♪♪♪ 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," as lawmakers pass the halfway mark of the session, the race to consider a record number of new bills tightens.

Governor Cox takes a strong stance on important national security developments that will impact the state.

And new polling reveals how Utahns opinions on major issues has shifted.

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

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

Covering the week we have Gary Herbert, former governor of Utah; Sahara Hayes, Democrat representing South Salt Lake in the Utah House of Representatives; and Glen Mills, former political reporter and director of communications and government relations with the Department of Corrections.

Thank you so much for being with us this evening, so much with our legislature and a lot in the headlines too that I wanna get to as we get to the halfway mark of the legislative session.

I want us first before we get to the legislation, start with you governor, about something in headlines today.

As we've seen Bills on DEI, we talked about women in sports, and state school board member Natalie Cline is under fire for a photo she just posted of a Granite School District basketball team targeting a player, questioning whether or not this player was transgender.

Immediate response, all part, all sides of the aisle.

Gary Herbert: She's done something that's really rare, she's offended everybody.

I mean, everybody in the legislature, both sides of the aisle, school board members or colleagues she works with, the public at large.

We've had a major campaign on anti-bullying, and that's usually student on students, and our social media has been a topic of discussion.

What can we do to protect our children?

So, to have an adult and a member of the school board actually engage in cyber bullying is really disappointing, and as most people are saying now, she should resign.

Jason Perry: Representative, talk about that, because there's this call to resign, but talk about what some of these options are, because it's not like the school board itself can just kick her off.

Sahara Hayes: Sure, well, the legislature, I know, is looking at impeachment, and potentially following those processes.

I can speak for my caucus, I can't speak for the others, but we met with legal counsel yesterday to kind of go over what that would look like.

One of the perks with that would be that if she is impeached rather than or in addition to resigning, she would not be able to run for that office again, so it would keep her off future ballots, which at this point, for the sake of everybody that's being impacted, I think would be beneficial to Utah to not have her on a ballot.

Glen Mills: Imagine being a teenage girl, going about your life, doing the activities you love, and having an elected official adult come after you that way.

The governor referred to this as unconscionable, and I believe that's what everyone believes.

As you mentioned, people are coming with backlash at all angles.

Republicans, Democrats, Equality Utah, Governor Cox also pointing out that this is not the first time she has embarrassed both the state of Utah and the Board of Education.

There's one point I wanna make on this, though.

I came up in the old school era of journalism, it was a time where when you heard an allegation, you actually did some homework on it and some background and you tried to find some evidence and facts to back that up before you go throw it out in the public.

Social media has created a platform where people seem like they have free license to just say whatever they want, regardless of whether it's true.

So, we talk a lot about the impacts that social media has on children.

Maybe we should take a look at the impact it has on adults as well and just the way it's lowered decorum in our communities.

It's really something we need to take seriously, and we are starting to see that with this comment this time.

We've seen her parents speak out, they've had to get security for their daughter, they've talked a little bit about her story in the media.

And just because Natalie Cline thinks she doesn't look the way she's supposed to, she went out and said something that wasn't true.

Gary Herbert: No, it brings to mind that a few years ago we had a debate on what should we do with the school board?

Should it be a partisan make up, should it be appointed by the governor?

Which I think has some merit.

The governor usually has a broader view what's taking place in the state, can pick people that really suit themselves to be helpful for education and higher education and what's involved there.

So, maybe it's time to have that debate again on what is the makeup and how do we actually constitute the state school board?

Jason Perry: Go ahead, Representative.

Sahara Hayes: Yeah, I wanted to touch a little bit more on the Natalie Cline of it, all right, because we've talked about her and her role.

She's an elected leader, it makes it extra inappropriate, but I wonder if she's instigating witch hunts against kids in a very public platform, what's happening with people and parents and other people that are just posting on Facebook, right?

Like, this might be an issue that is more widespread than just her actions that we're not seeing because it's not coming from a public figure.

And then on top of that, part of this is that she went after a cisgender child and really targeted them and really got a mob mentality building around them.

And I think it's important that this would be problematic and awful no matter what the kid's gender identity, whether they were cisgender, transgender.

This is adults targeting, harassing, and bullying kids, and that's never okay.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about the board for just a second to that, Glen.

So, this is--there are 15 members of the school board, they're elected, but talk about the--Governor Herbert talked about this a bit too.

