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."

Lawmakers waste no time tackling difficult issues as the 2024 legislative session kicks off.

The governor outlines his priorities in a wide-ranging state of the state.

And our panel looks at the impacts the first Republican presidential primaries will have on Utah.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Democratic Representative Jennifer Dailey-Provost, Minority Whip in the Utah House of Representatives; Daniel Woodruff, political reporter; and Spencer Stokes, president of Stokes Strategies.

So glad to have you all on a big week in politics.

Our legislature has just finished their first week, and last night the governor gave his state of the state speech, his fourth one, this time as candidate.

Spencer, we're gonna start with you about this speech generally.

The title of this was "Keeping Utah Weird."

Spencer Stokes: Well, you know, I'm grateful to live in a state where we have some vision.

I think all three leaders, the president, the speaker, and the governor, tied back into the legacy of the folks who have come before us.

And I think this was no different.

I think his speech was great.

I mean, it was great for the television audience.

A lot of the people in the chamber may have thought, you know, this is a little more fluff than we've had in the past.

But, you know, he covered the important stuff, water, housing.

We need to be welcoming with open arms the people that are coming into the state, and we need to look at our legacy and continue planning for the future.

And that was great.

Jason Perry: Daniel, as Spencer said, he did get to some of the things that, you would say, sort of use the word peculiar a little bit.

There are unique demographics and unique approaches to the state of Utah that he tried to channel in this speech that did lead us on his priorities.

Daniel Woodruff: That's right, and I think, you know, he made a joke about growth.

He talked about it would be nice to build a wall around Utah and make California pay for it.

But he said that's not possible, and Utah is growing.

And he brought up housing as one critical element that he feels is probably the biggest issue in the state right now, and that is the ability of Utahns, especially younger Utahns, to afford and attain housing.

And he highlighted a proposal that he put out in December, which is to build a number of starter homes for Utahns to get into in lieu of living in their parent's basement.

Jason Perry: I wanna show this clip of the speech last night from Governor Cox and the Democratic response that came after this did touch the same issue, but Representative, after we see this clip, I wanna get your perspective on it.

Spencer Cox: That is why I've proposed the Utah First Homes Program with the audacious goal to build 35,000 starter homes in the next 5 years.

While we need more of everything, my focus is on affordable, attainable, single-family, owner-occupied, detached housing.

Most of us grew up or started our own families in a 1,300-square-foot home.

Our kids and grandkids are desperate for that same opportunity.

The greatest generation did this after World War II, and we can't do it again.

Jason Perry: Representative?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: So, I share the governor's goal that we need to address our severe housing crisis.

I think that doubling down on freestanding single homes is a questionable goal, because we just don't have a lot of space where the population base largely lives.

Particularly, you know, I represent downtown Salt Lake City, there is no room to build new homes.

And so, we're disenfranchising anybody that wants to live maybe closest to the transportation corridors, where our transportation hubs are, where our trains are, so that housing is truly accessible, because it isn't just a reality for everybody to have, you know, two cars and 2 1/2 kids and a dog and a cat and a picket fence.

And while I appreciate and respect that that is the goal of many, I just don't think it's realistic to put all those eggs in one basket.

I wish we could diversify the goals that we really need to accomplish to address the very realistic space restrictions that we have along the entire Wasatch Front.

Jason Perry: Spencer, talk about this issue a little bit in terms of the approach from our legislature and also from the governor, because this issue, there's homelessness, and there's also this housing affordability, have really taken center stage on the policy world.

And this has usually been left to the locals to work out, but the state is taking a broad interest in it.

Spencer Stokes: I think it's because the problem is so large that no one city or county can deal with it.

I mean, the goal is certainly laudable, and I lived and was a county commissioner in a county where we had these starter homes.

Washington Terrace is basically--that was the housing after World War II.

We just don't have the land.

And when you have a starter home, as the representative said, oftentimes you need transportation coupled with that.

So, I don't know exactly how it will work out, but they're on the right track, and they will figure it out.

And the one thing I know about the politicians in this state is they know how to work together to come to a solution.

The homelessness problem is--he addressed as well, and that also is a problem that's bigger than one city.

