announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is provided in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Foundation Fund, Merit Medical, and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report."

Legislators charge towards the finish line as they consider a historic number of bills.

With big budget items on the docket, lawmakers debate their top funding priorities.

And as election season heats up, our panel examines the latest developments.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Heidi Hatch, anchor with KUTV 2News; Chris Bleak, partner with RRJ Consulting; and Kate Bradshaw, member of the Bountiful City Council.

So glad to have you all with us this evening.

This is one week left until legislator session ends, and a lot of bills are coming to a conclusion.

Still some big bills on the board that we'll talk about over this next week.

I wanna jump right into some of those bills with you, Heidi.

First one is dealing with election laws.

So, it's interesting, in 2018, the legislature decided to give ranked choice voting a try.

It was a pilot project to see how Utahns would like it, how voters would like it.

But Katie Hall has a bill to say we're no longer going to do that, to discontinue this pilot.

Heidi Hatch: I don't know why they should murder it, but I don't know that it's going that well in the state.

I haven't heard a lot of really great success stories where it's worked.

But if you're trying it, why not let cities decide?

Because no one's forcing it on them.

I think the frustrating part is we saw a couple of elections in 2019 and '20 where I felt like it may have been a good possibility, because people were educated well on the issues when we're talking about the gubernatorial election.

We had four candidates where you really knew where they stood, and I think there was people that could have ranked them out and actually done a good job with that, and then also in the Salt Lake City mayoral race.

The races I've seen since then, there either have been clear choices where people knew who they were voting for and there weren't enough in the election, or there were a lot, but you didn't know much about them, so it's like, how do you rank them?

Jason Perry: Chris, we had a couple different efforts here.

In 2019 4 cities tried it; in '21, 23 cities; and it went down 12 cities in 2023.

It's been a little bit of a mix in terms of what cities wanted to engage in it, and there's some reasons why some didn't.

Chris Bleak: Yeah, I think Heidi makes a great point that it is optional, and many cities have used it, many have not.

There are pros and cons of that.

I think I was--we were the first when I ran the state Republican Party in 2004 to use it in that convention, and I think it has some real pros.

I think the big challenge that ranked choice voting has is it's not really simple or intuitive to understand when you get that ballot, and it does cause some confusion.

And I think that's where people have gotten confused, and candidates and campaigns have used--have tried to make strategies out of it, right?

Don't vote for--you don't have to vote for a second or third, you know, trying to use that.

And I think it adds to the confusion on a ballot when there's already so many things to vote for.

I think that's its biggest challenge right now.

Jason Perry: Katie, we did see that in the Salt Lake City mayor's race in particular.

You have a couple of names on there, and even Erin Mendenhall put out a statement saying just so you know, you don't have to vote on--you don't have to rank all three of us or all four of us, whatever the number is.

You can just vote for me.

You're our one elected official here at the table.

Talk about that too and the strategy and the preferences.

Kate Bradshaw: You're right, and as long as we're going to have elections, you'll figure out a strategy to instruct your voters, your supporters, to try and, you know, give yourself an advantage on the ballot.

And, you know, you definitely saw that in the Salt Lake's mayor's race this last election cycle.

You know, the municipal cycle is the off cycle.

It definitely has lower voter turnout than other cycles.

And so, I'm a little worried about anything that confuses voters sometimes will mean they just don't turn in their ballot.

My county, Davis County, none of the cities have adopted it in part because we have a lot of at large districts, and it doesn't, you know, necessarily work well in those formats.

I do think, you know, we've given municipalities this option.

I'm always a fan of municipalities having more options and being able to elect in or out of that system.

But I think paramount is just ensuring that voters always feel like they understand the system, we haven't confused them, and they have access to good information.

And when we're sometimes half in, half out of different systems, then people get a little confused and I don't wanna see that.

I wanna see people be able to make very clear choices at the ballot so that they know they're voting for the person they really wanna see serve in office.

Jason Perry: Chris, since you were involved in this beginning, I wanna get to one of these people said was a pro of doing this, and they said it increases stability.

If you have a chance to be the number two choice, it may make you want to be better about what you say and what you do.

Any idea about whether or not that has become true?

Are people more civil because you want to be number two instead of number three?

