politics for sure.

I want to get to one of the big headline issues, another government shutdown.

We talk about this a lot it seems over the years.

You know, people talk about whether or not it's going to happen.

Dennis, I want to start with you with just a little context on this.

Even though we've talked about it, this is the first time in six years that we've had an actual government shutdown.

Talk about sort of the sort of historical notes around this particular shutdown.

Dennis Romboy: Well, about this particular shutdown, if we go back to 2018 was the last one, right, that lasted 34 days, I believe.

Jason Perry: Thirty-five days, the longest in history.

Dennis Romboy: Typically they only only last two or three days.

As I was driving in this morning or looking at my my newsfeed, I didn't see a whole lot of stories about the shutdown this morning, and so it's kind of been Groundhog Day.

Like, here we go again.

We've seen this before.

Although it's very tense in Washington, obviously, and there's a lot of people affected by it, it seemed like part and parcel to government business nowadays.

Jason Perry: It's interesting, I'd like to hear what's new about this one for you first, Representative, and then Thomas.

Is there anything new about this one, sort of something novel about this one that you're seeing?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: I think the most novel thing right now is that this is a direct reaction to HR1 and the fact that we continue to have these big fights about the appropriate use of government funds and whether or not we're okay with giving some of the wealthiest people in the world giant tax cuts and funding that by taking away health insurance to our nation's most vulnerable, poorest people, the people who, you know, clean our offices, take care of our kids, harvest the food that we pluck off the grocery store shelves with hardly a thought.

And this is one of the biggest issues that is driving this partisan, you know, these conversations that are really driving wedges between legislators.

And one of the other challenges that I see that I think is just untenable is you've got, you know, members of congress saying, come to the table and compromise, but they don't mean compromise.

They mean the other side needs to capitulate, and that is absolutely has led to name calling and blame gaming, and we're just, you know, we're leaving the American people behind.

And I'm--I don't--I certainly don't think it's appropriate for our congressional Republicans to be laying the blame totally at the feet of Democrats, because they've asked for a compromise on making sure that people can maintain things like basic healthcare.

Jason Perry: Thomas?

Thomas Wright: We've been running the government on a continuing resolution.

They passed a continuing resolution, I think in March, and we've been operating the government.

Now, here's another continuing resolution, and the nature of a continuing resolution is you continue funding the government at the same level you're funding it right now until you reach a compromise.

Democrats came to this particular continuing resolution with demands of changing funding in major ways to the tune of about $1.5 trillion.

So, they own the shutdown because at the end of the day there was a vote in the Senate that just needed 5 Democrats to vote to continue the government under a continuing resolution, but Chuck Schumer, as you may recall in March, took a lot of heat because he broke and voted for the continuing resolution, and a lot of liberal Democrats have fielded opponents against him.

And so, this is the Schumer shutdown because he's trying to recover from the political damage that happened to him in March, and he's advising people to shut it down in order to extend healthcare funding.

And that's what this is all about.

They could have just passed a continuing resolution and debated that after they kept the government open, but they decided to tie it to the shutdown.

Dennis Romboy: You ask what's different about it.

I think the tone is different this year.

Government websites now have a big message on there blaming the leftist Democrats for the shutdown.

You call a government office and you get a recorded message blaming the leftist Democrats or an out of office message if you email somebody.

I think that's different than previous shutdowns.

We haven't seen that kind of level.

Obviously it's partisan, it's political, but we haven't seen it taken to that level in the past.

And also with President Trump also using it as a possible way to lay people off permanently, to not just furlough people, but to eliminate departments, eliminate government agencies.

I don't think we've seen that as tied to a shutdown as directly as we've seen this time around.

Jason Perry: Let's get to a couple of issues at the heart of it, and both of you just mentioned this a little bit, and, Representative, I'll start with you a little bit on this.

One of our shutdowns in the past, I think maybe 2013, had to do with the Affordable Care Act at the time with President Obama, and so that's some of the argument right now again.

Give us some of the context on that, at least on the Democrat side of the aisle when it comes to those tax credits.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: It's really interesting, because when at the onset of the Affordable Care Act, there were a lot of lawsuits and a lot of posturing by lawmakers saying that they were going to run bills to repeal the ACA, and it became apparent that this really was the law of the land and that people, regardless of how they felt during the debate of the ACA, had found that better access to healthcare actually is a good thing for Americans, because access to healthcare is basically having insurance in our nation, because we don't have universal healthcare coverage.

