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 consider a constitutional change to education funding and look to eliminate the sales tax on food.

After a year of controversy, legislators debate several new abortion laws.

And Governor Cox joins high-profile conversations on the national stage.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Representative Rosemary Lesser, Democrat from Weber County; Dennis Romboy, editor and reporter for the Deseret News; and Senator Todd Weiler, Republican from Davis County.

Thank you so much for being with us.

We have two weeks left of the legislative session.

A lot still on the docket.

There's a few things that we've heard about going into the legislative session, some bills we thought we would see, and, Senator Weiler, I want to start with tax reform, because we went into the session, people talking about this year, this tax cut.

Talk about the approach so far and then we'll break down some of the pieces.

Todd Weiler: Yeah, so we're gonna cut about $400 million more in taxes, and this is in addition to the two or three tax cuts that we've already done the last couple of years.

A lot of people are pooh-poohing that, saying, "Oh, it's only $17 a month for the average family."

Well, maybe they can buy eggs now because those have gone up about $17 a month.

And, you know, we're going to have a variety of tax cuts, some aimed at the poor, some aimed at social security and relieving that burden, and some aimed at income tax.

And, you know, I think it's always interesting, some will criticize a tax cut because they'll say, "Well, it's benefiting the wealthy."

Well, if you don't pay income tax, you can't cut your income tax, and so I'll just leave it at that, so.

Jason Perry: So, Dennis, how is this being received?

Because, you know, people talk about whether--where the money should go.

If we cut taxes, where do we put it?

What programs should we put the money in?

What are you hearing as you're reporting?

Dennis Romboy: Well, I think one of the things that's always considered is, is should we actually cut taxes?

Maybe this money should go to social programs and other things like that.

Democrats have always pushed for that.

Maybe some of it should go in a rainy day fund.

You never know when we're gonna need money just given the situation of the economy.

You know, the state's always trying to pay for things.

You know, tax cuts, great, but I think there's other areas in the state government that probably could use an infusion of money as well.

Jason Perry: Representative Lester, one of those areas is the food tax.

It's interesting, this has been since 1933.

We've been talking about this particular tax as a state.

Some efforts this session, talk about what those are and what you think might happen, including one of your own bills on the food tax.

Rosemary Lesser: Right, well, I would love to see the food tax actually be part of this year's tax package, although it may not get to that.

But I--to Senator Weiler's point, food prices have gone up so dramatically, people are truly feeling the cost of food and food inflation, and this is a way that very quickly and simply we can reduce taxes by doing it at the register.

So, I would support eliminating the tax on food, and I am enthused that the governor just yesterday in his press conference talked about eliminating that food tax.

Jason Perry: He did.

Let's get some history on this one, Senator Weiler, because you were part of this too.

It was in 2019 the legislature, in a special session, passed some tax reforms.

In an effort to reduce income tax, they increased some of the tax on food, gasoline, some other areas here.

Talk about what happened right there, and then from that special session, what happened soon thereafter in the general session in 2020.

Todd Weiler: Well, the discussion was would they restore a portion of the state sales tax that was cut under Governor Huntsman?

So, historically it had been there, and then it had been taken off, and you know, after that special session, there were a lot of signatures gathered, and then so the legislature came back a month later on the second day of the session in January 2020 just before COVID and repealed that, because, you know, the people had--you know, people had indicated that they didn't want a $200 million tax cut, which was what that program was.

And so, when we talk about cutting the sales tax on food, and I think Representative Lester knows this, but I'm not sure all your viewers do, we're talking about cutting the state's portion.

So, even if we did that, the cities and the counties, they have their portion.

So, it wouldn't be that that food is tax-free.

And I think a lot of people will be disappointed when they find that out.

Jason Perry: Dennis, what often we talk about here is really what the pots of money are.

So, this income tax is earmarked for education, and you have our sales tax, these other taxes we're talking about really go towards the general fund, and there's been some conversations whether or not they should tie these two issues together for this legislative session.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, I guess I don't understand that exactly.

Why this food tax can't be considered on its own merit as a cut, and why this constitutional amendment to be able to allow the legislature to redirect some of these income taxes to funds other than education can't be considered on its own as well.

Seems like these two things are tied together.

The legislature is kind of making a deal, hey, if you want to cut the food tax, then let us be able to use this income tax for things other than education.

Jason Perry: Is that the deal, Senator Weiler?

Todd Weiler: Yeah, but they're tied together for a good reason.

We're the only state in the nation that has this artificial handcuffs on the legislature with the income tax.

And the reality is, is when our economy ever--whenever it goes into recession, the food tax is the most stable portion of the sales tax revenue, and it's the only tax that some people pay.