Chris Bleak: You know, that's a great question.

I think it is important.

We see this a lot in conventions where people are trying to be the number two, you know, eventually somebody is gonna fall off and they want to do that.

I think it works a little bit differently in the broader campaign where you're not speaking kind of at that retail level.

And so, where it's a larger level, it probably doesn't have the same effect.

To answer your question, no, I don't think that it creates greater civility.

It has that potential, and I think that we've seen the places where that has worked, but I think at a larger level, no, that's not a--something that's resulting from ranked choice voting.

Jason Perry: While you're talking about that, Chris, there's one other very interesting bill dealing with what I think is gonna be the topic of the future: artificial intelligence and campaigns.

Talk about what this bill is doing, because I think we should talk about this, because the parameters are starting to become a little more clear.

Chris Bleak: Yeah, absolutely.

Senator Harper and Representative Ariel Defay have both hooked onto this issue of deepfakes, the utilization of artificial intelligence or the computing power that we see to be able to fool--I mean, that's really what a deepfake is, is to fool people into believing one thing that is not the case.

We saw this in a New Hampshire primary where somebody spoofed President Biden's voice to create an idea that he was suggesting something that wasn't true, and it has very dangerous implications.

We're seeing it, we're seeing it in all facets of life.

There are certainly positive and great opportunities that AI can do, but some real negatives one.

What Represent--Senator Harper's bill does is it creates a criminal penalty if you do a deepfake and are trying to fool people.

Then it also does something interesting.

It makes sure that there's digital provenance, or essentially like a water mark or a nutrition label so that people can better understand what is this picture, what is this image, and what has been--how has it been altered so that people can make the decision, should I trust this image or not, rather than somebody saying this is a good image or this is a bad image.

Jason Perry: Heidi, talk about this from your perspective here in the news.

You do such great political reporting, you follow this so closely, how are you approaching this particular issue when you're seeing commercials pop up entirely created through artificial intelligence and just wondering where the truth really is?

Heidi Hatch: I think that's the tricky part, is because we have to be trusted in giving people information of what's true, and I've heard campaigns talking about on a local level that maybe they could save some money by using an AI family on a picture on a mailer that goes out.

But that's I think already in that grey territory, but it gets drastically different when you start looking at when you have enough of somebody's voice, that's when you get those deepfakes of whether it's President Biden or President Trump and being able to use their voice to make them say things they haven't said.

And we live in a wild enough world, it's hard to know truth from fiction.

And I think it's going to make it harder and harder for news organizations, for people who are trying to listen and sort through this themselves as voters.

So, I definitely think there's got to be rules in this brave new, you know, area that we're heading into.

So, how we create those and if people actually follow them and adopt them, that's the hard part.

So, I think we're--probably this is the first election where it's going to be a real issue.

We'll learn lessons and probably have to regroup the next time.

Jason Perry: What is the dialogue internally when you start seeing these commercials?

I mean, is this a team that looks at-- Heidi Hatch: You know, we haven't talked a lot about that, but I know in our newsroom we've been talking a lot about AI, how it can be used well, how it can be used poorly.

And it's hard to have the conversation unless you've used it yourself, so I actually only barely signed up for ChatGPT and started looking at the Google system a couple of weeks ago, because it's hard to talk about it if you don't understand.

So, I'm starting to mess around with it and probably way behind where some of our teenagers and other people are.

So, it's definitely a learning curve.

Chris Bleak: And one of the big challenges also is, yes, we should have rules for how campaigns are conducted here in the United States, but we're going to have state actors and other people using this, whether it be Russia, China, others, or even a small country or small rogue group that wants to create or destabilize our elections, our trust in the system.

We've seen this over the last number of election cycles, and as we attack institutions, we have to be--recognize that that has a detrimental impact on our society, on our community, on the way that we operate with one another.

You know, going back to that civility question, it really concerns me.

Jason Perry: I want to get into a couple other bills, and a lot of them are dealing with money.

That's what we're going to see this next week.

In fact, today, on Friday, our Executive Appropriations Committee will be meeting, we'll start seeing the real list of priorities, what they're going to fund.

But, Kate, talk about how the legislature is approaching this.