And so it seemed, you know, finally after a number of years that the ACA became well entrenched and that people really depended on it to make sure that they could get access to healthcare and stay as healthy as possible, but also importantly not suffer under untenable, excruciating medical debt which bankrupts families, which has an extremely bad effect on our economy and our ability to keep our families whole.

I think that this is just another resurgence of absolute distaste for the ACA, and I'm surprised.

I really kind of thought we had gotten to a point where everybody accepted that this was not perfect legislation.

No legislation is perfect, but that we had reached a point where we were starting to turn the needle around and more people were getting access to healthcare, which is a critical piece to keeping families and Americans whole and as safe as we can.

And so, you know, this idea that we should strip healthcare away from millions of people, 188,000 Utahns, by the way, stand to lose their coverage, and at a minimum, probably end up closing at least three rural hospitals in our state, if not more.

And the ripple effects of that is going to be significant, not just for families who lose their care, but, you know, the extra cost that's borne by everybody else when uncompensated care affects the ability for hospitals and caregivers to provide care.

Jason Perry: Thomas, break that down for us from the Republican side.

Thomas Wright: I like what Jennifer said earlier.

There's a blame game going on in politics, and unfortunately what's happening is when you don't get what you want, and both sides are doing it, they're blaming each other, they're taking things to court, they're stalling, they're shutting the government down.

We've got to get to a place in this country where elections have consequences.

When we elect people, we send them to do a job.

The job they do, we don't have to like it.

We can work against it to change the next election, but what's happening is when you don't like something, you just shut the government down, you just obstruct, you take someone to court, you challenge it in court, you create activist judges.

Now the judges are creating laws, not our legislators.

There's all these unintended consequences, and I'm just hopeful that when we watch all these issues going on that we can try to get back to a place where we're Americans first and then we're conservatives and liberals or whatever we are second.

But right now we're not.

We're tribal, and too many people in Washington DC are conservatives and liberals first and they're Americans last.

And that's just hurting our entire country, and it's just no way to operate the government.

Jason Perry: Dennis, give us a little context on some of the reactions from our elected officials.

It's interesting, starting with this.

A letter actually was sent from the Republicans in the House and Senate in the state of Utah sort of saying to specific members of Congress, don't shut the economy down, don't shut the government down and the corresponding impacts on the economy, I should say.

Dennis Romboy: I think that makes sense.

No one wants to see a government shut down, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on.

I don't think, I mean, because Thomas just said, maybe they do want to see one, you know.

But I don't think anyone wants to see that.

It affects real people.

It has impacts on people, and I think that's the thing that gets lost in all of this is that we're forgetting how this hurts people, how it hurts our economy.

I can't remember the exact numbers of how the last shut down, the impact it had on the economy nationally, and it has an impact locally too.

You know, national parks, you know, whatever other areas that might be impacted by that.

Thomas Wright: There are, Dennis, people that want to see the government shut down, because it passed the House, the continuing resolution passed the House.

They went to the Senate and the Democrats voted in lockstep to not vote for the continuing resolution at the behest of Chuck Schumer, which is why it's the Schumer shutdown.

If they pass the legislation, the continuing resolution, the government continues to be funded, and they can go back to work in DC debating the issues and trying to fight for what they believe in.

But instead those Democrats decided better to shut the government down and enter a messaging war on whose fault it is.

They're going to blame it on healthcare and Donald Trump and Donald Trump's gonna blame it on them, on these websites you're talking about, and the loser in all of that is the American people.

And that's why we've got to get back.

We've got to elect people that understand that it's America first and it's our partisan politics second.

Dennis Romboy: I absolutely agree, and when you were talking, the thing that came to my head was term limits.

I, you know, I don't know where anybody is on term limits, but send people back there, have them do a job, and have them come home, instead of creating all these kingdoms and all this partisanship.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Let's also recognize really quickly that there have been ten federal shutdowns since the Reagan era.

Six of them have happened under the Trump administration, all of them with a Republican Senate and House.

And yes, I hear the efforts to entrench this blame game on Democrats for not stepping up to the table, but creating an untenable reality for Americans, for what Americans actually need and expect of their federal legislators, and those legislators going and saying no, our constituents don't want us to strip their healthcare away, among other things, in HR 1, which is a catastrophe of a piece of legislation.

But, you know, even if we're just talking about the court of public opinion, it's not playing out.

People see the Republican Party being in charge of all three, the both branches of the legislature and the presidency, and not getting the work done.

