♪♪♪ 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," the world looks on as leaders gather for the president's inauguration.

Utahn's react as historic executive orders are signed.

And the 2025 legislative session is off to a running start with a flurry of new bills.

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

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

Covering the week we have Utah State Senate Majority Leader Kirk A. Cullimore; Utah State Senate minority Leader Luz Escamilla; and Bountiful City councilwoman Kate Bradshaw.

Thank you for being with us.

All elected officials with us today.

It's a good thing because we have a lot to talk about when it comes to elections and our leaders.

I want to start by talking about the inauguration that happened this week.

President Trump sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.

I'd love just to get your take on it because sometimes what happens in these speeches and the actions that are taken do have sort of a ripple effect through the state of Utah in terms of policy and priorities.

Senator, can we start with you?

Some of the takes from the inauguration.

Kirk A. Cullimore: Yeah, well, I think President Trump touched on all of the--all of the issues that his supporters were expecting him to.

It was uncomfortable at times with President Biden and Kamala Harris sitting right behind him, but that added to the entertainment value, I think.

And so, excited to see what's gonna happen.

Obviously, we've had a flurry of executive orders these first three days, but, you know, and I think that kind of highlights some of the problem that we have with the federal government is that, you know, it's this moving target whenever a new presidency comes in.

Executive orders shouldn't really rule the day, I don't think, but that's what we've seen with the last couple cycles, and we're seeing it again.

Jason: Yeah, Senator Escamilla, that's definitely the case.

There were a lot of executive orders.

In fact, some of them sworn in and almost went immediately and started signing some of those executive orders.

Luz Escamilla: You know, so I actually did spend my whole day watching the inauguration and beyond the inauguration.

So, I just want to--because people said, well, his speech was a very structured speech and, you know, there were some uncomfortable moments as explained by the good senator.

But then there was his speech after and I actually watched the whole thing and it was more to his--to Republican elected officials.

Wow, that was a little bit different from what we heard, you know, 20 minutes before and I'm more worried about his second speech than his first speech that was clearly a more official speech.

So, I--his executive orders certainly reflect the second speech, and that was a longer, kind of like almost 45 minute speech.

Very uncomfortable, some very mini stuff in there, so executive orders are, I think, reflecting a lot of those things, and I know we'll talk to some of those, but you know, it's scary times for many Utahns, and I think that needs to be acknowledged.

And we're here as state legislators in our own states which we have protections as states to make sure that we don't have intrusion of federal government and the senate Democrats are ready to fight for that.

Jason: Kate, talk about some of the--sort of the implications of that speech and President Trump during those first couple of days in office.

You know, a lot of this was really not a big surprise.

There were campaign promises that he said he would do that he did almost immediately.

Kate Bradshaw: You're right, not a big surprise.

He had been forecasting the playbook and his supporters have been forecasting the playbook, you know, since election day and, and obviously these are a lot of campaign promises that we have heard from him.

He'd been prepping, you know, they had a whole stack of these executive orders really ready to go.

And so, we saw those things, you know, quickly roll out, and you saw responses, you know, kind of quickly roll out too from entities that are are challenging those executive orders in court.

And, you know, as Senator Cullimore mentioned ruling with executive order has become kind of what we expect now at the change of the presidency and then the change of party.

And that's an interesting way to govern because it does kind of whipsaw policies back and forth.

Departments, agencies, what the public can expect, what business can expect, you know, luckily we don't necessarily do that here at the state level, but it definitely has made for an interesting week as you're trying to keep track of the orders and keep track of the court actions, at the same time watching, you know, Senate hearings on the president's cabinet picks which have also provided, you know, some interesting theater for the week as well.

Jason: Yeah, very interesting.

I want to get to a couple of those executive orders, Senator Cullimore, let's start because there are some pieces of legislation that are connected to them, even the state of Utah, two on immigration, and we were told they would be coming and they did, and I want to get into the challenges because they were challenged pretty quickly too.

The Remain in Mexico program and then sort of the end of the birthright citizenship.

Those are the two of the big ones that came right out of the gate.

Talk about those a little bit because these are issues that have been discussed here in the state of Utah at great length.

Kirk: Yeah, I think both of these address the illegal immigration problem that we've seen here in the U.S. in the last few years under the Biden administration and the Open Border policies that have led to, if not in reality, perception, but I think there is a lot of statistics that back this up, increased crime, increased violence, and increased lawlessness in parts of our country.