And most people don't see that.

I mean, if you look around the state, it hasn't been a problem really in Utah County, some in Weber County, not so much in Davis, but Salt Lake City has beared the brunt of that problem.

And you've seen the mayor, Mayor Mendenhall, and our city and state fathers work together on that.

Jason Perry: I want to talk about some of the pieces of this speech, Daniel, because the governor took the opportunity to mention a few of his colleagues in his speech, which I think was interesting, some call-outs to certain members, including some who were leaving.

But put that in perspective for someone who's running for office and he has some challenges inside his own party.

Daniel Woodruff: Well, I think it's interesting that he has two challengers sitting in the legislature, right?

You have Representative Phil Lyman, who's a Republican, inter-party challenge of Governor Cox, and then you have Representative Brian King, a Democrat who's challenging him on the other side.

And I think, you know, the governor has to weave a needle through a very particular hole of, you know, making sure that he's still the governor, but he's also a candidate.

And he wants to essentially ask voters, I want four more years.

And so it's interesting, and maybe a little awkward, right, when you're in there.

I know that afterwards Representative King took maybe a shot at the governor and was quoted as saying he found the speech weird in the sense that he felt the governor was putting forward this idea of Utah being--working together while at the same time putting forward proposals this legislative session that Representative King finds divisive and unnecessary.

Jason Perry: Maybe talk about that just a moment, too, because it's interesting, because Brian King did get a shout out, as did Phil Lyman.

I think the governor said he loves them both.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: He did, and, you know, I think that he tried really hard to thread through this tenor of acceptance and love, and we're all on the same team ultimately, you know, as sort of an underlying theme in his speech.

But, you know, it was really clear that the governor, one of his strengths I think his entire term is that, to different degrees throughout the last few years, he really appeals to the everyday Utahn.

And he does, like you say, he has to thread a needle, you know, between being a good policy advocate and pushing his agenda with a legislature that has pretty overtly at times been kind of hostile to his goals and his messages.

But I think he was really trying to speak to the broader state of Utah, couched in a state of the state to the legislative body.

Spencer Stokes: He didn't have really a choice since he started the Disagree Better, you know, with the National Governors Association.

But to tell Phil and Brian he loved them, I mean, what else can you say after you've been the father of disagreeing better?

I don't know how sincere it might have been, but he did say he loved them, yeah.

Jason Perry: It leads well into some of these very difficult issues we're seeing with the legislative session.

He talked about prior successes that he saw on issues like diversity, on transgender issues.

He talked about some of those.

But Daniel, let's talk about some of the bills we saw this past week, because it's very interesting.

We used to see sometimes in the past some controversial bills would sort of wait till the end where maybe there's not as much chance for public comment or input from others.

But this time, right out of the gate this week, or day number four, we saw some pretty big controversial issues come forward.

Daniel Woodruff: And this really is by design so that it's not looming over the heads of lawmakers as they go through the session.

And really, if you think back two years, two sessions ago in 2022, when we saw on the final night of the session the bill dealing with transgender teens competing in sports, that really ended the session on an incredibly sour note for a lot of people.

The next year they came out of the gate on issues relating to the LGBTQ community and others, and they're following that exactly carbon copy this session, and that is on day one of the legislative session get these issues that are more controversial dealt with and out of the way so that they're not looming with an umbrella over the session and essentially casting a shadow over what is usually a very busy six weeks.

They're kind of saying let's get some of these done with so we can move on to other issues.

And I think that's what you saw this week with a number of bills that were debated and that advanced out of committees through the process.

Jason Perry: Representative, talk about that strategy.

Is this what we're gonna be doing now?

Is this something we're talking about internally?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Well, so it sounds like Daniel said that this is a model that legislative leadership found worked well for the kind of session that they were hoping for last year, and they did.

We dealt with some really controversial, hard issues right off the bat, and you know, I think that there's a belief that it was better off because, you know, maybe we would just forget the bad things and move on, and we did.

I wouldn't say we forgot them, but we did, as a matter of business in a short session, we had to move on and continue to deal with the good work of good government.

