♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for the Hinckley Report is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Jason Perry: Tonight on the Hinckley Report: our panel reflects on a unique 45 days as Utah's legislative session comes to a close.

Now, as the bills land on the governor's desk, our experts discuss how many he will sign and whether we will see any vetoes.

And leaders weigh in on the new federal stimulus package and how it will impact our state.

♪♪♪ CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM 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 Glen Mills, anchor and senior political correspondent with ABC4 News; Lindsay Whitehurst, reporter with the Associated Press; and Ben Winslow, reporter with Fox 13 News.

So glad to be with you all this evening.

We're gonna do a little recap of the legislative session and other things happening in Washington, DC, but I wanna get to a high level here because it's always interesting to see what happens during a legislative session, the things that catch fire, the things that fizzle out.

We're gonna talk about all those things in this program tonight.

Ben, I wanna start with you for just a moment, because often a legislative session has a certain theme, kind of a flavor that persists.

Did we see anything that you could identify in this one?

Ben Winslow: Yeah, it was weird, I mean, that's basically what it was.

We had the COVID restrictions, we had the capitol close the first week of the session, we had physical distancing requirements, mask mandates, random testing of people on Capitol Hill, people staying away, people participating virtually in their pajamas.

It was just different, everything was weird.

Jason: It was so different--how about you, Lindsay, Glen, let's hear what you're thinking.

Lindsay Whitehurst: Well, and you usually have that energy at the capitol, right?

You have kids coming in for tours, you have all of the decisions being made and all of the people, and for me, I covered a lot of the session distantly, too, so I was more comfortable in terms of my attire, but perhaps it was-- but felt a little bit less in the mix in terms of really being there where the vitality is going on, you know.

Jason: Right, right, that's totally true, Glen?

Glen Mills: Definitely a year of navigating uncharted territory, no doubt about that.

And I know that was really frustrating for a lot of people at first as well.

I heard from lobbyists, from advocates who really struggled in connecting, you know, face-to-face with lawmakers, but as weeks went on, everyone started figuring out the best way and it got a lot better.

But definitely--I don't know how you top it other than what Ben already said.

It was just a weird session, that's what it was.

Jason: Yeah, so I wanna talk about some bills, but first on that point, I'm curious about what you felt happened with the public participation, because it's true, one of the weird things was we--for the first time, we just had a lot of people participating remotely, joining these rooms.

Lindsay, did it work?

Is it something that's going to stay?

Lindsay: I think there were a number of people who couldn't have necessarily made it up to the capitol in the middle of the day who were able to get remotely, and I think that is a good tool for a lot of people, that you kind of hope kind of goes on in some way, shape, or form, you know, 'cause not everybody can take time in the middle of their day to go and talk.

Now, to Glen's point, there is an effectiveness to being there in person, to--in life, in real living color, and I think we saw it with the Dixie State issue a little bit, right?

Like, that bill had really stalled, and then the students came up there, they were there in person, they were demonstrating, and I think that that helped to really kind of turn the tide on that issue, and an example of how there are some things you--that are-- that really make-- have your weight in person.

So that was an interesting tension there too.

You have more participation, but then sometimes, do you always get as much impact as you do?

Jason: Right, Ben, you were up on the hill every day in person, pretty much, so-- Ben: Masked and physically distant!

Jason: Yes, you were very good about it, but talk about the difference between those two things that Lindsay and Glen just said, because you got to see it in person, both sides.

Ben: Yeah, there is something to be said for being there in person, and there were a select number of people who showed up every day to lobby, to advocate for bills, and you could see there's always that difference when someone comes out and wants to talk to a lawmaker in person and meeting with them and talking to them and also finding out what else is happening on the hill versus trying to text message.

I mean, lawmakers were telling me that before prayer and pledge were over, they had up to 30 texts on their phone, which is a lot different than you would get in a quote-unquote "normal" year.

But I think it's gonna be here to stay.

I think the virtual hybrid mix is gonna be here because public participation was way up, and to Lindsay's point, people didn't have to drive 4 1/2 hours from St. George or 5 hours from Blanding to speak for 30 quality seconds in front of a committee.

So it--I think that advantage is gonna stay, and so they-- what you could see is committee chair saying, "Anybody here in the room wanna speak to the bill, and anybody online wanna speak to the bill?"

There were some bills where they had-- they capped out at 100 people who wanted to weigh in on a particular piece of legislation.

If that had happened in person, they would have never gotten in the room.

And this is a way for them to sit home in their pajamas and weigh in on legislation that's important to them and their community.