And so, I think we're gonna see some bills here that address that as well.

And really Utah, we want to recognize Utah is a very welcoming place.

I mean we're a place of refugees, if you will, that's how we were founded.

And so, I think and the culture that we have here respects and welcomes people from all various backgrounds, but we also wanna respect laws and, you know, so I think as this is a federal policy, the state issues can only do so much.

But I think, anything we can do to help this new administration and implement their policies in a meaningful way, and we say this a lot, but in the Utah way while also respecting the diversity and people that we do have here and want to welcome here.

Jason: Senator Escamilla, I'm gonna talk about the state of the state in a moment, but you gave the response to the Governor Cox's state of the state, and you actually addressed this issue a bit in some of your comments right there.

Maybe give us a little preview of that, but also to Senator Cullimore's point right here, all the states are talking, most of the states are talking about this issue even though still it is essentially a federal issue.

Luz: Right, and I think we all collectively agree we don't want any criminal activity in our communities.

So, we will, you know, be part of finding solutions to tackle down on criminal activity.

My concern is that we become this political rhetoric and they are scapegoating a community.

Which is the easiest community, right?

Immigrant communities, they don't have paid lobbyists.

They don't have--they may have limited English proficiency, and it's always historically in our country being those groups that get ostracized and pushed.

In terms of the executive orders and the, you know, the two policies, specifically that you asked, I mean, one is, it's a federal issue.

I mean there was a crisis on the border.

I don't know that anyone can deny that and this--his administration said he's gonna fix it.

Well, and Congress needs to take action.

I wanna see them fix it.

Let's take action.

My concern with the birth, you know, the birthright citizenship, that's really scary and that's certainly unconstitutional.

I mean, I'm so glad our courts are now doing what they're supposed to do, bringing the checks and balances and that district court that just put a stop to that, and saying that is the most unconstitutional thing he's seen as a judge in 40 years.

So, I'm, you know, excited to see that we have those checks and balances, our democracy at work, and doing what it's supposed to do.

In terms of what we're gonna do, working with our colleagues to find solutions.

Our only concern is if we're gonna be now dealing with immigration and we've done this.

This is not the first time Utah has, you know, we have the Utah Compact.

I was there when it happened and here we go again.

So, okay, we're gonna go back to our shared values, and I think the good senator mentioned some of them, right?

So family values, the pioneer heritage component.

I mean, everyone seeking, you know, running away from persecution, and trying to find refuge in what it was Mexican territory during that time.

That's the Utah pioneer Mormon history.

So, I'm glad that we can go back and say, look, let's go back into who we are, and our base is how we value families and good people that want to work and find the American dream.

And I hope that no one in the legislature wants to stop that American dream to come true.

And we do need to have order and follow the rule of law.

But when the federal government fails to provide that mechanism is when we as states have to bring good public policy solutions.

Kirk: A birthright citizenship, though, I think it does actually pose a kind of interesting constitutional question that we haven't seen in a long time, right?

And so, I don't remember the exact words in the Constitution, but it's something about you're entitled to citizenship if you're born here in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

And so, that's never really been defined in by Congress.

And so, I think there is room for the courts to actually interpret what that means.

And so, I'm personally at least interested in what will come of that.

Jason: We'll keep watching this one closely of course there's a temporary restraining order in place right now.

This is the Western District of Washington, so we will of course come back to this as well.

One more thing this week though, Kate, because it's interesting.

I'm not sure.

I remember so many conversations about pardons.

The Biden administration on the way out and the Trump administration on the way in.

Lots of pardons given out to lots of people.

You know, President Trump, even this week, there were 18 Utahns that were pardoned that were connected to the January 6th events.

Kate: You're right, Jason.

I don't know that we've ever spent so much time focusing on the presidential pardon power.

You know, there was obviously some discussions with pardons that President Biden made as he was exiting.

President Trump has pardoned, the bulk of the people who participated in the riots of the Capitol on January 6th, and he's commuted the sentences of some of the others.

It's definitely made us have some interesting conversations.

That was an event that we all watched play out in the news, you know, I--everyone here at this table has friends and connections in Washington D.C. And we were getting, you know, often live updates from those people as that was taking place.

And so, it's an interesting discussion about where the right to peaceably assemble and-- stops and starts.

