♪♪♪ 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.

Jason Perry: On this episode of "The Hinckley Report," as the 2025 legislative session comes to a close, our expert panel dives into the major issues.

How did a tight budget season affect state programs?

What were the major conflicts?

Did we see important compromises?

And how will the new laws impact the lives of Utahns?

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

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

Covering the week we have Ben Winslow, politics reporter with Fox 13 News; Lindsay Aerts, anchor with ABC 4 News and host of "Inside Utah Politics;" and Jeff Parrott, Statewatch editor for "The Salt Lake Tribune."

So glad you're all here for this episode of "The Hinckley Report."

We wanted members of the media because you've been seeing a lot.

This is the last day of the legislative session.

Ben Winslow: But who's counting?

Jason: I know we definitely are.

The final hour, so much happening, and we have a lot of bills to get to.

Some we've talked about on the show, some have died, some might be resurrected, some may be changed.

But before we get to those bills, I want to talk a little about sort of the, kind of the tone of this legislative session because every one of them seems to have its own distinct character, Ben, what do you think?

What would you say?

Give us an example.

Ben: I feel like the theme this year, for me at least, from what I've observed, is the legislature asserting sort of its power over a lot of things.

I jokingly say, "All roads lead to Capitol Hill."

In this case, it might be true this session.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, I definitely think you've seen that theme of state control versus local control.

We've seen that in a number of bills.

We've seen that with Salt Lake City, we've seen that even, to Ben's point of control, we've seen that with battles over the judiciary, right?

So the legislature sort of testing those waters a little bit and then folks, you know, pushing back a little bit.

So how far can they dip into that?

I would also say that this session has been a little bit different than in years past.

I feel like just, maybe it's because it's not an election year, so we're seeing, you know, a little bit fewer chaotic bills, if you will, and a little bit more, I don't know what the word is, just control over what they're running.

Jason: How about you, Jeff?

Jeff Parrott: Certainly agree with Ben and Lindsay here.

I, to be fair to the legislature, I think leaders would say they have given cities, towns, counties a chance and they are intervening the way a parent would.

Whether you believe that or feel that way or not, I think that's the argument lawmakers would make.

Jason: Interesting, who's winning then?

If it's a balance of power, who's winning right now?

Lindsay: Well, I think it's been interesting to see that the--that these things start out really contentious and we see these kind of, like, really strong proposals, with Salt Lake City streets, for example, and then they get to a conference committee on them and things kind of get neutralized, so--.

Jason: Why don't you break that one down because that's a really interesting bill.

It's been through a lot of different steps.

Maybe break that down because it's a good example of the legislature and the locals getting to have that conversation.

Lindsay: Yeah, so an original version of the bill said that Salt Lake City had to put a moratorium on some of their traffic-calming projects, and it basically dictated that they couldn't do anything that caused traffic in the city.

And so they were like, "Wait, does this mean we can't even put a speed bump in front of a school if we want to?"

I think the end version, and Ben, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but the end version got to where it just limited certain roads.

So, it wouldn't impact the smaller streets.

Ben: So, I mean, this was a series of amendments that were introduced.

You had the omnibus transportation bill, which nobody really cares about most of the time because it's just a very technical bill, makes a little tweaks here and there, maybe funds some projects here and there.

Then this amendment was introduced that put the moratorium on Salt Lake City streets, which everybody went, "Wait, what?"

And then it was going to be modified.

There was a substitute version of the bill that made it over to the House.

Then another amendment was introduced, putting in yet another moratorium.

So then everybody started having these conference committees.

And the end result now, it appears, and it did get through, what we're gonna see is that there won't be exactly a moratorium on Salt Lake City streets as far as controlling it, but UDOT will have some oversight on projects that may interfere with--or may affect arterial roads, collectors, highways, things like that.

So, it's the spillover traffic.

Lawmakers had a lot of concerns and they said they were getting complaints from people who were just complaining about the traffic congestion from these big projects that people do want, who are living in Salt Lake City.

Bike lanes, bus lanes, you know, all of these things.

But when you're narrowing the lanes and then there's the big Green Loop that potentially could be coming in Salt Lake City, you know, this has an effect on traffic around it.

And so, lawmakers say they were responding to complaints that they were getting from people about this.

The city obviously felt like this was stepping on their authority to do this, but now there's this oversight.

Bear in mind, this is one of several that deals with transportation.

There was the bill that requires Salt Lake City to sign an agreement with the Department of Public Safety for public safety needs, including, you know, more of a crackdown on unsanctioned camping, things like that, that also, if they fail to do that, could lead to them losing some road funding there too.