And so, you can say we don't want to play a blame game, but then sit here and say, yes, it's the Democrats, because they're not agreeing to capitulate.

Then we're still just stuck in the cycle where we're not having productive conversations.

Thomas Wright: You know, while they control the majority in the Senate, all that part about the numbers is true, takes 60 votes to pass the continuing resolution, which means you have to have Democrats vote for it.

Republicans don't have 60 seats in the Senate, so while they control the body with the majority, they don't have the cloture they need with 60.

Jason Perry: Oh yeah, three Democrats vote for it.

You'd still need 60, so still some work to do on that particular resolution, the continuing resolution.

But Thomas, while you were talking there, I want to show video very quickly because Dennis brought up this idea that when we had the shutdowns in the past, there was a significant impact in the state of Utah, in particular when it comes to our national parks, as Dennis was talking about.

This is the very topic that Senator John Curtis was asked about this week, and I want to show this clip and give some thoughts about this, and all of you a little bit about the local impacts.

John Curtis: Democrats should be very careful.

By bringing on this shutdown, we call it the Schumer shutdown, they are really handing the keys over to the president.

Our state has done a really good job of keeping the national parks open in the past and footing the cost of that, and hopefully we get them reimbursed.

So, I'm hoping that we're able to continue that tradition of keeping these parks open.

Thomas Wright: When I ran for governor in 2020, I got to travel all 29 counties and see the state from all the corners and cracks, and rural Utah relies on the federal government in major ways.

My heart breaks for the people in rural Utah.

When those national parks shut down and the federal government shuts down, it crushes those local economies.

We don't feel it as much here along the Wasatch Front, but I know what it does to them.

And that's why with our redistricting we need to have rural and urban representatives in Congress, because rural Utah has been forgotten by and large in the state of Utah.

I know our our main population is up and down the Wasatch Front, but at the end of the day we got another good swath of amazing people out in rural Utah that go unrepresented, and this is a perfect example of that.

My heart absolutely breaks for them out there right now.

Dennis Romboy: I think the state has done a good job as far as the national parks go.

In 2013, as I recall, the state paid more than a million dollars to keep the the Mighty Five open during that time, with some expectation that they would be reimbursed from the federal government.

And that, 12 years later they still haven't gotten that million dollars back.

2018, the same thing, the state kept the parks open.

It didn't cost quite as much.

I think it was around $66,000 to plow some snow or whatever they did.

It was, of course, you remember that went over Christmas and New Year's, that 2018 shut down.

But I think the state, and I think they set aside funds to keep the parks open again this year, that limited staffing, but still open.

And there's some danger to that too.

People could come in there and tromp around and do things that they're not supposed to do, but, by and large, I think people are respectful and want to visit our parks and enjoy that, and it does help our rural economies.

They depend on that.

Thomas Wright: All the shutdowns that were mentioned by Jennifer happened.

The federal government's as dysfunctional as it's ever been.

I think we can all agree on that.

That's why I support federalism.

We've got to bring the local control back to the states.

The states cannot rely on the federal government.

The citizens can't rely on them.

They're dysfunctional.

They can't get anything done.

They obstruct one another.

They're in massive debt.

The programs they do run are not by and large functioning.

And at the end of the day, the states are going to have to rise up in the modern era of America and really take control of what's going on, because states seem to function well and the federal government seems to continue to struggle.

Jason Perry: One more point on this, and Representative, did you have a follow up on that first?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Well, a couple of things.

I just want to point out that, you know, as a legislator, I also voted to support funding, you know, emergency funding to keep parks open, and I'm really glad that our state does that, because we do 100% have an obligation to protect our rural communities, especially when those communities depend almost solely on tourism traffic, people coming in and out of their communities and visiting the parks.

But also remember that as American citizens, we pay taxes to keep the federal parks open, and as Utahns we pay more taxes to keep the parks open.

So, we Utahns are now paying twice, and I think that that's that's untenable.

I'm glad that we do it.

It's absolutely critical.

But to your comment about federalism, you know, I've actually been working with legislators and trying to, you know, as part of a national federalism initiative to make sure that states have a better voice, because the reality is in a federalist structure, the legislative branch is supposed to be the most powerful, but because our federal legislative branch has become so dysfunctional, we're ceding all of the power now to the executive branch.

And this is where government and elections become existential, where every presidential vote feels like you're either going to survive or the world's going to come to an end, and no matter what half the country is absolutely furious.