And obviously, there's some interesting discussions around very specific cases where, you know, Capitol police officers were injured, and you know where should that that stop and start?

I don't think we're gonna stop having this conversation as a nation and we're certainly not going to stop having the conversation around, you know, what the metes and bounds of this power that a president has ought to be because, you know, there was so much visual participation across the nation of seeing this event unfold in real time.

Jason: It's true, you're starting to get to a place where you might even know someone who's been pardoned by the president.

Kirk: What does the pardon mean too?

Can you pardon somebody who's never been charged or convicted?

Jason: Yeah, very interesting question right there.

Let's go to the state of the state for just a moment.

Governor Cox gave his state of the state.

You were there, both of you were there, in the chambers there.

Just a couple takeaways very quickly on this one, Senator Cullimore.

Kirk: First off, the governor is a great orator, right?

Like, so it was an inspiring speech, and I think he hit the nail on the head of what we need to be looking at in Utah.

We need to build, right?

And that means various things right now, but we need to build energy, we need to build homes.

I think those are two of the most critical issues that we should deal with in this legislative session.

And so, appreciate his remarks.

I thought he did a great job and I was inspired by it.

Jason: Talk about your response for just a moment because the--you gave with your colleague in the House, Andrew Romero, a response to this.

Luz: Yeah, I mean historically the minority leaders provide a response as the minority caucuses.

There used to be more, with previous governors, a different--I've been there for a long time, so you get to see different governors, different kind of like ways of doing this type of process, but to the senator's comment, the governor, you know, provided a very hopeful, I mean there was hope in his speech.

He is a great--he delivers messages in a very well, very well done way.

And the stories of Utahns was beautiful and valuable.

I think, and he mentions on issues that both Republicans and Democrats are working.

And one of them, for example, the Social Security tax on Social Security.

Late minority leader Karen Mayne, Senator Mayne was the one that was leading on this bill for decades, and for a whole decade that she served, and she was very happy when the Republicans picked up on the bill.

You know, so I, you know, certainly he was giving accolades and kudos to his party, which is, you know, we expect that, but Democrats are also working, and that was kind of like our response, right?

We are working on all these issues.

We may have different ways of getting to the same end.

I mean it's a means to the end, but we believe that we can work together.

We're proactively focusing on Utahns that may be feeling they're left behind on this prosperity that everybody talks about.

And that's been the focus of the minority caucuses in this specific response.

Jason: Before we leave it, Kate, I was gonna ask you a question because you're in a position very close to the people and a lot of this speech was about, it was called, you know, it's time to build, but it was largely connected to issues of growth.

So, he talked about water and infrastructure, electricity.

Talk about that for just a moment because you have to take those calls and have to think about this very directly.

Kate: You're right, Jason, and I was thinking about that as the discussion was unfolding here at the table.

You know, different levels of government have different things that they're kind of running primary point on and land use and housing and zoning are very much in the municipal sphere.

And my colleagues in the League of Cities and Towns, you know, the 255 cities across the state, this is an issue we're very much engaged in.

The governor's charge to build and in particular his vision that we should build owned product that is, you know, small lot single family homes, that some--mirror in a lot of ways, you know, housing that we built in post war eras and other eras is a charge, I think that my colleagues at the local government level are very interested in hearing.

I was in meetings earlier this week with some of my colleagues on the board of League of Cities and Towns.

We're talking about a new proposal that a city in Utah County is is working on to help achieve the governor's vision.

You know, those are conversations that our residents are interested in having.

As the governor said, you know, we want family to live close but not necessarily in the basement, and so how do you accomplish that?

And of course, it's an interesting challenge, cities that have a lot of green field to still develop.

They have a set of tools at their disposal about how they zone, how they use that land.

You know, cities have some tools in in terms of incentives.

Of course, a lot of tools and things like that are in the hands of other players, and, you know, the market in terms of interest rates and cost to build.

A city that is older, has less land to develop that is maybe in a redevelopment phase or a built out phase, you know, they have different challenges.

And so, you're seeing cities engage in this, and I think a lot of different ways.

One of the beauties of our system is we get to see 50 different states come up with ideas on how to do the same thing and then learn from each other.

And I think that's one of the beauties of local government is you have a variety of different cities also looking at this problem and then sharing with each other what can make the most sense.

And I think we're absolutely willing and ready to engage the governor in how we help be part of that solution, particularly products that drive ownership and that serve families.