Jeff: This isn't the quiet part out loud.

I mean, lawmakers have been not shy at all, saying time and time again that this is the capital city and we'll do with it what we want.

And so I think--go ahead.

Lindsay: Sorry to interrupt you, they also said they wanted to address 3rd West, as the downtown revitalization comes online, right?

They needed to figure out how that road, it's planned to go underground, so they needed to figure out how downtown would be impacted if that road is shut down.

So, they are saying they want some control, for lack of a better word, over that process.

Ben: Which fun fact, 300 West is the busiest street in the city.

Jason: Why don't you finish your conversation really quick there too, Jeff, because I think it is interesting, because this wasn't something that just happened behind closed doors.

It became a very public conversation.

Jeff: Yeah, I don't know if you could say it any better than that, Jason, that, like, it has been very much in the open.

This isn't something that they're hiding.

Jason: Okay, let's get to a couple other ones that were not quiet either.

Let's talk about labor unions.

Ben: Oh my gosh.

Jason: Yes, this is so interesting because it's not done even after this bill.

This is House Bill 267, "Public Sector Labor Union Amendments," Representative Jordan Teuscher of Salt Lake.

So this bill has passed and it's about collective bargaining, but that's not the end of the story, okay, go ahead.

Lindsay: Yeah, well, that was how this started, is the state wanted to ban these public labor unions, teachers, firefighters, and others from being able to collectively bargain.

The perception was that they were targeting the Utah Education Association, but lawmakers claimed that that wasn't their intention.

They saw the value in the policy of not allowing public employees to collectively bargain.

So this bill, there was a compromise on the table.

That fell apart.

Lawmakers, and to some extent UEA, admitted that there were groups going behind the scenes and still opposing the bill when they had worked out a deal with lawmakers to remain neutral on the bill.

And so, Representative Jordan Teuscher even said to me that the unions were acting in bad faith.

And so, they went and passed the original version of the bill without the compromise that bans them from collective bargaining.

Well, now in just in this past week we've seen the groups come back and say, "We're going to try to repeal this law."

They have launched an effort to get this on the ballot to voters, a referendum to repeal this law.

Ben: And they've got to get--they're aiming for 200,000 signatures.

They've got to get it within, what is it, 30, 40 days, and then it goes on the ballot, possibly 2026 unless the governor calls a special election.

This could get ugly, expensive, and could bring in a lot of interest to this.

Jason: Yeah, talk about that for a minute, Jeff, because it will be 141, what, 6000, right?

Jeff: Let's keep talking numbers.

Jason: Signatures, yeah.

Jeff: Salt Lake Valley Law Enforcement, 500 members, roughly; Teamsters Local 222, another 3000 members; Utah Education Association, 18,000 members.

So just in membership alone they've got a good start and we're talking about some of the best organizers in the state.

This isn't like a campaign that's getting kicked off the ground and you need to start building a foundation and going door to door.

These are folks that are used to getting members, they are used to talking about what is of interest to them.

I couldn't think, if I was running this, having a better advocate than a firefighter in my blue sweatshirt going door to door with a kid in my hand saying, "Hey, will you help me fight for my right to fight for my own salaries?"

Ben: And to be clear, the legislative leadership says that is their right.

They can run a referendum and saying that's part of the process.

Lindsay: And you saw those groups show up time and time again on Capitol Hill to protest this bill as it was passing.

The unions also, or I should say the UEA, has some national backing from the National Education Association, so this won't just be a local fight, but you'll see that organization try to push this forward.

Jeff: We still can't gamble on this date, but I would certainly bet on them getting the signatures.

Jason: Okay, and so they'll start this.

We'll see this announcement next week.

Lindsay: Well, they'll officially file next week.

That was part of the issue here.

Ben: I thought they were filing Saturday.

Lindsay: Yeah, tomorrow, yeah, is what I meant.

There was a snafu when they showed up to file.

This state law actually prevents them from filing until within 5 days after the session ends, which, again, starts on Saturday morning.

So, they showed up to file, showed up to have this big to-do, and then they weren't allowed to file.

Jason: Let's get to a couple of other things that are driving a lot of this legislation, which is the budget itself.

This is a $29 billion budget, the Executive Appropriations Committee.

This is the group that actually meets and makes all those recommendations.

They met for the final time last night.

Ben: It was so much fun.

Jason: You were there.

I saw you there.

Ben, it was nice sitting by you.

So anything from this, any observations?

Ben: Yeah, this is where they reached under the couch cushions and scraped together some change to fund the things that weren't funded that people really wanted to see funded.

Some of the things that I was watching for, obviously, Great Salt Lake dust measurements, monitoring systems.