But that doesn't--I don't think we should allow that to erase the fact that we are still rushing through incredibly substantive, deeply impactful legislation that is very controversial in a hurry, and then expecting everybody to have a kumbaya and say, "Well, let's just get past that and move on."

And it's not okay to say on these deeply divisive issues to say, well, it's done, it's time to move on.

We need to be more deliberative and careful, and--but we still have to do all the good work that we have to do, because there are still a lot of good bills that are for all intents and purposes consensus issues.

Spencer Stokes: I think leaders were tired of hearing the criticism that these controversial bills were rushed through at the last minute when the general public wasn't paying attention at 10 p.m. on the last night of the session, and I think this is going to be--you're going to see this happen now and forevermore that they're going to, if a member of the body has something that's difficult and controversial, leadership is going to encourage them to get it ready and have it go through interim so that it starts right at the beginning of the session and ends so that they don't have to deal with this criticism of this happened in the middle of the night.

Jason Perry: I want to get to a couple of those bills to your good points right there.

Daniel, let's start with one.

House Bill 261, this is Equal Opportunity Initiatives by Representative Katy Hall, a Republican from Davis and Weber County.

This is getting to our DEI offices.

Like, almost two hours worth of public debate on this one.

Talk about this bill just a little bit because it was a unanimous bipartisan vote, 12 to 2--Democrats, I say, 2 Democrats, unanimous in the Republican party.

Very controversial, very impactful.

Daniel Woodruff: And it's been talked about now for a while, right?

This is an example of an issue that's been percolating for a bit.

Governor Cox talked about this issue in his news conference a little bit ago, but essentially changing the way higher education particularly deals with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

And basically, as I've read the bill and reports on it, making sure that there is no preference given one way or the other.

And I think when Governor Cox mentioned this in his news conference and actually called efforts like this evil, I think you could see that there was a great effort by Republicans to do something on this issue, whereas last year when bills were proposed to either dismantle DEI offices or change them, they were not successful.

And so, it's interesting that the public--I shouldn't say public maybe--the political will among Republicans is now to the point that they've got this thing they're coalescing around.

Obviously they support it, Democrats do not, but it moved, it advanced, and it's one of those issues that is going to move quickly, I think, in the next little bit.

Jason Perry: Representative, the vote was 12 to 2, two Democrats voting against it.

There's a lot of conversation in this bill about differential treatment.

That seems to be what people are trying to get to a little bit in this.

Some are saying that these DEI offices are providing differential treatment for some students, and the Republicans are sort of saying no, this opens it up so there isn't differential treatment.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: So, I think it would be a mistake to not first off recognize that our--we've had differential treatment by class, gender, race, ethnicity throughout our nation's history, that, you know, when we talk--go way back to the civil rights movement and before.

And looking at programming that says, hey, despite our best efforts, there are still communities that are being left behind, that are underrepresented, and maybe that's not leading to the best outcomes, that is the heart of DEI programming.

And to say that that is not necessary when we can prove that certain communities are still underrepresented in many spaces, especially in higher ed and leadership positions in our state, then, you know, I think that the stated goal of the legislation doesn't address what is the reality and what is the goal of DEI.

What I have deepest concern about is that there has been no audit to say that DEI program is working or not working.

And I was not in the committee because I don't sit on that committee, but I've listened to testimony and I've had a lot of conversations about what did occur in the education committee.

And what I heard was every time a concern was brought up and, you know, is what if this happens?

What if this changes?

And to every single question the bill sponsor said, "No, that won't change.

Nothing will happen."

And so, if there's no change that is created by the bill, then why do we need a bill?

And so, I think that the way that it's being presented, what actually is going to happen is disingenuous and disconnected from the conversation, and I'm frustrated that the actual impact of this kind of legislation is being minimized in the conversations.

Jason Perry: Spencer, go ahead and respond to that, and bring into this another component of this bill, which was getting rid of diversity statements generally, not just in higher ed, but we have a public ed aspect to this.

Spencer Stokes: Well, as everybody on the panel knows, that it's usually the worst case scenario that starts the fight, and Senator Johnson last year was the one that brought it to the forefront and made it public, you know.

Representative Hall has picked up that gauntlet this year.