So, I absolutely agree, we need to make sure that we create a coalition of all of our states working together to make sure that we can maintain control of what's happening to our people, because at the end of the day, federal legislators are playing these games, but as a state legislator, I'm the one that has to look my community members in the eye where I live, work, and play and try to explain to them why the government is not working for them.

Thomas Wright: And one thing quickly, Jason.

You asked earlier what's different about this shutdown, and then the clip you played with Senator Curtis, Senator Curtis said be careful because you're handing the keys to Trump, and what he's saying there is typically the executive branch has determined what's necessary for the public health and safety when you're in a government shutdown.

So, those employees keep working.

They don't get paid.

They eventually get the back pay usually.

But what he's saying here is Trump's taking that a step further.

The Trump administration is saying we're not only going to determine who's essential and has to keep working, but we're going to determine what's not essential, and we're not going to furlough them.

We're going to let them go.

We're going to close the agency.

So what he's saying to Democrats is I'd be careful if I were you, because what you've done is you've turned the keys over to Trump for now him constitutionally to be able to make that call.

Jason Perry: Dennis, break that one down just a little bit, because it's very interesting, because usually what happens in a shutdown is just this exact thing.

It's a furlough, and usually you get your money back, the people who are not being paid.

But this letter from the OMB, Office of Management Budget, clearly is saying start looking to agency heads, start looking for RIFs and not furloughs.

Dennis Romboy: I think what Senator Lee said was the head of the OMB has been wanting to do this since puberty, right?

Is to to start slashing and cutting the federal government.

This opens the door to that.

I agree with Thomas, the keys have been turned over to the president, and he's using that power to make these things come to fruition, things that he's wanted to do that others on the Republican side have wanted to do for a lot of years, and that's--we're seeing that play out right now, and that will affect hundreds of thousands of people and families.

Jason Perry: I want to get to one more point on this, just some polling, and particularly interest on both sides of the aisle on this one, which is interesting.

This is Washington Post has just barely done a poll, and the question was who do you think is mainly responsible for the federal government partially shutting down?

This is the overall, I just like to get your response.

30% of Americans said it's the fault of Democrats.

47% say Trump and Republicans.

23% not sure.

Thoughts about that, that's very interesting, all under 50%.

Representative first?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: I think the biggest thing about that is that 23% of the people don't know, which means we're, you know, if the goal of politicians right now is to get people to disengage in what's going on, it's working, and that's really unfortunate.

We really need to get back to making sure that we're having conversations and doing work that make people feel engaged and represented in our state and in our country.

Thomas Wright: Numbers aren't surprising really, but I agree with Jennifer, that's a big swath of people who are basically saying, "I'm not sure," they're saying, "I don't know."

I think they're saying, "I just don't care anymore.

I'm kind of tired of all this."

And that disenfranchisement, as she said, really hurts our republic long term, and we need to get more engagement and more people back.

Jason Perry: Okay, I want to get to another very local issue here.

Even at this very second as we're filming the show, the governor's issued a call for the special session which will now be on Monday, on the 6th.

A couple of big things happening, in particular are maps.

We're going to understand what map, congressional map, our legislature is looking for.

I want to talk about that for just a minute.

Someone give us an idea on process.

Representative, I know you're watching this very closely.

What's going to happen Monday morning specifically on the issue of redistricting?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Well, like you said, the call just came out, so I'm looking forward to digging into the details on that.

What I can speculate on, having, you know, limited information, I know that there were a number of bills that were heard during the interim this last month, and those are always bills that are up for consideration in the process of a normal special session where we're just considering pieces of legislation that can't necessarily wait until the next general session.

But of course there's the specter of redistricting, and the redistricting committee will meet Monday morning at 8 a.m.

That's on the legislative calendar.

Right now the only item on that agenda is voting on a congressional map.

Presumably, I think everybody's of the understanding that there will be a vote on the map in the special session as well.

Now also, very importantly is the fact that Senator Brammer presented a bill to the redistricting committee two weeks ago that changes the standards that can be utilized when evaluating a congressional map from those that were set out in Prop 4, and so I think that it's hard not to wonder what the chain of events are going to be if and when that bill will be considered in the special session and then therefore will dictate the rules by which we can consider and vote on a congressional map after, or if we're just going to consider and vote on maps based on the exact tenets of Prop 4, because Senator Brammer's bill does change the tenets of Prop 4.