They wanted $600,000.

In the initial EAC supplemental funding report, they got zero, a big fat zero.

They got $50,000 at the end.

Domestic violence, there was an expansion of the hotline and strangulation testing kits.

They got zero.

Sexual assault prevention got some money.

We saw money funding for refugee scouts.

We saw money for a number of different initiatives going around.

I believe that the school lunches, Representative Clancy's bill got some more funding too.

Homelessness got a little more money too.

This is sort of the--but this is a meager, meager budget year.

They just haven't seen the revenues that they wanted to see.

There is a sign of some things kind of flattening out right now.

Even though the state is still doing economically really well, it's just what they're seeing in the budget and why a lot of people got some of what they wanted, but not all of what they wanted.

I think that the motto on Capitol Hill when it comes to EAC is best said by Mick Jagger, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need."

Lindsay: Wow, we're quoting songs now.

I have no songs to quote, but I will just add to that to say, zooming out a little bit, social services appropriations really took the biggest hit, as it often does in a lean budget year.

And so the advocates, the domestic violence, the sexual assault prevention folks really take issue with that.

Meanwhile, we had the Utah Fits All scholarship get another $40 million.

That's the state's school choice program, which critics call a voucher program.

So you can kind of look at those two buckets and say, "Okay, they got $600,000 while school choice got $40 million," right?

It doesn't seem to equate there.

However, you could also make the argument, right, that education is important and that school choice piece is important, so--.

Jeff: To Ben's point, lawmakers get what they need--or what they want, not what they need.

You know, like, they wanted Fits All, they wanted a tax cut, and we knew this was gonna happen.

Like, regardless of the socks and underwear messaging that they did really well with this year, like, they're still getting some of their bigger priorities.

Lindsay: Yeah, and whoever pushes those is the one who gets those priorities, right?

Ben: The teacher salary increase did take a lot of money out of the budget.

It was about $50 million.

Jason: So $1,446 raise.

Ben: Right, for--direct salary increase for teachers, and then school employees, other school employees, get $1000 bonus.

And lawmakers were quite candid about that's going to mean that other people take cuts as the state chose to pursue that or legislative leaders and the governor.

Jason: Even as--go ahead, Lindsay.

Lindsay: Well, I was just going to add to--that, you know, that education piece, the tax cut piece, that is a huge chunk of the budget, right?

And so, even tax--Democrats were arguing about the tax piece, saying it wasn't the right year for an income tax cut in a meager budget year, you know, but state leaders were saying, "Well, $45 every year over the last five years, that adds up to $225."

So, they were still touting the cuts every single year over the last five years.

So, those were some of the big rocks of the budget.

Jason: Jeff, can we talk about this budget, those tax cuts a little bit because you mentioned those also.

It was interesting, House Bill 106, the income tax revisions, Kay Christofferson.

This did pass.

It reduces the income tax rate to 4.5%.

So let's talk about why that happened in a lean budget year.

We've got another year with a cut there, which includes a child tax credit and--for business and for families.

Jeff: So this is year five, I think, if I'm doing my math right.

At the "Tribune" we stopped putting "again, again, again" in the headlines, I think, two years ago on the tax cut years.

You've already said that there's gonna be a flat income tax rate.

There's also gonna be partially of what the governor wanted on a Social Security tax cut for folks that make $90,000 or less.

So, that is going to mostly help--and it, of course, will help folks in lower income brackets that are later in life, so older Utahns.

But like you said, this goes all the way down to we've got child tax credits now.

And so that, I think you were saying, like, Democrats and others have argued that a more targeted income tax like they did with the Social Security tax might have been an option in a socks and underwear year, but that's not how it turned out.

Ben: But the child tax credit and the daycare, or the childcare facility business credit, are things that Democrats did say that they supported.

They just hated how this was all bundled together and they very much opposed that income tax cut.

Lindsay: Yeah, I was going to bring up that same point.

Democratic leaders took issue with the fact that the child tax credit and the childcare credit for businesses to build childcare facilities got lumped in with the income tax bill, because those are proposals on their own that passed the House with merit on their own.

And when you lump it in with the income tax, you know, that was--the income tax cut was something they didn't support, but they had to support that bill in order to get those other pieces that they wanted.

Jeff: Legislative tactic as old as time.

Jason: Yeah, exactly.

Well, a lot of these things are connected to economic development efforts in the state of Utah to see how we're doing there.

As you mentioned, our state is still growing, just not what they're hoping for, not what they're projecting.

Let's get a little context for this interesting bill by Senator Kirk Cullimore, Senate Bill 337, "Land Use and Development Amendments."