So, there's been a lot of discussion during the interim about this, and this just cuts at people in the state wanting to maintain and hold on to the long-standing traditions that we've held in this state, and they don't want any of these influences of the rest of the country coming in here.

And, you know, the statements, look, there should be--we should--if we're going with the governor's speech on love and acceptance, this really shouldn't be an issue.

But it is on campuses, and so they're trying to get to the bottom of it from a conservative standpoint.

Jason Perry: Before we leave this one, Daniel, two more components.

Two other bills, Phil Lyman and Kera Birkeland both have bills dealing with bathrooms.

So, that's back to this legislative session again, talking about what bathroom one should use.

Daniel Woodruff: Correct, another bill dealing with the transgender community, and we see Representative Birkeland's bill advancing in the session.

It did pass out of committee, which basically defines female and male, and also specifies what public facilities, bathroom or locker room, they are permitted to use, and goes into a lot more detail beyond that that I won't get into here.

But I think this is another example of an issue that is moving fast.

And there are a lot of components to it.

It was interesting to me during the committee that Representative Birkeland was asked, "Do you have any reports of problems with this happening in bathrooms or locker rooms in the state of Utah?"

And she said no.

Republicans have come to her defense, saying, "Well, we legislate against potential problems, and that's what we're trying to do."

But she did not have any specific examples of this actually happening in the state thus far.

Spencer Stokes: If there's anybody who's an expert on this, because Representative Birkeland's family, her kids, are very much involved in high school sports, so she probably hears some of this at home as well.

She is actively involved in sports.

So yeah, there hasn't been a complaint, but I would guarantee that there's been kitchen table conversations about this with her own children.

Jason Perry: Go ahead, Representative.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Thank you.

So, I have really deep concerns about this, because we're talking about legislating a very basic human need.

And what we did hear in testimony on that bill was that transgender kids are, you know, having to go to their doctors with UTIs because they refuse to go to the bathroom, because even without the legislation, they already feel disenfranchised and frightened and being intimidated.

And so, I think that this only exacerbates a difficult reality for very vulnerable children.

And to say that, you know, you have to have had bottom surgery in order to use a bathroom that identifies with the gender-- that it matches the gender that you identify, but we've already outlawed said surgery for the kids that this would impact most, and that's, you know, children under 18--and this is not me advocating for more surgery, but to preclude doing what you're now requiring somebody to have to do something very basic, like go to the bathroom, is dangerous and alarming.

And what I hear the conversation keep coming back to as well, we need to protect people in these spaces.

People wanna feel safe in bathrooms and in locker rooms.

And if that's the case, then look at legislation proposed by Senator Jen Plumb, who says, "You're right.

Every kid needs safety and confidence in places like bathrooms and locker rooms."

Many of us, as a woman, you know, I had to change my clothes in a locker room with-- surrounded by girls in junior high, and that's awkward because your bodies are changing and they're changing at different rates, and, you know, there's a lot of social pressure to look a certain way.

And, you know, if you're talking about privacy and safety, let's just provide that for everybody and stop making it about marginalizing transgender children because they're already struggling, and this just exacerbate--this is not going to solve the problem of people feeling safe in the bathroom, but it will continue to harm these kids.

Jason Perry: We'll watch these bills closely.

Let me get to a couple other ones, because one bill that came out this week that I thought was particularly interesting, this is Senate Bill 57, the Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act.

This is Scott Sandall, Box Elder, Cache, Tooele, who said that the state should be able to ignore certain federal directives.

So Spencer, this is interesting, because there's one thing that most of our legislature's united behind is we don't love the federal government.

Spencer Stokes: Yeah, I think as Todd Weiler said, "Stick it to them."

Look, federalism is alive and well, and in the state of Utah especially, if the state could, you know, become their own country and not have to deal with the things that the federal government's pushing down on-- and our federal delegation is supportive of that kind of federalism.

And this is all going to have to be tested in court.

And, you know, who knows how this will end, but I can see that passing rapidly through the session.

Jason Perry: This one is so interesting.

And so, this is how it works.