Jason: Boy, it was so nice to see in these meetings, people-- Glen: I really agree, I think that's going to be around to stay, and the only thing I'll add possibly wasn't said already is that people who have never participated in the legislative process before were able to this year because of the-- Jason: Yeah, it was so good to see people even from rural Utah for the first time just engaging quite directly.

And some of--let's talk about some of the bills they were engaging on.

Glen, I'm curious about a couple things.

One, any surprising bills that you saw that just kinda popped up and just sailed through?

Glen: Nothing really ever surprises me in the legislative session, so I'll just start off by saying that.

However, there was one that caught my attention that I was a little bit surprised it came through, and that is the speech amendment sponsored by Senator Mike McKell.

That one--the bill--what it calls "biased moderation" within social media, and there are some serious and legitimate concerns over whether it's constitutional or not.

It was very close, razor-thin in the House, but sailed through the Senate quite easily, and I do think that is one the governor is looking at as a potential veto.

And the interesting thing there is that could set up a pretty interesting family dynamic, because Senator McKell is the governor's brother-in-law, so I'm really interested to see how that one plays out.

Jason: Yeah, so, how do you both see this one playing out in terms of the-- this is the moderation-- this goes directly at social media, which we're going to see some of these key groups out there really going after this one.

Lindsay: It's been a topic of a lot of discussion lately, right?

And especially on the conservative side of things, Senator Mike Lee has talked about it too.

It's definitely an issue of concern.

And--right, you still have that tension of, like, you gotta keep-- you can't tell companies what to do, and you can't have too much control.

How do you strike that balance?

And then, I don't know, in this particular case, you've got, how do you do the family get-together and how do you balance that too?

So it'll be an interesting issue.

Ben: I mean, on that one, either it--if it doesn't get vetoed, the likelihood is strong that there could be a lawsuit by a number of tech companies that have serious fundamental problems with this one.

But it raises the important issue: Is this private property or a public square?

You know, we'll see.

Jason: Yeah, and as you all have mentioned, there are some-- [Glen audio glitchy] Glen: That bill is that they did negotiate where it will push off for one year to where they can handle those things and see how it plays out, if the governor ends up signing it.

Jason: Yeah, to this very good point of--people are talking about a potential veto here, which a couple of you just mentioned on this bill.

That was the governor's statement so far, is there's a delayed implementation of that bill, which will give 'em a chance to work on it for a year.

But before we get to a couple of these other bills, do you think it's likely that the governor vetoes this, and are you hearing about any other potential bills that he might veto?

Lindsay: I'm kind of watching to see what he might do on a bill that's somewhat similar that mandates pornography filters on phones and tablets in Utah.

That one, I've been talking with a few experts on it, and it does seem like there are some pretty clear First Amendment concerns and issues with--there have been, you know, attempts like this back in the '90s to filter content on the Internet that were struck down by the US Supreme Court, so that does seem to be one that might have some constitutional issues.

Of course, adults could turn those off, but--so that--and it is certainly an important issue, right, and it's one that Utah lawmakers have been looking at a lot and what to do about it.

But that's one I think will be interesting to see.

And there's a trigger clause there: five other states would have to do it, so it doesn't go into effect right away.

But it'll be interesting to see what the governor does on that one, too, I think.

Jason: And so this bill makes it so the devices are sold with the filters on, right, with the protections in place that have to be--and so you have to turn 'em off if you-- someone wanted to-- Lindsay: Right, so everyone, anytime you buy a device, that would automatically be on.

And so that'll be kind of an interesting one to see where it goes.

Jason: Mm-hmm, so-- and a point on this, Ben, 'cause I'm curious.

Before the session started, Governor Cox and his estate, he said to his colleagues-- former colleagues in the legislature, "I may be vetoing more of your bills than you've seen in the past."

But something happened during this session, maybe you-- in terms of his own engagement that made it that-- so that we're not really sure there are any bills he wants to veto.

Ben: Well, there's a couple of things the governor has done is, yeah, he's--he and Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson have been actively involved in negotiating this bill--these bills, especially ones that potentially could be cruising for a veto.

You know, the other thing that they're doing is they're giving lawmakers the chance to plead their case before the governor and say, "This is why I think this is good law and why it should stay and why you should sign it instead of vetoing it."

So there's been a lot more of that.

We saw Governor Herbert, in his administration, would do a lot of negotiating as the bill was in play.

We saw that particularly this session with the COVID bills, a lot of negotiating.