It was going to create, and Jeff, let's start with you on this one, a beehive development agency.

So this is a coordinator, sort of a land use entity.

Talk about that because this might not go anywhere, but I want to talk about why and what it was going to do.

Jeff: So, quick setup, we do have several land authorities in the state.

There's MITA, which is related to, like, military-like properties.

There's the Inland Port and just a handful of others.

Point of the Mountain Development, yeah.

Ben: Downtown district, all of these things, all the things.

Jeff: With different priorities, with different projects, with different areas they're looking at, all fighting for money.

This, essentially, one bill to rule them all, I think is the joke we made earlier in the newspaper, was kind of gonna, like, put all those under one umbrella and keep those efforts a little targeted and a little more organized.

I can certainly understand that argument.

I know it was a priority for the governor, but it really kind of quietly died just a few nights ago.

Ben: This was where you had groups all across the political spectrum, ideologically opposed, uniting in a common hatred of one bill.

They viewed it as a power grab.

The Eagle Forum lit up their lines.

You know, you had progressive groups who were lobbying heavily to kill this bill.

And it is dead this year.

The Senate Majority Leader says it's not gonna happen, but it may come back later.

But it was just wild to watch groups that normally would not even be seen together at the Capitol united.

Lindsay: And the sponsor admitted to us in our daily Senate availabilities that the messaging got away from them.

This, again, to Jeff's point, is a policy they want to bring forward backed by the governor where they talk about coordination.

You know, when you have housing and affordable housing, we only have so much land in the state.

They want to coordinate these developments projects, but they said the messaging got away from them, where people were just viewing it as state control, state oversight, back to the control piece that we talked about earlier.

Jeff: A 511 fire I think was the big one that--.

Jason: They did call it that.

It's interesting because you have all these government, you know, economic development entities from the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, EDCUtah, the Chamber, all these groups in there, and it's so interesting.

For economic development we've got so many others.

So interesting.

Alcohol.

Ben: Alcohol.

Jason: Okay, some changes.

Lindsay: Watered down, let's pour some water in that alcohol.

Ben: But can I do a straw test with that?

Lindsay: Yes, you can.

That's legal now.

Ben: This was a wild bill.

I have never seen that bill fail.

That bill is not supposed to fail.

It is one of those bills that goes through.

It failed in the Senate over some disagreements over an ugly, ugly word called proximity.

And this is how close a restaurant or a bar can be to a community location.

Think churches, schools, parks, libraries, stuff like that.

The bill as it was kind of introduced, or at least one version of the bill that actually caught fire and started moving in the Senate, would have made--lifted the proximity requirement for all and let local governments decide, do you have a problem with this liquor licensee being located to this?

It's a big issue because across the state we're building these mixed-use developments.

We're doing these things where we have retail next to community spaces, next to housing, and it's gonna be messy.

The version of the bill that did make it through once the bill was resurrected only allows the Point of the Mountain Development authority to have that waiver in what's called an alcohol overlay zone.

So now the bill's in the House, we're gonna see what happens with the House with this bill that wasn't supposed to die and somehow failed in the Senate, was resurrected, and pushed forward.

It also does a lot more.

Now we no longer have the increase on the sin tax.

The straw test, which is where your bartender can, you know, take your little glass and do the little thing, taste it to make sure your drink is good, that's technically illegal in Utah.

Under the bill that will be legal, and you get curbside pick up with your beer now.

You just got to wave at the surveillance camera as you show your ID to the clerk and get it with your online order at the grocery store.

Lindsay: Yeah, I agree it was wild to watch this thing fail, to Ben's point.

That is something that, you know, is negotiated behind the scenes.

There are a lot of stakeholders involved in Utah's alcohol policy, and so you expect that one to be ready to go when it hits the floor.

And again, back to the control piece, this is an issue of who should make the decision over how close alcohol can be sold to community spaces.

And the state is saying this needs to be looked at from a broader perspective to impact everybody and, you know, they were trying to give some control to the cities just to get at this Point of the Mountain Development and senators did not like that.

Jason: That was the early draft of the bill, did exactly that.

I want to switch gears a little bit, Jeff, on elections because we talked about a few of these on this program before.

A lot of modifications have happened.

I want to hear sort of the backstory on a couple of these.

One in particular, House Bill 300, Representative Jefferson Burton, "Amendments to Election Law."

This has to do with mail-in ballots and your ID because we have some opt-in changes.

Let's talk about what they finally came up with.

Jeff: So this bill, bluntly, is going to change the way Utahns understand mail-in voting, full stop.

Voters will need to make sure they have an ID or something that confirms who they are.