In 2020 was really the first time we've had a partisan election for these positions, which is maybe why we're seeing some of this now.

Talk about what you're hearing about that and maybe some of the ideas like what Governor Herbert had, which is maybe these should be appointed positions.

Glen Mills: Well, we have seen an evolution of that over the years from appointed to elected, and then 2020 was the first partisan election for school board, and this is what we are seeing as a result of that at this point.

One other thing though, you talk about potential impeachment that the legislature is looking into, that would, if that happened and they were able to do that, that would preclude her from being able to run again.

However, there's also a very strong focus on that race now.

In fact, both the governor and the lieutenant governor have said they made donations to Natalie Cline's opponent in the Republican primary, and they're starting to push that as a route to potentially remove her from office as well.

Gary Herbert: Well, at the end of the day, it's we the people.

We elect the people.

If we don't like what they're doing, we ought to elect somebody else.

And so, again, some of the responsibility is on us as voters.

Jason Perry: Do you think this should be appointments of the governor?

Should it be sort of like by the committee as it has been before 2020?

Gary Herbert: We actually had a proposal way back when there was a combination of appointments by the governor and elections by half of the board.

So, a combination which really, I think, was a good plan, and we had it ready to go, and the UEA didn't like it.

And I said, "You're probably gonna get partisan elections if you don't," and that's what's happened.

Jason Perry: We'll be watching this one closely.

Likelihood of legislation coming do you think, Representative?

Sahara Hayes: I think there's something coming out.

We'll see how it goes though.

I can't speak for the other caucuses and what their conversations look like, but I know that my caucus is definitely pushing for that.

Jason Perry: Okay, let's transition to sports for just a moment.

Something we've been watching very closely, but it's also a bill that was just in committee, the House Education Committee this week dealing with name, image, and likeness.

This is athletes being paid for their name, for them promoting certain materials.

So, Governor, I wanna start with you, because you almost went pro, as I think, so you can talk about this.

Gary Herbert: They said, "Don't call us, we'll call you."

Jason Perry: Okay, so talk about this generally, because what this bill does is at first, it establishes the kind of sponsors that an athlete cannot have.

Gary Herbert: Well, first off, I'm not a big proponent of name, image, and likeness.

I think that's gonna destroy college athletics.

I think the rich get richer.

I think it's not a good program.

I think it's a mistake.

So, that's where I come from.

That being said, I don't know what problem we're trying to solve with the legislation.

That's something we always would ask in the administration.

What problem are we trying to solve with this piece of legislation?

It's a little unclear.

And I do believe that we don't wanna put ourselves at a disadvantage if we're trying to attract athletes to come here and they say, "Oh, we gotta report this," and Utah is the only state that requires it to be done.

That may put us at a disadvantage in our universities as we attract athletes to come and participate.

So, there's some concern there with this bill in that regard.

Jason Perry: Now, Representative, part of this was very specific requirements.

So, an athlete could not get a deal that involves tobacco, cigarettes, alcohol, steroids, antibiotics, marijuana, gambling, sexual oriented businesses, or firearms they could not legally purchase.

So, this is a pretty long list.

Say, we realize you're going to have these sponsorships, but this is the list that you can't.

Talk about that for just a moment.

Sahara Hayes: I mean, to me that sounds like a reasonable list, right?

But I'm also--I'm not the athlete, I'm not the business, and I'm not their school.

So, I think it's important that we weigh the fact that these are first and foremost students, and then they are athletes, and then they are potentially going to be influencers of some sort, or however else it is that they would be marketing these products.

So, to me, the top tier of that would be, what does the school say?

What values does the school want promoted or not want promoted?

And those seem like reasonable values that you would maybe not want an 18 year old marketing, that seems reasonable.

But also I think that the authority there might be the schools.

Jason Perry: So, Glen, add to that for just a moment, this very interesting component, you're putting on your media hat for just a moment.

There are arguments about whether or not these contracts between these players, these athletes, and their sponsors should be public documents or not, these public records.

And there are pretty strong arguments on both sides of that that we heard about in committee.

Glen Mills: Yeah, I think members of the media take a look at it and say the public has a right to know who's funding these particular deals.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, there's a potential lawsuit or a lawsuit that is involving that very issue where the media wants to know what is behind these deals.

And so, that's a big part of the argument.

You know, you're talking about public education, public funding, so does that lead to the public's right to know who's behind these type of contracts?

But just in general too, I would add, it's not just NIL, there are other factors.