The governor's office, especially with some of these ones like the endgame where they would insert themselves in the discussion, saying, "Woah, woah, woah, Department of Health has concerns, public health agencies have concerns, medical groups have concerns, let's talk about this, let's see if we can negotiate this, let's see if we can, you know, come to some kind of an agreement here where I don't have to veto it."

Jason: Yeah, Glen, to this great point, we even heard stories towards the end of the legislative session that Governor Cox was calling people into the governor's mansion, legislative leaders, like, for example, on the bill to potentially eliminate the signature-gathering process here to see if there's common ground.

What did you think about that process and how effective it was?

Glen: Yeah, that--they really negotiated the emergency powers bill as well, and I think it was effective because the governor told me Friday night, closing night of the legislative session, I know he told others this as well-- most of the bills that he had his eye on for a potential veto ended up dying anyway.

But there's one other point I wanna bring up where he may be looking at a veto, and this was actually kind of an underlying tone and theme of the session as well.

I have never heard so many mayors from local cities, county commissioners from, you know, municipal leaders from all across the state, coming out and saying, "Our control is under attack this legislative session."

They were specifically talking about bills for billboards and for-- and for inspections.

Now, couple of those bills did end up passing, and I'll really be watching close to see what the governor does because in addition, he told me Friday night, he said that some of the bills that did cause him--taking a look at are the ones that are addressing local control issues.

Now, they got to a point on the mother-in-law bill where they negotiated a path where municipalities were not okay with it, but they got to a point where they were neutral with the bill because it allowed them some more control over-- parking, how they're used, and also that bill that will allow a builder to get his or her own inspection done outside of the city boards and things negotiated there, so those are some potential bills the governor might have his eye on as well.

But I was really surprised, and I don't know if the other two of you heard this as well, but just a lot of frustration this session from municipal leaders feeling like their rights and their control are under attack.

Jason: Mm-hmm, well, we probably should talk about that control issue for just a moment, too, because you had the municipal side, Ben, but you also had the struggle between the legislature and the governor over all sorts of powers that might be in the executive branch, particularly when it comes to emergency declarations.

Ben: Yeah, but those bills were also negotiated with the governor.

I mean, it's really interesting because these bills stem from a very public fight between the legislature and Governor Herbert when they refused to extend the state of emergency and public health orders, so he said, "Fine, I'll let it expire, and then I'm gonna issue a new one every 30 days."

And then we hit a crisis point with case counts to where they let him issue a statewide mask mandate.

Then they come back around in January to weigh in these things.

The bill that did ultimately pass when it came to emergency powers dealt with future emergencies, not necessarily this one, which is why you even saw the legislature defeat efforts to lift the statewide mask mandate immediately from within their own chamber, 'cause they're saying, "We don't wanna deal with this right now."

But those were negotiated.

The governor signed the emergency procurement bill.

This is the one where the previous administration was spending millions--more than $100 million in no-bid contracts, doing whatever they had to do during the pandemic, and then you find out, you know, there's these tech contracts we don't know exactly what they did or what did this--what did we get from this, so there's a lot more oversight.

And Governor Cox went along with it and said, "Yeah, I'm cool with this."

So he even signed that one already as of this morning, so, yeah, it's--a lot of these were already negotiated with the governor's office, not necessarily, you know, making a run at him, but running with him.

Jason: Yeah, Lindsay, I'm kind of curious what you saw to this very good point, too, because a lot was made of this what looked like a potential power struggle, and it ended up being sort of a compromised, shared governance of sorts.

What do you think from people you're hearing from on "The Hill"?

Did one side feel like they won, or was this one that in the end it wasn't just about winning that particular argument?

Lindsay: Well, it's politically smart, right?

Because, you know, just to take a step back, last year has been a crisis that none of us have ever been through before, in government, in personal life, anything else, right?

And so, there are--there was a lot of kind of making it up as you go along, or I think the other metaphor was, you know, building the plane while it's in flight, you know?

So, there was a lot of that that was happening, and so-- and a lot of these things became about both public health and politics, right?

And people had a different point of view on what should be done depending on their political leanings, often.

And so, it became something that when you can kind of go back and then redo these struggles but keep the--everyone negotiates behind the scenes, and then you say one thing publicly, right?

And so, that's kind of a smart political thing to do is not to necessarily come out and have the food fight in public but to do it a little bit behind closed doors, and then you can say, "Hey, look, actually we're cool with this," and everybody gets a little bit of what they want, you know?

And that end up being kind of the sausage making that happens, and who knows?

We may not see anything like this again.

I'm gonna hope we don't.