And it also has a clause at the very bottom, if you'll read it, says that the bill goes into effect immediately upon signature of the governor.

Jason Perry: We're watching this one closely.

Thomas, maybe comment on this just a moment on this one and then where you see this redistricting going, the map selection in particular.

Senator Brammer's bill creates this partisan bias test which essentially creates a formula for partisan symmetry.

That's what this bill does.

It looks at the margins of victory in three previous elections for statewide office.

That's what's in that bill.

Thomas Wright: Yeah, I think it's interesting.

Prop 4 doesn't do a great job of explaining how to assess political symmetry, and then the court ruled, hey, redo the maps, and they didn't really give a definition.

So, you have to applaud anybody who's willing to step forward at this point and try to come up with some kind of definition for how that's going to be applied.

I think the whole thing is quite frankly unfortunate.

I, you know, we live in an era where if you don't like the maps and you want to file a lawsuit, that's your constitutional right, go for it.

I just worry that we're entering an era of activist judges, judges that are creating public policy and not just interpreting the law.

And we've got to be careful with that, because otherwise what happens is our elected officials get neutered, they lose their power, and the person sitting on the bench is making the decision for everybody.

So, redistricting is a hot topic.

I want to respect voices on both sides.

I wanna applaud the legislature and Jennifer for stepping up.

Thirty days to redo the maps is lightning speed for that process, and it's a really difficult process.

The current congressional maps we have split 14 municipalities.

The Democrats map that they brought forward in that 30 day period split 13.

And so, that just shows you how hard it is, and it's a very complex process with a lot of different intricacies and nuances, and my hope is that we can come together and figure out what's best for all Utahns so they can be represented in Congress.

Dennis Romboy: I come at it more from a personal point of view, I guess, and in 2020 I moved across town in the city I was living in.

I was in the 3rd congressional district.

I moved 3 miles or 4 miles away.

I moved in October.

The election was in November.

Suddenly I'm in the 4th congressional district.

Really, you didn't exactly know that I was in the 4th district till I had moved and got my ballot, realized, oh, I'm in a different district.

I don't like--this again is personal.

I don't like carving up cities and and streets and things like that.

I think we should keep cities intact, and I think it should be as fair as possible and as representative as possible of our demographic here in the state and particularly along the Wasatch front.

Thomas Wright: But Dennis makes a really good point.

When you do redistricting at the congressional level, you have to put basically the same amount of people in each district.

I think it's 0.1% or something like that, the deviance.

So at the end of the day when you're trying to put 880,000 people, which I think is about the number, in four congressional districts, inevitably you're going to get to a point on the map where there's going to be the belly button, so to speak.

There's gonna be a seam.

There has to be, and that's where you have to make sure that you're not dividing communities of interest.

You're not splitting up military installations and universities and other, you know, areas of interest.

You gotta be really careful with that.

But at the end of the day, you have to understand what the task is.

The task isn't to divide the state into four geographies.

The task is to split the population equally in each district, so one voice gets the same amount of representation in Congress, and that's a really difficult thing to do when you know two-thirds of the population in Utah lives on the five counties along the Wasatch Front.

It gets very complex.

If you haven't tried to draw a map, you should.

It's really difficult.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Well, as somebody who was deeply involved in the 2021 redistricting, because I was in the legislature and I personally have drawn maps, it is challenging.

And yes, district lines have to be drawn somewhere.

There's no question about that.

But my--geographically, my legislative district in downtown Salt Lake City is one of the smallest, because it's a very dense part of the city.

I have two congressional representatives in my small house district, and that's concerning.

But what's interesting about redistricting is that people, you know, if you can take census data and you can divide it down to a person, you could have 880,000 people, you can have the exact same number of people in every single district.

By the time you wake up tomorrow, it's all changed.

And so, you know, I think we get too dialed into the minutiae and arguing about small things like that, when what we really need to be talking about is that these maps intentionally, systematically disenfranchise a full third of voters in the state of Utah.

And you can argue partisan symmetry and partisan bias all you want, but there are several other statistical tests that are outlined in Prop 4.

I don't think it's judicial activism.

I'm not saying that doesn't happen.

I think the judge was trying to interpret the Constitution as per the ballot initiative in Prop 4, and that the plaintiffs make a very good case that the intentionality of the disenfranchisement of voters is unconstitutional.

Jason Perry: It's going to have to be the last comment tonight.

Thank you for your insights, and thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

The show is also available as a podcast.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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