And so, if you're going to take that state tax away, you're going to put some instability into that sales tax revenue, and that's why they're saying, well, then release us from this burden that no other state has so that we can shift the money around where we need it.

Dennis Romboy: And I believe that's in the state constitution, isn't it?

Todd Weiler: That's why it would go to the ballot.

Dennis Romboy: So, the voters would decide ultimately whether to do that or not.

Todd Weiler: But the voters would also be deciding if they want to remove the sales tax for food.

Rosemary Lesser: And, you know, interestingly, although we talk about the constancy of the food tax as a source of revenue, it's actually a very small portion of the overall sales tax revenue.

And in fact, as a result of the Supreme Court decision that allowed online sales to be remitted directly to the state, we're receiving considerably larger sums of money from that than the food tax.

I maintain as one of those signature gatherers as part of the referendum that eliminating the tax on food would truly affect the lives of all Utahns, and that's why I have advocated for that.

I also agree with the fact that I don't think that these two need to be linked together as--in the discussion.

So, I appreciate your point about the lack of linkage.

Jason Perry: Talk about your bill for a minute, because I think you are eliminating the sales tax on everything except for candy.

Talk about that.

Rosemary Lesser: Well, one of the reasons I did that actually was because it was the exact same fiscal impact as the--as 0.1% income tax.

So, I did that as a substitute for the income tax bill.

And interestingly--and it's nothing--I have nothing against candy.

I'm fine with candy.

But interestingly, by taxing candy at the normal sales tax rate, that actually gives the cities and municipalities who do collect a local portion about $2.5 million more from candy revenue.

So, this had nothing to do with being anti-candy.

Jason Perry: I understand that; candy lobby appreciate that.

Dennis Romboy: That could be thrown in with the sin tax then, the candy tax, that kind of thing.

Jason Perry: So, before we leave this, Senator Weiler, are we going to see anything else in tax reform before the end of the session?

Todd Weiler: Well, I think the proposal was just unleashed really yesterday, and I think as as we get public feedback, we might see some minor tweaks.

But I expect it to be around a $400 million package.

The devil's really in the details: will it all be income tax or will there be other components to it?

Rosemary Lesser: And I believe that there will also be a change in the Social Security tax exemption and raising the income threshold for-- Todd Weiler: Seventy-five thousand.

Rosemary Lesser: To individuals who can now deduct that.

Jason Perry: So, that's part of this bill is House Bill 54 Tax Revisions by--sponsored in the House is Steve Eliason and Dennis -- this entirely--that would reduce the income tax rate from 4.85% to 4.65%.

That's also attached to that bill.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, I think that's helpful.

I mean, you get some tax relief.

Todd Weiler: Jason, I can't help but point out, we're competing with other states for new jobs, and some of the other states have no income tax, and some of the other states around us have lowered their income tax, so this is not only about relief to voters, it's about keeping Utah competitive in the future for high-paying jobs for companies expanding their workforce, because companies pay very close attention to that income tax rate.

Jason Perry: A big bill this week.

We'll start with you, Representative.

We knew abortion bills were coming.

We had the United States Supreme Court decision left a lot of these decisions to the states themselves, and our state is approaching this.

Talk about this bill that came out this week, started in the House with Representative Lisonbee.

Rosemary Lesser: Right, well, this bill was actually presented to the Judiciary Committee, and not Health and Human Services.

So, this was more related to the interpretation of the law, and it--there was some collaboration with physicians in the state of Utah for this bill, but even with this discussion, I think that there is still a lot of work to be done, because there are a lot of real government overreaches in the area of licensure of health clinics and even specifying how a surgical procedure is to be done.

And for those of us in the medical profession-- Jason Perry: You deliver babies, you're a physician.

Rosemary Lesser: I do, I do.

And so, you know, there really is no other situation where the legislature dictates how a surgical procedure is to be performed, and so I think that there needs to be some ongoing discussion about this particular bill.

And, quite honestly, this may need to be put to the voters of our state.

Todd Weiler: And let me just say there's no other surgical procedure that's designed to end a human life like this, like abortion is.

So, I think it's appropriate.

You know, we've seen other states, I think Kentucky and other states, that they've banned abortion outright, and Utah hasn't done that, we're not gonna do that, I don't think we'll ever do that.

We're always gonna have those exceptions for the health of the mother and rape and incest and things like that.

But, you know, this--an abortion bill like this could go to Health and Human Services, it could go to Judiciary.

I don't think either one's wrong.

We're all reacting to the Dobbs decision.

It's not like there's a new medical breakthrough that we're legislating about.