I am just gonna hope we don't, that a lot of these things that we've negotiated now don't have to come back into play for many years, in a century or so is good with me.

Jason: I hope that's true.

All right, to your point about the back rooms, Glen, I'm curious, a lot of this stuff did get resolved in the back rooms without a whole lot of public spectacle.

We had a couple.

Anything you saw that died this year that you see coming back next year?

Maybe some of these are controversial, maybe not, but what you see is going to rise again?

Glen: Yeah, a couple bills I mentioned--one is SB-54 has become the gift that just keeps giving, right?

There was actually a point in this legislative session where I thought Dan McCay's bill would've given-- more power to just--to how they want their candidate to get to the primary--going to pass.

It ended up failing in the end, and that's another one where I, you know, came together and negotiated, but we know that one's going to come back.

I mean, just this year, it died at one point and was-- got backed up, what?

Like, an hour later?

And it ended up passing the Senate.

So, that's one that will always come back, and again, when we talk about surprises, there was a point I thought that one actually had a chance to pass this year, but that ended up falling apart, and there's another one I'll mention.

I've been talking to a lot of Republicans in the state legislature, specifically leadership, and I think another bill that's going to come back that was really highly controversial this year and a big debate was the one regarding transgender athletes and girls' sports in high school.

I talked to one member of leadership in the House who named that as the biggest missed opportunity this year to address that issue, so I think that one will be making a comeback as well.

Jason: Lindsay, you did some great reporting on that particular bill.

Are you hearing the same?

What do you think's likely to happen?

Lindsay: I do think Glen's on the money there.

I do think that's an issue that will come back again.

You're seeing it pop up in a lot of states this year, something like half of states have some sort of bill having to do with transgender kids in sports, and I do think that's-- we saw it the year before too.

This year was not the first year a bill like that had been introduced, and so I don't think we're done talking about that as a country.

What we found in our reporting is you just don't--it's not something that's happening in backyards right now as much, that we talked to--a colleague of mine in New York, we went to all the states where law makers were sponsoring these bills, and what we found is none of them could name a case where it's become a problem in their state, where there's, of course, a high-profile case out of Connecticut where there were two transgender girls in track, and they were very competitive in their sport, but in terms of "Is this a problem being seen in backyards across American?"

So far, our reporting suggests that it's not, that it's something that is a little bit more of a political issue right now and how you feel about social issues, and so especially with the Biden administration coming in--I believe it was day one--and saying, "You can't discriminate against transgender kids in sports," that's where the politics, the Democrat-Republican politics, sort of come in, too, so it's also a way to sort of push back on the Biden administration, and so I do think that's a conversation we're gonna keep having as a country and in Utah too.

Ben: Bills that I think will come back--one bill that I think did not make it through and I said, "Wouldn't be shocked to see it come back," statewide broadband internet access.

One thing that COVID has taught us is we're all teleworking, Glen's appearing remotely, and you know, internet connectivity is a big issue, and it's becoming an increasing issue, and that bill did not make it through.

I think it died on a close vote in the Senate.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that one return because there's gonna be a lot of push for expanded internet access, particularly for rural Utah.

Jason: That's right, we are gonna see more and more of that, it's true.

I wanna get to one of the bills that was mentioned here because it's going to become even more of an interesting topics we're gonna talk about.

It's back to masks.

I was gonna bring us back to masks again because we're at the--we were all wearing ours, right?

At the time we started here, but Glen, this endgame bill that most of you have mentioned-- Ben was talking about just a moment ago-- talked about when the mask mandate is lifted, which is not entirely for everyone, right?

There's still some parameters on that but still a controversial aspect of the recovery.

Glen: Yeah, no doubt about that, so the mask mandate under this bill will be repealed on April 10.

There are extensions: large gatherings, 50-plus, kids at school will still be required to wear masks, but here's something else I wanted to get to on this.

I think we're still gonna see big businesses, you know, the grocery stores, malls, others who are still going to require masks, and it could potentially get to the point where we see fighting over this, and that's why we saw a pretty straightforward plea from the governor just the other day saying, "Had we moved forward, some people are gonna wanna keep wearing masks.

Some people will choose to maybe long into the future," so I don't think this is necessarily going away on April 10, and I think we're still gonna see a lot of people in the private sector and a lot of businesses still choose to enact those mask mandates if you're going to go into their stores.

Jason: It's an interesting point.

It has become something a lot of businesses are talking about, right?

Not just those businesses but people talking about the longer kind of plan for mask wearing in the state.