Jason: Can we get some--to some legislation?

I wanna talk about one that's--was part of the president's efforts too on TikTok, for example, but Senator Cullimore, so you had an op ed that ran this week, and you've been sort of the heart of this discussion in the state of Utah, not just TikTok, but social media itself.

Talk about what we're gonna see this session, particularly from you.

Kirk: Well, I think Utah was--led the charge in addressing some of the social media issues, and we recognize that the data is out there that social media does as much harm to our youth as any other addictive thing that you might consider and that we might regulate.

And so, you know, obviously this type of technology is borderless and so what what can little old Utah do?

But we've tried to lead the charge because in the absence of congressional action, what can we do except for the state start taking action.

So, we've done that.

We're in the middle of litigation right now both on the offense and on defense, you know, we passed a law two years ago.

We refined it a little bit last year.

And so, I think we're kind of letting that play out right now and having other states coalesce around this, but yeah, I think we need to put social media on the defensive because it's been obvious that they're actually affirmatively attacking our youth.

And we saw that with TikTok and the lawsuit that Utah has filed against TikTok where they are specifically targeting youth, knowing that they're giving them an addictive algorithm, and sucking them in, and destroying their mental health.

Jason: It's interesting, Senator Escamilla.

So, the AG's office released some information this week that was previously redacted that shows the details of social media and what they're trying to do to get to the kids.

We hadn't seen some of that before, but it's pretty interesting and it goes right in line with what you're doing with the legislature.

Luz: Yes, and I think it's been a bipartisan support on this effort, and you can see our votes.

It's obvious we have children.

You can see it, you can feel it.

You can feel it in adults, you know, but we need to protect our children.

That's certainly where the state needs to intervene.

I was--it was curious.

I was very curious to see that the president, you know, the way he handled the ban on TikTok, even though there was congressional action, we hardly ever have congressional action, and to have, I think the country collectively saying this is a national security issue when it comes to TikTok, I think the states and Utah will continue to be on the forefront of protecting children.

But the problem is if it's accessible because the federal government is not doing what they're supposed to do from like a country in this national effort, I think it's going to make it really hard to actually enforce some of this stuff.

So, you know, if the state of Utah is providing solutions and Congress provides a solution, we need to make sure that the president respects that and we can move forward with not only protecting our data and privacy, but the harm that it's doing to our children.

Kate: You know, Jason, my husband is a teacher in one of our public high schools and this discussion about social media, I think is interesting because it obviously goes hand in hand with the fact that, you know, one of the major things that the legislature might take up this year is whether or not there's going to be cell phones in the classroom.

You know, having access to social media in the classroom, I think really detracts from that learning experience.

And since we know that social media companies are making it so difficult and addictive for the kids to, you know, to not open those apps and do those things, you know, I think about the things that Senator Cullimore said that are within our power as a state to take action and address.

And you know, this is one that the legislature is interested in taking up this year that I've been really interested in seeing move forward for the positive impacts I think it, it could potentially have on our youth in a myriad of ways, not just on the social media front, but in the, you know, the way they're engaging in the classroom as well.

Jason: We did some polling on how parents feel like they're doing, with their kids, and it was an interesting one about keeping kids safe online.

Senator Cullimore, and it was interesting, 68% of Utahns said they've done all they can do, taking all necessary precautions to keep their kids safe.

That was interesting, pretty high number.

People say they feel like they've completely got this one wired.

Kirk: I've talked to a lot of parents who feel that way and then I sometimes like to show them their kids's Snapchat account or something, but-- Jason: Let's get into a couple of bills that are coming up.

A lot is still coming about initiatives.

All right, Senator Escamilla, can we talk about that for just a moment at the opening of the session, President Stuart Adams talked about initiatives because I think we still may see something coming, and his words were, he does not want Utah to become a petri dish of America like Oregon.

We've been talking about California for a while and now we're talking about Oregon in terms of the initiative process and how they perceive this relatively easy in those states and what they want to do here in the state of Utah.

Luz: Yeah, so, you know, we recognize that initiatives and we live in a republic and the way we--our democracy is structured, but I--we believe as Senate Democrats that we need to have representation of the people and they can have a voice.

There needs to be certain ways of making it so there is accountability in terms of the cost of whatever, you know, initiative is out there.

So, I know there is work on trying to find legislation in making sure there's transparency and accountability, and where--how do we pay some of these initiatives when they become law, right?