Jason Perry: Dennis, we did some polling with the Deseret News, Hinckley Institute, about this, about abortion policy, and this is where Utahns were, and talk about this for a moment through the lens of this bill.

Forty-six percent of Utahns said abortion should be legal only in cases of rape, incest, and threats to the health of the mother, which is--we'll talk about that portion of the bill.

Eighteen percent should be legal in all cases, and fourteen percent should be legal up to viability.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, so if you take the percentages of those who believe that there should be some form of abortion outside of just the exceptions that he mentioned, that's a 44% of Utahns believe in some form there should be elective abortions, which I find that that's pretty interesting, that there would be that high of a percentage here in the state.

And, you know, I don't know if what the legislature is doing exactly aligns with the results of our poll and what Utahns think about abortion in general.

Jason Perry: Representative, what provisions you think we're gonna still hear about?

We've had a chance to review the bill, and there's been some modifications since we saw those early drafts.

What do you think is going to happen next?

Maybe, Senator Weiler, talk about the strategy when the Senate--when it does come to you.

Rosemary Lesser: Well, I think one of the things that has really impacted the medical community is the elucidation of what constitutes the threat to the mother's health or life.

And the early trigger bill, the only intervention was allowed for if the mother would sustain irreversible harm to her health, and defining irreversible was really problematic, and many physicians struggled with, how do you define that?

Especially in these really emergency situations.

Now, acknowledge that these are not particularly common, but they do happen, and these involve really important physician's decisions, and second-guessing those is problematic in the-- Todd Weiler: Let me say, when we passed the trigger law, I was there.

This was like the dog chasing the car.

Well, the dog just caught the car, so now what do you do?

Because now the Dobbs decision did overrule Roe v. Wade.

When we passed the trigger law and everything before, you know, last June, it was all hypothetical.

It was all, you know, maybe hope with a little bit of fantasy, and now that it's actually happened, now we're like, whoa.

You know, if this is going to-- this is actually going into effect, we need to maybe get some more tweaks.

And I think Representative Ray Ward has worked on a bill that would further define that as well.

Dennis Romboy: I just wonder if these kinds of laws paralyze doctors--you would know better-- in an emergency situation.

Can I do this or can I not do this?

And if I do this, am I going to lose my license or am I going to be prosecuted or something like that?

So, I think there needs to be clear lines that need to be clearly defined so there--and I'm afraid there's going to be gray area no matter--no matter what the law says.

Rosemary Lesser: There will absolutely be gray area, and to try to codify exactly what constitutes the threat of the life to the mother.

Also in this bill there is no acknowledgement of mental illness that could be a compromise, only physical illness.

And I think that is a really significant oversight in this particular bill.

But to your point, trying to list all of the qualifiers for seriousness is really problematic.

Jason Perry: From the physician's perspective, one of the provisions that changed was they added the word "intentional" violation of the law.

Otherwise it was a felony, potentially, if the circumstances were not met.

What kind of comfort does that give, adding that?

Rosemary Lesser: That gives no comfort.

I think that "intentional," that that particular language gives no comfort because determining-- well, we can ask our attorney friend here that determining intent is really problematic.

Todd Weiler: Well, yeah, but I think, I mean determining intent is difficult.

That's why we have jury trials on murders and things.

I'm not talking about doctors, I'm just saying intent is, you know--juries in the United States have often wanted to know what the motive was and what someone intended to do in a typical criminal case.

I'm not talking about abortion doctors, I'm just talking about, you know, regular criminal law.

But I think that's a huge improvement to the bill, you know, personally as an attorney, but I have a different perspective than you as a doctor.

Jason Perry: Before we leave this entirely, one of the things that might not be completely clear in this bill too, Dennis, is that there will be no more abortion clinics under this law by January 1 of next year.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, and this is happening before the law has even been decided.

The trigger law's on hold right now.

I wonder if the legislature is getting a little bit ahead of itself before the case has been decided.

And I think Representative Lisonbee thinks it will be decided by next January.

I'm not sure that that would be the case.

And Senator Weiler knows how long litigation takes.

Todd Weiler: Yeah, so, I mean, it's before the Supreme Court, it could be decided next week, quite frankly.

But so we only have one abortion clinic in Utah.

It's in Salt Lake City.

And so, you know, people that live in St. George, they're much closer to an abortion clinic in Las Vegas.

People that live in, you know, on the eastern side of the state might be closer to Denver.

So, we're talking about one clinic and--versus every hospital in the state, and so-- and also, Representative Lisonbee's bill has not been-- even passed the House yet.

It hasn't been assessed.

Jason Perry: Just a committee hearing.