Fans are taking a look at college athletics, and it's not even recognizable in some ways to what it used to be.

So, I think a lot of people are trying to take a look at what is happening and what is going on as a result of these and saying, "What can we do to potentially rein that back a little?"

I know President Adams was saying the current state just is not sustainable, and I think that's why he and other leaders are interested in taking a look at what they could potentially do.

And I know that's being talked about on the federal level as well.

Gary Herbert: I believe too that the universities need to have some understanding of what's happening to their athletes, who's giving them money, and for what reason.

I think the universities have some responsibility to keep an eye on that.

But when you think about the money, I mean, we have people coming out of high school and be given over a million dollars, and some more as this develops to come and play at my school.

Then they enter the portal, the transfer portal, and go to another school.

There's no loyalty, there's a lot of money being spent, and amateur athletes is no more.

It's really pro athletes now that we're in college.

Glen Mills: Some athletes are making the decision to stay in college because they know they're going to make more money than they would in the pros.

You also have situations where players on a certain team because of their name aren't even playing, they're getting in at garbage time, and they're making more money than everyone else on the team.

Jason Perry: Governor, one of the things happening on the federal level like our Congressman Burgess Owens, for example, is looking at legislation to mandate financial literacy training from the universities.

Gary Herbert: So they save their money and invest it properly while they're in college.

Jason Perry: Probably, probably right.

Let's get to a couple other bills that came up this week.

One that's coming forward, Representative, let's talk with you about House Bill 11.

This is Employment Training Requirements Limitations.

This is Representative Tim Jimenez has put this forward, restricting in the private sector this sort of DEI in the private sector, prohibit employers from imposing racial beliefs on workers in the private sector.

This is fairly unique, to see the legislature getting into those sorts of employment agreements.

Sahara Hayes: Absolutely it is.

I think that is usually a sandbox we try to stay out of because that is not our role as government to dictate what individual employers are asking for or not asking for from their employees.

So, that's where I find it to be problematic.

I think there's a lot that can be unpacked with this bill, but at the end of the day, we're saying that this passed through the House, right, so the 75 of us in the House should have more say than every single business?

Like, our opinions on how they should run their business should matter more?

That feels weird to me.

Jason Perry: Governor, talk about it for a moment, because you led the state at a time when the state did need to--did need to work quite directly with the private sector.

Gary Herbert: Yes, COVID, you know, which was a unique time, a one in one hundred year event.

But as you recall, we talked about we wanna keep government off your backs and out of your wallets, and that was kind of what we looked through the lens of that on everything we did.

Minimal invasion into your life by the government.

And I think it's--to tell-- government to tell private enterprise how to function and what to do is a slippery slope of--that I don't think we want to go on.

We do recognize all their civil rights, and so as we hire people and deal with them, we don't wanna violate civil rights out there.

That's something we have in law, and I certainly support that, but this extra effort here seems to be just overburden some to the private sector.

Jason Perry: I wanna get to another interesting bill this week.

That was, it arrived and then it went away very quickly.

Representative, let's talk about this.

Representative Ryan Wilcox, he had a bill that would create an independent elections office, take it out of the responsibility of the lieutenant governor, talk about that.

Sahara Hayes: Well, you were saying earlier, Governor, like, what problem are we trying to fix, right?

And I--my thought is if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

We have a lot of issues.

I get to sit on the Government Operations Committee for the House, so we see a lot of election bills come through, a lot of election security bills come through.

And the thing that I've noticed is that the small but vocal minority that speaks up because they are concerned about election security is not very reflective of the whole of the state from polling, from reports that have been done, and it's not necessarily accurate, right?

We've gotten wonderful reports, they reported to us in September of an audit going through election security, so I'm very curious what this is trying to solve.

And is it trying to solve a problem to appease a very, very small percentage of the population?

And is that worth the huge expense that that will be?

I think the lieutenant governor is doing a fabulous job managing what can be a contentious issue.

She's in a partisan role, but she is handling this in a nonpartisan way beautifully, so I don't think that there is a problem that even needs fixing in the first place.

Jason Perry: Go ahead.

Glen Mills: In the state of Utah, most people feel safe and secure about the election process.

The representative, Representative Wilcox, made mention of the gubernatorial race in Arizona recently as a possible reason for this bill, but we've seen it on a national level as well.

Former President Trump, you know, sowed the seeds of doubt in the most previous election, and that has trickled down to his base and others across the country.