The rev--consensus revenue numbers were this, this is on top of the $28 billion budget that the base budget has already been set, $126 million of new ongoing money, $214 million of one time money.

Talk about how that is being kind of spread around, what the priorities seem to be.

Kate Bradshaw: Yes, well, famously, our Senate Appropriations Chair, Jerry Stevenson, has described this as a socks and underwear budget year, meaning that this is the type of year where the budget is a little bit tighter than what we've seen in past legislative sessions.

Some of the money they felt like is maybe not certain, because we're budgeting to projections, and so they've moved, you know, some of that off the table in order to be sure that we're really gonna recognize that revenue.

After they do some of what we call the big rocks, so they're funding our state government at the levels to which we were at last year, they considered, you know, raises for teachers and COLAs for state employees.

It's not left a ton of money on the table, so that's where you get the socks and underwear theme that Senator Stevenson has given us for this year.

There are, you know, just a little bit more in those revenue estimates with the new February numbers than we started the session with, so that's put a lot of more things in play.

You know, they definitely have significant asks in the space for homelessness that they're gonna be considering today when the Executive Appropriations Committee meets.

They are still looking at a tax cut, an income tax cut as well.

And then there are all of the bills that have appropriations attached to them and all of the RFAs that were presented earlier in the session that are still in there, vying.

So, these--this last week of the session is that time where everyone's in there fighting for a pair of socks.

Jason Perry: Yes, they are indeed.

One of those big rocks that you talked about, Chris, is the WPU, it's education funding.

Talk about how that relates to income tax, because I want to get into this idea of whether or not they were going to cut to income tax here in this session as well.

Talk about how that works, given your vantage point having worked on these budgets in the past.

Chris Bleak: Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's a--this is a key item.

There's a couple of reasons where it has some consequences.

One is there's a constitutional amendment this year to decouple income tax to be used only exclusively for public hire and then certain health and human service needs, so give the legislature more flexibility in terms of how they budget and appropriate.

And so, I think education is gonna be looking very closely at what is that WPU number?

The legislature has set up some systems to make sure that the growth, sort of those things that Kate was talking about, are funded, and they've done a great job.

They've got a huge amount of money in the economic-- or Education Stabilization Fund.

But I think education is looking to say, are you going to put enough money towards the WPU?

And I think what--from what I'm hearing that they will increase that, but I think there will also be some increases to the Utah Fits All Scholarship to copy that and say, you know, we want to see education grow, develop, have more options, and see more money in that space in a lot of different ways.

Jason Perry: A lot of this is connected to the income tax, Heidi, and Senator Chris Wilson has Senate Bill 69, an idea here to reduce the state income tax.

It will go from 4.65% to 4.55%.

This is about $170 million in total.

Heidi Hatch: It sounds like a lot of money.

I was doing the math, and I'm not a mathematician, but it seems to me that a family, let's say you make $50,000, is gonna save about $50 a year, $100,000 about $100, so when it comes down to it, we could all use an extra little bit of money, whether it's filling up your gas tank or groceries.

So, it looks good to cut that, but it's probably not going to make a significant difference to families at home.

I think a lot of people would like to get to a point where we're a state where you don't have income tax, but that takes a lot of shifting and moving money around.

As we were just talking about, you know, there's different places it goes, and so then you have to figure out where it's going to come from and how it works.

So, yes, it would give us a tax cut, but probably not as big a tax cut as I think a lot of people are hoping for at home right now.

They're still feeling that bite of inflation.

Jason Perry: Watch this one closely.

Money is a big topic here, and Kate, I wanna get into one big one for the state of Utah, because it's on the agenda today.

Baseball, Major League Baseball in the state of Utah.

Talk about what's happening right now, because there is a proposal on the table.

This is representative Brian Wilcox, House Bill 562.

They call it the Utah Fair Park Area Investment and Restoration District.

Kate Bradshaw: Yes, so that very long name we've shortened to just being the baseball field up at the state capitol, and it is the vehicle and the mechanism that they are considering to turn the power district, the area along North Temple in Salt Lake City where Rocky Mountain Power has their offices and where the Gatsby Plant used to be--or currently is, but may no longer be--and turning that into a mixed development that will hopefully include a baseball stadium.

The, you know, the site needs obviously some changes and improvements from its prior role as a home of a coal fired power plant.