So, in that sense I don't--we don't necessarily disagree.

What we're concerned is if it's, we're gonna make it more difficult for people to have their voice heard.

And in Utah, where it's a, you know, unique--not unique to the country, but we're not that many states where you have a very super majority.

You know, a lot of the public feels like, you know, it's hard to have some of their voices be represented or have some of the bills move forward.

So, you know, we've seen it with Medicaid expansion, medical cannabis, and other initiatives, better boundaries, you know, so, fair boundaries.

So, I--in that sense we wanna make sure that we're protecting the ability for the public to continue through this process.

And we're gonna be seeing some of those bills.

We know they're coming.

The president has been very, at least from the Senate side, he's been very clear where he stands on this issue.

Jason: Talk about that a little bit more, Senator Cullimore, because you talked about it even this week in the press about one of the concerns being sort of out of state influence, foreign influence coming into the state of Utah to push an initiative forward.

Kirk: Yeah, I think that's a legitimate concern.

I mean, we've seen states like Maine who's barely even a million people that had $100 million from foreign national governments influencing their ballot initiatives.

And I think, I think that's antithetical to even those who support ballot initiatives, right?

This--these are supposed to be historically grassroots efforts of people of the state that want to see something happen.

And pushing that, but that's not, that's not what ballot initiatives are anymore.

This is money, sometimes dark money, a lot of times dark money coming in now from out of state pushing their agenda on Utahns, and I think, I think that's what we want to avoid.

Other states have tried to prohibit this through statute, and they're being held up in court on First Amendment rights.

And so, that's why we had a ballot initiative that addressed this and would have made it constitutional, which I think would have given it a little bit more legal footing.

Of course, that ballot or that constitutional question was was undone by the courts.

And so, we'll see how we're able to address that in the future but I think, I think, you know, in polling this issue most Utahns agree that we don't want our policy here in the state dictated by foreign money and dark money.

Jason: Kate, I want to talk about elections for just a moment because we have several election bills that have come out just this week.

I want to talk about what we're going to see.

So, there are amendments to election law.

Representative Jefferson Burton has a bill is kind of contemplating whether or not you need to bring your ballot in instead of put it by mail.

You bring it in with some ID.

Stephanie Gricius has a bill that was very interesting.

It gets to a concern that was happening when you can actually maybe see how someone decided to turn their ballot.

Talk about those two because they're very interesting.

Kate: Yes, there are these two bills you mentioned.

Representative Jefferson Burton is again thinking about ensuring that the person turning in the ballot is the right registered voter turning in the ballot.

And so, his bill would require a showing of of ID.

And then Representative Gricius is working on a bill due to a situation that arose in Utah County with the Utah County clerk, seeming to look at the voting methods by mail versus in-person of a state senator.

And, you know, that obviously caused some consternation about whether the secret ballot, you know, the right that we all enjoy and a hallmark of our democracy was being appropriately guarded.

And so, her bill would clarify that and make sure that that's not the case.

I do want to mention 50% of elections are local elections, 50%, you know, happening at the state level.

And so, I, you know, cities do have a role to to play here in this.

I would say that, you know, from a municipal level, you know, we think we're a really important election cycle, but we often have a lower turnout on our cycle.

We've seen our turnout rise at the municipal cycle with mail-in balloting.

And so, it is one of those where I think you will see, you know, the municipal level wanna engage in that debate so that we don't drive down voter turnout.

I personally think more participation is the goal and so in any of these proposals being thoughtful about making sure we have the right levels of transparency, that we're protecting, you know, voter information, safeguarding the secret ballot, but also not disenfranchising or discouraging voters as well.

And so, it's an interesting discussion we'll be having.

Jason: All right, we'll--did you have something you wanted to add in there?

Luz: Yeah, no, absolutely.

I mean they came through some audits in the legislature and I know these are some of these bills are in response to those audits, so all I'll say is let's put things in perspective because even our numbers when they found that two voters, you know, are listed as deceased and somehow end up having voting, I mean two out of all the voting that we did in Utah in the last, so I mean I want to put things in perspective one.

Two, I think we have great code already in terms of how we do vote-by-mail, we have a very successful vote-by-mail going from 30% voting participation at the state level to 80%.

We just need to make sure we don't make it more difficult for people to vote.

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

Thank you for your insights.

We'll watch what happens over the next several weeks in the legislature 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.

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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