But the gubernatorial race in Arizona, the Republican candidate Kari Lake was a Trump supporter, very vocal about that.

He endorsed her as well, so I think you're seeing some of that dynamic play into that specific election as well.

Gary Herbert: Let me just mention too that I've talked to Doug Ducey, who's a good friend of mine and the governor of Arizona when this all happened, and he says, you know, it's not true.

The election was not stolen, it was accurate.

He feels very comfortable about the outcomes as reflective of the voters.

And it's interesting that there's a little institute down south, the Utah Valley, University called the Herbert Institute, we just did a a research paper on elections in Utah.

Are they safe, are they secure, are they accessible?

And it got A's across the board for the good work that's being done by our clerks in our counties that do most of the elections.

Lieutenant governor has an oversight responsibility over the election process to make sure it's being handled properly, but the nuts and bolts work's done by our local clerks, who are doing an excellent job.

People have access, the tabulation is correct, the chain of title, you know, it goes forward is good, and the responsibility of the voter are all working together to say, I can tell you, we have a good election system here in Utah that's safe and secure and accurate.

Glen Mills: And we talked a little bit earlier in the show about mob mentality.

We've seen that in this election process as well.

Our county clerks have come under fire and threat, and it's been a pretty high turnover position recently as well because of that.

So, they deserve a lot of credit for what they do and what they are going through.

Gary Herbert: I agree.

Jason Perry: Let's turn to another issue that we actually previewed here on "The Hinckley Report" that it may be coming, whether or not we will have a lottery in the state of Utah.

So, Representative, do you mind taking us through this for a moment?

This is Representative Kera Birkeland from Morgan, would create a state operated lottery.

Sahara Hayes: Yeah, I think that's fascinating, and not what I expect it to come from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle at all.

I think we very vice hesitant in this state.

We don't like introducing new ones, so to have this come up as a potential option for people, I was very startled to see that come up this session.

It'll be fascinating to see how it goes.

Jason Perry: It will be, it's interesting.

Go ahead, Glen, talk about what's happening with our leadership on this.

Glen Mills: Yeah, that's what I was gonna get into.

From what I'm hearing, there's some interest and appetite for it in the House, but not so much in the Senate.

So, if I were a betting man, I would probably say that the effort may have some trouble there.

But to your point of you being surprised to see your colleagues on the other side of the aisle take this up, every time we start to see that powerball and the lottery number just inch up there into the millions and billions, Evanston, Wyoming, and Malad, Idaho become the hottest tourist spots in the state of Utah because everyone's running across the border to--well, not everyone, but a lot of people running across the border to play the game and see if they can get lucky and get in.

So, there's probably some insight or some view that all these people from Utah are still playing the game, and the state isn't benefiting from it financially, so that's probably what's driving a lot of that interest.

Gary Herbert: You know, I think, again, it's come up, we had parimutuel betting as a discussion here a few years back when we were in the administration, and we are one of only two states that don't have gambling, Utah and Hawaii.

The motivation to have more money, I don't think it's one that's compelling, at least to me.

There's some things that you wanna stand for and vices you don't wanna have in your community.

If we want just more money, we could have full blown casinos.

I mean, we don't always stop with just a lottery.

And the other concern is I think as you open that door, there is a concern what happens on, like, Native American reservations.

Can they open up now a casino?

Can they do gambling on their reservations because we've opened it up now for gambling in Utah?

So, there's some concerns there.

I, again, the motivation of we're getting more money I don't think is a compelling one to me and I think for most of Utah.

If they wanna go to Idaho, good luck, have fun.

Hope they hit the jackpot.

Sahara Hayes: And I want to point out that if we need more money, maybe we wouldn't be looking at tax cuts this year.

Gary Herbert: That's another option.

Jason Perry: You are seeing that, those proposals come forward now, aren't you, in the legislature?

Sahara Hayes: Yeah, we for sure are.

Jason Perry: Let's into another big headline, Glen, with the state of Utah, but particularly Utah as it deals with immigration, for example.

Our governor, Governor Cox, went to the border this week, came back with some pretty direct statements.

I wanna play a clip from him and put this through the lens of Utahns and how they view not just his trip, but this issue generally.

Let's play this clip.