Lindsay: Or a state verification card.

Jeff: Which will be free if they can't afford them.

Lindsay: Or a tribal card or--yeah.

Jeff: Have to register with their county elections officials to get a mail-in ballot and then wait for the ballot to show up and then, you know, go through the process that they're more familiar with.

But it's not gonna be automatically sent to them.

They've got some hurdles they gotta jump through, I think some big hurdles to jump through.

Lindsay: Starting in 2029.

Jeff: Yeah, after the next presidential election, yep.

Jason: So that's where you have to opt-in, by 2029 with an eight-year cycle to keep doing this.

Jeff: So we get to the midterms--.

Ben: But you can do it in multiple points.

I mean, you could do it when you renew your driver license.

You can do it, you know, with, I believe, with your vehicle registration.

I mean, there's a number of places where they've done this.

And as Lindsay said, this 2029, there's a long way to work out the kinks, I guess, as you go.

Lindsay: Yeah, but fundamentally, to Jeff's point, this does change deadlines for voters.

Ballots have to be into the clerk's hand by 8 p.m. on election day.

That gets rid of the postmarking deadline and says it doesn't matter when you mail it, but it has to be into the office by 8 p.m. Clerks did not like this bill.

You also have to write the last four of your ID number on the ballot along with signing it, right?

So that's another major change for voters.

Clerks did not like the fact that--they saw real concerns with the tribal piece.

Now I think that's been fixed in the most recent version of the bill.

They were worried the state was going to get sued over this, for discrimination, because tribal folks don't have access to IDs often and live remotely, can't get access to these IDs, but still have the full right to vote.

So there was concerns over disenfranchisement with this bill.

I think the kinks have been worked out, but just to the clerk's point, they just--they see all of the election changes as death by a thousand cuts, and this is a major shift not only for voters but for the clerks as well.

Jeff: The clerks fought hard this year.

I mean, I think I saw at least one clerk up there every day.

And it wasn't that they were fighting a ton of bills, it was working on this one, negotiating.

Jason: Let's talk about another series of bills that seems to have reached some compromise, or at least a pause.

Ben, the judicial system, the judiciary.

Many bills were in play, many of them not.

Talk about what's happening there.

Ben: So many bills were introduced and a lot of them did not make it through and a lot of them were changed.

There was just a lot of pushback.

I mean, look, the Utah Supreme Court issued some rulings that, quite candidly, legislative leadership very much disagreed with.

They did not like those rulings.

And then you saw the voiding of the constitutional amendments this past November, and so you saw these bills that sought to, or at least from the the judiciary's point of view, sought to attack their independence.

And in fact, they pushed back pretty hard.

You saw some of the comments by the Supreme Court justices, you saw 900 plus lawyers weighing in and pushing back on these bills and, in sort of an agreement, you could characterize it as détente.

Some of the bills disappeared.

They're not going to be heard, the ones that created a special legislative committee to go on the ballot and say, "This judge is great, this judge sucks," you know.

That went away.

We do have some bills that deal with the governor and the Senate picking the Chief Justice.

That will go through, it appears.

Lindsay: Changing injunctions.

Ben: The standards for who can sue over a law the legislature passes, the direct appeal to the Supreme Court and putting the Supreme Court on it.

Lawmakers have had some criticisms about the speed at which the Supreme Court also works, saying it takes forever to get a ruling out of them.

After all of this kerfuffle and after the dust settles on this legislative session, I wouldn't be surprised if you start seeing some more rulings coming out pretty rapid fire.

Lindsay: Yeah, and I don't know if the issue was so much, you know, the fact that the legislature was looking to change the judiciary, but you heard the head of the Judicial Council, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court say that at least one bill in particular went too far to insert itself into the judiciary's independence, and that was the bill that would have created the committee where lawmakers could recommend retention on the ballot.

And so, it wasn't so much that there was tension between the branches and that the legislature was looking to make tweaks, because the Constitution of Utah gives them that authority.

It was the kind of tweaks they were trying to make, the judiciary felt, inserted the legislative influence in that branch.

Jeff: In journalism there's a saying where sometimes instead of talking to a bunch of people, you can stick your head out the window and see that it's raining.

And I think there was certainly a moment this year where I felt like we were all sticking our heads out the window and seeing it was raining and that rain being the frustration of lawmakers with the judiciary.

We talked to them after every Supreme Court ruling over this last year to include, you know, the abortion ruling, several that impacted the elections this year, and they were furious and they can say that they weren't mad or this isn't retribution on the back end, but it's hard to not connect that frustration and rage this summer and fall with these bills that are now coming up.

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

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

This 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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