Todd Weiler: Yeah, so it may be tweaked before, you know, before it--you know, if it does pass all the way through.

Jason Perry: Okay, I have a couple more bills I wanna get to, but maybe we start with a student question which I thought was sort of insightful given where sessions start and where they end.

Let's listen to this question.

Ian Linnabary: Hi, my name is Ian.

I'm a sophomore at the University of Utah studying Political Science and Public Policy.

My question is, it seems like every single legislative session has a theme to it.

This one was widely anticipated to be about schools and children, but a lot of the prominent bills dealing with those issues passed at the beginning of the session.

Do you think that some of the more recent bills that are being considered and passed right now kind of overshadow this theme?

Thank you.

Jason Perry: Representative, let's give you a shot first.

Rosemary Lesser: Well, I thank Ian for that great question about the themes of the legislators.

You know, we've actually moved from themes pretty much weekly.

We started out with education, we moved into LGBTQ rights and the limitation thereof.

And then we had Water Week, which I think was actually just the beginning of considering water.

In these next few weeks I think that we'll be looking at health care as well.

And I was really excited to see at least in committee our recognition that postpartum women need to be covered more than just 60 days.

So, I look forward to the end of this session being related to health of our community, both physical health, a lot of mental health initiatives, and a lot of housing discussions still to come.

Jason Perry: Senator?

Todd Weiler: So, nobody comes-- I mean, we have 104 legislators, we don't really coordinate with each other.

I think Representative Lesser hit on the themes, but two other themes: I've never seen this many election bills, election reform bills.

I don't know that very many of them will pass to the Senate, but I've never seen this many school safety bills, and I've never seen as many bills targeted at the Great Salt Lake and the other lakes, about nine bills.

And so, I think, you know, we have 800 bills that have been filed, we'll pass about 500 of them, so usually it's more to the media and to outside observers to tell us what they think the themes are.

Jason Perry: All right, Dennis, that's the cue for you.

Rosemary Lesser: Well, I think Representative Lesser described it well, I think it's been a theme a week so far.

You know, I think tax reform is going to be a theme going forward in the last couple of weeks; the budget still hasn't been put together, so that's another theme.

But I think we try to find themes, but I couldn't pinpoint an overriding theme so far in this session, because it's been--and it's been different, though, the approach.

I think it's, let's take care of this and then move on to this, and let's take care of that.

Todd Weiler: And something really important is we'll get our final budget projections next Tuesday, so we don't even know how much money we're playing with.

Jason Perry: We should just comment on that.

That's a very important point is right now we're working on budget numbers that we anticipated.

The consensus revenue numbers when they come in next week will drive a lot of the decisions going forward.

Dennis Romboy: Most typically go up, don't they?

Todd Weiler: Well, in recent years, they haven't.

Remember, Jason, we're trying to budget through June of next year, so 16 months from now.

Jason Perry: Okay, one of the things we just mentioned, Representative Lesser, is the Great Salt Lake.

I think we should talk about that because we're starting to see those bills come.

What are you seeing?

And maybe talk about your own bill, which, you know, it's interesting, but also the connection of the Great Salt Lake is so important.

Rosemary Lesser: Well, the bill you're talking about is the bill to designate the brine shrimp as the state crustacean, and this was brought by a group of students from Emerson Elementary here in Salt Lake City who were absolutely passionate about the role of the brine shrimp in the incredible ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake.

And they petitioned their government, as we have had since the beginning of government, to consider this, and I think it's really wonderful.

They know more about the state crustacean or the brine shrimp than I suspect any of us.

Todd Weiler: I've represented a few brine shrimp companies as a lawyer, so I know a little bit about it.

Dennis Romboy: I used to collect them at the Great Salt Lake in a paper cup when I was a kid, so.

Jason Perry: Well, it's interesting, sort of our mascot of the Great Salt Lake as we work on that.

Before we leave the Great Salt Lake, Senator Weiler, you gonna see any other bills connected to it and funding once we have the final budget numbers?

Todd Weiler: Well, we spent about a half billion dollars last year; I expect we'll do about the same this year.

The biggest change that we're gonna make for the next 100 years we made last year, and that is to no longer incentivize people with water rights to use them--to use the water if they didn't need it.

And the Great Salt Lake has already risen over a foot just in the last two months.

We still have 11 feet to go.

But we had--we had near-historic lows in the 1930s and the 1960s, and the Great Salt Lake came back from those, and it's going to come back from this.

We are not--let me repeat this, we are not going to lose the Great Salt Lake.

We're gonna do everything we have to to save it.

Jason Perry: Excellent, one of the themes that was presented just a moment ago is we do have a couple of mental health bills.