Ben: Yeah, and it's almost like we're right back where we were last summer, when Governor Herbert was encouraging everyone, "Please, do this, just do it because you care about your neighbor and you're not a jerk," or something like that.

Jason: Those were his words.

Ben: And we're going back to that encouragement.

Certainly there is a mechanism in the bill that also allows county governments to do this, but it has to be a county legislative body, so you won't necessarily see Mayor Wilson of Salt Lake County implementing a mask mandate because now she's gotta go through the Republican-controlled county council to see it they'll go along with it, so there's a lot of different steps to go through, but private business has the ability to do this, and yeah, you could see like when Harmons was one of the first, and that was so shocking to everybody that Harmons is mandating masks.

Costco did the same thing.

You know, you have different entities, and they could just say, "We're gonna keep it going until we feel comfortable lifting this, not when the legislature feels comfortable lifting this."

Jason: Very interesting point.

I wanna transition, too, a little bit because the Biden administration has been talking about this issue a little bit too, but it's also wrapped up in the COVID response as a country, so Lindsay, if we can take just a minute on this enormous stimulus plan that was just signed by the president yesterday.

People all across the country, including people in the state of Utah, many will be getting their $1,400 checks as early as this weekend, but I mention this because our own delegation was not exactly very supportive of this stimulus bill.

Lindsay: Right, and one problem that some Republicans have with it is you can't use it to cut taxes, which is certainly something that is supported by a lot of Republicans, right?

And you know, a state like Utah, where we've kind of weathered this fairly well, relatively speaking, you can see the point like, "Hey, we don't necessarily need all this cash coming into our state governments."

I do think a lot of individuals are still hurting, and a lot of people are still kind of trying to rebuild their lives, so I think there'll be a lot of individuals who say, "Thank goodness, please, I need this in my-- to help, you know, my family," because there is some child tax carriers, credit stuff involved too, and so that means a lot to a lot of people, but yeah, I think that there are definitely still some disagreements in there whether overall this was a good idea from a Republican point of view.

Jason: Right, Glen, were you at all surprised when you heard Mitt Romney, for example, saying, "Money's coming to the state of Utah.

This could be up to eight billion dollars," and he's saying, "We had surpluses already."

This is not the kind of spending plan he was looking for, and Mike Lee had even harsher words about it.

Glen: Yeah, that was one of their biggest problems with the bill is that they said, "Look, states like Utah don't need this money, and it's going to go--" in their words, this is them speaking from what we're heard from them, to states that have mismanaged funds, potentially, or a bailout of states who haven't been responsible with their money, so that was really a big point for our delegation and I think other Republicans in the--in Congress as well.

Jason: Yeah, for just a couple final words on this one, Ben--because it's interesting-- it was not a bipartisan bill at all.

Ben: Are they ever?

Jason: A lot of times they're not, but how are our local elected officials--just what you're hearing, how they're trying to balance the stimulus funds with kind of their long-term planning in terms of their finances at the state?

Ben: Well, I mean, it-- the state is trying-- at least locally, we're gonna come back to another special session.

This is not over.

They're gonna have to figure out how to spend it, and yeah, there is concerns.

There's still concerns about a fiscal cliff coming, on the one hand.

There's also concerns just about racking up a lot of debt, and you know, the legislature's gonna have to figure some of this out, especially as the decision has been made on a federal level, the money is coming, what do you do with it?

Jason: Yeah, so, maybe Glen 'cause I know you were hearing this too, just on our last--go ahead, Glen.

Glen: Just what I think is important on this stimulus plan, we saw it change a little bit in the Senate, and then it had to do that to bring in some more of the modern--moderate Democrat to get them on board, and one important point is people who may have gotten one or two of the stimulus checks before are not going to get them this time, because even moderate Democrats wanna see this more targeted to the people who want it most, so there's a hard cap this time and a much lower on the stimulus checks than what it was last time.

That make 75,000--individuals making $75,000 or less up to $1,400, and then it'll be tiered up to 80,000, where it will cap off this time, so there might be some people saying, "Well, where's my check this time around," and that's why they won't be seeing it.

Jason: Mm-hmm, we'll watch this one closely.

This is an interesting balance, too, as they're trying to stimulate our economy, and there are still a lot of needs out there, so we'll continue to monitor that issue closely.

Thank you all so much for your really great insights.

That was a great legislative session wrap-up.

I appreciate it, great, great comments tonight, and thank you for watching the Hinckley Report.

This show is also available as a podcast on pbsutah.org/hinckley-report or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us, we'll see you next week.

♪♪♪