And so, this is being viewed as a significant investment in the--potentially in Salt Lake City's west side that would bring baseball.

I hope we get to our thoughts for team names.

I have some, in case anyone would like to pick my brain on that.

Heidi Hatch: Does it have a ZZ in it?

Kate Bradshaw: It does, I have added the double Z, respecting our Utah tradition.

The baseball stadium, though, it does have some interesting components.

The state is proposing to use an authority model, similar to what they've done with MIDA, the inland port, Utah Lake, Port of the Mountain.

And, you know, that is an interesting tool.

They're also looking at a variety of different tax elements in order to gain the funding necessary to do that development.

And today we, you know, the bill is moving through committee.

There's a lot of excitement, I think there's still a lot of discussions taking place between both the city, the Larry H. Miller team, and the sponsors of the bill to make sure that you find that right mix so that you're able to, you know, bring something that is really transformational for Salt Lake City, but also is thoughtful about, you know, using public dollars and, you know, using different types of authorities to create that opportunity.

Chris Bleak: Well, another big impact and people that are involved in that discussion include the hotels.

They're looking at a TRT tax, a transient rent tax to help fund that rental car tax to raise that.

And so, there are other--and tourism groups in general, right?

They're concerned, they feel like they do have legitimate needs and concerns within their county, even within Salt Lake County, things that they want to see in terms of also finding ways to increase tourism, conventions, and other things that are going on in the state.

And so, there's different facets there need to be considered and included that the sponsors, leadership, are looking at.

And how can we bridge this gap to help other people be winners and feel comfortable with the decision to move forward?

But as somebody who attended West High and knows that corridor there in the North Temple Corridor well, I love to see what is the potential that can happen there with the Jordan River, with that entire space.

I mean, there's just such great opportunity.

We've run transit tracks down North Temple, there's so much opportunity in that area, and I'm excited to see us take more advantage of it.

Jason Perry: Heidi, before we leave this one, because Chris brought out this point about the transit rental tax.

This is a tax in the hotel rooms, and one of the proposals is you raise that from 0.32%, which where it is now, to 1.92%.

But what's interesting is, like, the governor coming out, saying, "Well, this is mostly outside-- people from outside the state that are paying this increased tax, so they're helping to pay for it."

How is that going over, you know, with what you're hearing?

Heidi Hatch: Well, I think the interesting thing is that I think there's been a lot of work going on behind the scenes that most of us haven't been privy to watching, and so it seems like all of this is happening at lightning speed.

Obviously, when you read into it, there's been a lot of work that's gone into the details.

So, oftentimes when you see that hotel tax, it's not fun for people who are visiting, but when you look at states like Florida, a lot of their taxes come from people who are visiting, and they're driving on the roads where they have to pay the toll to get through to go to Disney World or they stay at those hotels and they're funding a lot of the tax base.

So, it's an interesting way to go about it.

They're doing that for NHL, but when you look at the flipside, they're looking at raising the tax that we all pay when you shop downtown or if you work downtown or if you live in Salt Lake City, raising that by a half a percent.

So, they're looking at different ways of doing it.

The interesting thing is the Salt Lake City mayor's behind it.

We did a poll on KUTV 2News yesterday, which is not scientific, but people weighing in, and they were worried about raising that tax when they're buying things in Salt Lake City just a little bit.

So, it definitely, I think, has people at home thinking, "Is this gonna cost me more money?

How is this going to work?"

But when you look at the benefits, I mean, huge things could come from that half a penny.

Jason Perry: Yeah, so people are still talking about this.

Heidi mentioned, Chris, hockey is the next thing.

So, if you land a baseball team here, this next bill, this is Senator Dan McCay, Senate Bill 272, Capital City Reinvestment Zone Amendments, which is intended to create this entertainment district, the zone, and the hope is to get a hockey stadium there.

Chris Bleak: Yeah, I think there's great opportunity there right in the heart of Salt Lake City to do some things.

And the legislature has expressed an interest in making sure that both the Jazz and an NHL team are located in downtown Salt Lake and make sure that that area remains robust and continues to grow and thrive.

I thought both Senator McCay and Mayor Mendenhall yesterday and the presentation on this bill did a fantastic job.