If there's a rule, a law, a regulation, presidential act that the legislature is concerned about, they can go to the speaker, the president, they can craft a concurrent resolution that then gets signed by the governor for his buy-in, and that would be a procedure to push back on the federal government.

With that background, Daniel, I just want to give this interesting comment from Todd Weiler.

Maybe it gives you the full flavor of where the legislature is on this one.

This is the quote from Todd Weiler, an attorney.

"I went to law school and I don't believe that Utah has the power to override the Supremacy Clause.

As I understand it, the federal law trumps Utah...

But there's nothing that I like better, and there's nothing Utah likes better than sticking it to the federal government.

If that's the intent of the bill, I guess I'm all in favor of it."

Daniel Woodruff: And I think there are a lot of his colleagues that would agree with that sentiment.

I did not go to law school, so I won't even try to begin to analyze that from a legal perspective.

I know there will be legal challenges to it, I'm sure, if it does pass.

But I think you see in the Republican-dominated legislature a desire to push back against the federal government, and on issues perhaps that they know will get legally challenged at some point down the road, and they say, well, we don't want to spend money on changing if it's going to end up getting overturned, so let's push back at the outset and maybe save some resources.

I've seen that argument out there.

But, you know, this issue pops up a lot, and you've got a bill that puts it into words.

Spencer Stokes: How much money are you willing to spend?

That's the question.

Because the federal government has a lot, and and we seem to not have a lot.

So, how much are you willing to spend?

Jason Perry: Let's get to the national politics for just a moment, the presidential race in particular.

The Iowa caucus has just wrapped up.

President--former president Donald Trump won with 51% of the vote, with Ron DeSantis at 21%, Nikki Haley at 19%.

Interesting, as we're talking about candidates falling out, who's rising, which continues to be Donald Trump, a big endorsement from Senator Mike Lee this week of Donald Trump.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Yeah, I thought his endorsement was really interesting and actually laughable for him to outright say that he's looking forward to minimized chaos, insinuating that a second Trump presidency would not be chaotic.

I think it's really easy to look back at Trump's four years in the White House and remember a constant sense of chaos.

And it would be foolish to not look at his recent statements promising a doubling down on that chaos.

And for, you know, I just--I live in abject terror of the repercussions and the kind of heavy-handed, vindictive actions that he has publicly stated will come.

And so, I absolutely do not share Senator Lee's sentiments, and I think that we would see a level of chaos that would be unprecedented, even for his first term.

Jason Perry: Spencer, talk about that endorsement a little bit.

You've worked in Washington, D.C. You've advised these leaders in the past.

Talk about that endorsement.

Kind of give it through the context of where Republicans are on their choices and why Donald Trump would be at 51%.

Spencer Stokes: I think Republicans want to win, and they see that their party is coalescing around Donald Trump.

And I think for Mike Lee, he looks at it as it was not chaotic for him.

He had an open door to the White House, and if you look at it from his perspective of the committee he sits on, which is judiciary, that he worked hand in glove with the Trump administration for what he believes are some great justices that were appointed to the Supreme Court.

Now, those justices have changed a lot.

A lot has gone on in many court cases because of that Republican majority.

So, for Senator Mike Lee, it was not chaotic, and it wasn't a trying time, because he was working well with them.

Jason Perry: He was also on the list for the Supreme Court at some point from President Trump.

Spencer Stokes: He was, his brother was on the list as well.

I know for a fact that Senator Lee feels like he's in a better position to be on the Judiciary Committee to help Republicans get through that process, so I don't know what will happen.

And I don't know if there'll be an opening in the next presidential term.

Jason Perry: In our last 15 seconds, Senator Romney weighed in and said some of this difficulty in decision is because people have lost trust in the institutions.

Daniel Woodruff: And Mitt Romney, well known for his criticism of Donald Trump.

But yeah, Mitt Romney basically said, you have a Republican Party today that's less likely to believe what they hear in the media and what they hear from experts.

And they're coalescing around Trump for another four years.

And we'll see, Jason, too, what happens in New Hampshire, where a lot of Republicans opposed to Trump are hoping that Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis could come out and emerge.

Jason Perry: Thank you, it's gonna have to be it tonight.

Thank you for your insights, 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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