Spencer Cox: Regardless of your politics, and I can tell you, I'm hearing from Democratic mayors, I'm hearing from Democratic governors for the first time who are saying, yeah, this is an issue, this is a crisis, and we should all be concerned about this, and we should be putting pressure on the president of the United States whose job--whose job it is to enforce the laws that are on the books and is not doing that.

We should also be putting pressure on Congress to help deal with some of these things.

Again, part of stopping illegal immigration is to fix legal immigration.

We're incentivizing all of the wrong things.

Jason Perry: Okay, Glen.

Glen Mills: So, the governor also went on to call this a humanitarian catastrophe, and I think most people do look at the situation there and can agree with that situation.

But there's a lot of opposition or difference in how you come to that solution.

We've been talking about fixing illegal immigration since I was a kid.

I remember, you know, the days of Ronald Reagan and the Congress he was working with talking about this issue, and there just doesn't seem to be progress in my lifetime, significant progress in my lifetime on that.

But in a lot of ways it circles back to politics.

The Congress was working on a bipartisan deal, and we saw former President Trump come out and speak against that deal, and I see that as politically motivated, because that is an issue that he can be strong on in the upcoming election as it moves closer.

Jason Perry: Yeah, talk about that, Governor, because there was a deal with the federal government, it was done, it was enhanced security, had to do with crossings, but aid to Israel and Ukraine, and that, when President Trump said he was not in favor of this, it seems to have died there in Congress.

Gary Herbert: Well, Glen's right, we've had this argument since Ronald Reagan.

And the problem is that Democrats know it's a problem, Republicans know it's a problem, they just can't seem to get together to find some kind of a compromise solution.

And they've used it for political purposes.

Republicans wanna have a wall, we're gonna protect our country, secure the borders, et cetera.

Okay, and Democrats are a little more con--not as concerned about people coming in the country, and they're treating the humanity that goes there.

Now, what's happened is Democrats wanna have enforcement on the wall, and now the Republicans are opposed to it because Trump says don't support it.

I mean, they've done a 180 degree flip.

So, there's too much politics involved here rather than solve the problem.

I met with President Obama, and you made me recall, Utah has some bills we passed to kind of address with the undocumented folks in our border here.

We got sued by the federal government, and to--and the courts upheld that suit against us, saying this is a federal issue, not a state issue.

So, now we got the problem of the governor of Texas, who's a good friend of mine, I like him a lot, but he's saying I'm gonna break the law in order to enforce the law, which is not a good place to be either.

The Supreme Court's told him what he can't do, he's going contrary to that.

We talk a lot about the wall and the fence and the border, we don't talk enough about the gate coming into the country.

That's the broken part of this whole thing.

Most people from south of the border wanna come here, work, make money, and go back home.

They can't do it with our current broken system.

So, let's talk more about the gate along with securing the borders at the same time and see if we can get--set aside politics and come up with a solution, even though it may be a compromise.

Jason Perry: Representative, can you talk about that for a moment through these particular lenses?

Because it does seem that this is an issue that's going to go straight into our general election, particularly for the president.

Sahara Hayes: Sure, absolutely it is.

And I think at the heart of it, this needs to be an issue that is focused on compassion and how can we have the best for everybody?

So, that is American citizens, and that is people that are trying to get here.

How can we make sure that this is a safe process, how can we make sure that this is a fair process, and how can we make sure that it is expedient so that people aren't having to wait in uncertainty and potentially dangerous situations?

Jason Perry: Glen, go on.

Glen Mills: The governor also refuted this narrative or idea that if you are for stronger border security, you're anti-immigration.

That's another part of this is, you know, when you disagree with someone, you tend to focus in on, well, if you want a strong border, you don't want people coming into the country, and that you don't care for them.

We have a strong history of caring for immigrants in the state of Utah and welcoming them and seeing the value that they bring to our state.

Governor Herbert can probably talk to that a little better than I can, but it's something that we have as a community really valued in our state.

Gary Herbert: And you're right, Glen, and frankly, there are two categories.

One is refugees who are fleeing for their life.

They're kicked out of their countries, they need to go to a safe place or they'll die.

Then there's those who are just hopping over the border, overstaying their visas, undocumented aliens that come into our country.

There's two categories.

By the way, when I was talking to President Obama about this, he said, "I'm trying to do it by executive order," and he got sued and prohibited.

So, it's the Congress, we've got to get the Congress to act with some common sense.

Jason Perry: It's gonna have to be the last word.

Thank you so much for your comments this evening, and thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.org/HinckleyReport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

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