I want to talk about two of those in particular, one that probably has a chance and one that seems like it might not as much as well.

Brian King is working on one for public employee disability benefits, Representative Lesser, that lets public employees with mental disabilities have the same benefits that people have with physical disabilities.

Rosemary Lesser: Right, and this is continuing the same progress that we have been making to have parity between physical health and mental health.

For so long, mental health issues have been put on the back burner, both in terms of health care and with regard to benefits.

I think that this is the step in the right direction that we need to go and recognize that our public employees are really vulnerable to some of the stressors that induce mental challenges, and they need to be recognized for that.

It needs to be recognized and treated.

And I applaud this initiative.

Dennis Romboy: This parity issue has been going on for at least 20 years or so.

I covered this at the legislature around 2000, 2001 when this was an issue, and with insurance and being, you know, equal between physical and mental health.

And we're still talking about it 20 years later.

Incremental progress has been made on that, and we'll see what the legislature decides to do this session.

Todd Weiler: This is about the third or fourth year in a row where we've had a strong emphasis on mental health.

I think it's long overdue.

The stigmas are starting to dissipate a little bit.

I personally have a couple of my siblings that have severe mental health problems, so I've lived with this my whole life, and I think it's about time that we bring some more parity into the-- Jason Perry: One of the interesting bills that we heard just this past week was on psychedelic mushrooms.

And it was a bill from Senator Escamilla, was psychedelic mushrooms for mental health issues like depression, anxiety, PTSD.

We may be hearing this one's not going to get very far, Representative.

Rosemary Lesser: Possibly not, but, you know, we have one of the leading mental health institutes here at the University of Utah, and in fact that was actually one of the recommendations of the task force that we had put in place last year.

So, we, I think, need to continue to investigate this as scientists and look for ways to improve treatment and think outside the box, literally.

Dennis Romboy: This here is a conversation starter.

This is similar to the medical cannabis.

It took several years for that to kind of pass through the legislature.

I think this is just the first we're going to hear about that.

Todd Weiler: The bill won't pass the Senate.

Representative Lesser and I won't even get a chance to vote on it.

And I had a doctor from Orem yesterday lobbying me saying that this is--these are addictive drugs, and we're jumping in too fast with that bill.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about the national stage for just a moment, Dennis, because another polling question, do Utahns want the Olympics?

I think we could talk about that for a minute because we had Olympic representatives here in the states.

We've got the world, you know, the world watching our NBA All-Star Game here this week.

Talk about Utah on the national stage.

Dennis Romboy: All I can say is boy, do you--does--do Utahns want the Olympics?

It was great in 2002.

I think our poll showed, what, like, 80-something-percent support for bringing the Olympics back again.

Jason Perry: Eighty-two percent.

Dennis Romboy: Eighty-two percent, that's up from our poll from last summer.

And, you know, whether this-- whether the state gets a 2030 or 2034 games, I don't think it really matters.

I think people like the world to come.

We have the All-Star Game here this weekend, it's another showcase for the state.

It's a great--it's a great time.

I think Utahns enjoy it, and they like to be participants as well.

Our volunteers here were probably second to none at any Olympics.

Todd Weiler: The legislature is all in on the Olympics.

In fact, I'd like to see Utah become the permanent home of the Winter Olympics.

Jason Perry: As we're on the national stage in our last minute, Representative Lesser, it's interesting.

As Utahns are talking about how many people are moving to the state, the more we're known, the more people are coming, which creates its own sort of policy issues for you as legislators, including our governor saying maybe someone can stay in their own states.

Rosemary Lesser: I think we should be welcoming to people from every state.

I moved here from Texas 30 years ago and have considered this my home.

I think that people who come to Utah do it intentionally and come to embrace the beauty and spirit of our state, and we need to be the welcoming people that we are for people from every state.

Dennis Romboy: I think it was a poor choice of words on the governor's part to throw Californians and refugees into the same sentence and kind of disparage them in a way.

And I don't think he was trying to say that.

I think he's trying to say, hey, we're dealing with growth issues.

I think we welcome people to move to Utah, but it does put pressure on a lot of our resources here, especially housing.

Jason Perry: Senator, in our last 30 seconds, legislature is sponsoring some legislation to connect the state of Utah to the Olympic Games.

Todd Weiler: Yes.

In fact, we had the Olympics-- we had several people on the Senate floor yesterday, and we passed that bill through.

And like I said, we're all in.

I don't see that bill getting any opposition.

Jason Perry: Okay, we'll watch that one closely.

Rosemary Lesser: It's bipartisan, for sure.

Jason Perry: Yes, it is bipartisan.

Thank you so much for your insights 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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