And one of the points that Senator McCay made, and I think this translates both for baseball, for NHL, but also for the Olympics, is this draws a community together.

And we should look at these facilities and these as assets that help pull us together.

And so, I think that's an important component of any of these types of things.

I mean, sports isn't the only thing.

It's arts, it's tourism, it's hiking trails.

I mean, these things that contribute to our quality of life are super important.

And I think they made a really persuasive case yesterday about how this can benefit us as a community and pull us together.

Kate Bradshaw: I think that's a really interesting point, Chris, because, you know, someone that lives in and represents a suburb of Salt Lake, you know, the capital city is important to all of us, right?

It draws us together, it's important to our entire Wasatch Front region in the state, and the way that these projects could line up and connect the theater district, City Creek Mall, a sports and entertainment district, and then tie into a baseball stadium would truly set up Salt Lake to have, you know, a very interesting and cool package that I think would benefit all of the surrounding communities and would, you know, elevate our capital city, and therefore elevate our state.

So, I think these are some really cool, transformational projects, and they have, you know, a week to finish all those behind the scene details to make sure that you're finding a funding package that is--that recognizes that, you know, there are costs, and we're going to fund those costs by bringing them from a variety of tax sources.

Jason Perry: We'll watch this one close.

Both came out this week, both those bills, so we'll see what happens.

We got five days to do it.

One of the interesting stories I wanna follow up on here, because we talked about it on "The Hinckley Report," Heidi, is about the attorney general.

When we started this session, there was a lot of talk about whether or not legislation would come saying this should be an appointed position or not.

Those bills have changed a bit.

Now we're down to what's called Attorney General Amendments.

This is Andrew Stoddard, Representative Andrew Stoddard that essentially is just doing one thing.

It is the attorney general can no longer have outside work.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, the interesting thing is that I can't figure out if this is just a bill to send a message and say naughty, naughty, don't do this anymore, or if there's some actual teeth.

But we've seen three administrations with attorneys general where we've had issues or problems surrounding it.

And the question is, will these changes they're looking for actually have teeth and make it so that there aren't problems, or do the problems exist because you can always get around the rules a little bit or say I'm going to look at this or not look at this?

A lot of the things that happen that go wrong are things that sort of skirt the rules and laws that we deal with.

Jason Perry: Is this a sign on this bill that they're kind of going to let this one go now?

Chris Bleak: You know, I'm with Heidi.

I originally thought that this was more of a message bill, particularly with some of the uncertainty that surrounded AG Reyes.

But I think the way that it's moving, there is absolutely a chance that they're going to pass this and send a message.

It's not as black and white, I think always as people think-- seem to think.

You know, elect--being elected official is hard.

A lot of people give up that opportunity, make sacrifices to do it.

And so, should they have--what sort of opportunity should they have outside of that?

Is it inappropriate for them to make money in other ways?

And so, that's always a tricky issue with elected officials.

I'm actually sympathetic on that, finding the right balance.

And I know that Representative Stoddard and Senator McCell are working hard to try to find the right balance to understand both of those sides on that issue.

Kate Bradshaw: You know, as someone who is in a part time elected role, I have a day job, and my city council role is something that is a part time thing that I do.

It takes up a lot of nights and weekends in particular, but it's something as an elected official when you were putting yourself out there in the public, you have to be very conscious of what your other outside, you know, employment is, if you have a day job and a part time role.

And if you're in a full time role, I think the expectation from voters though is that that is the job you do, and it is the most important job you do, and that you conduct yourself with integrity, and you don't generate conflicts for that office, and that you take that job very seriously.

And I think that because of the, you know, multiple cycles in a row of people in that office, you know, having conflicts that they brought into the office from these outside roles, it's probably appropriate for the legislature to say, "You know, this role and the fact that you are our top cop and our top legal defender, you need to adhere strictly to make sure you don't bring conflicts into this office."

Chris Bleak: I want to say, I think one thing is clear though, with all that has happened in that office over the last couple of years, we're not ever going to have an appointed attorney general, because I don't know what could happen that would then change the mind.

I mean, we--there's been that discussion both after the John Swallow, Mark Shurtleff stuff, and again here.

And taking that away from voters, I understand that's a difficult issue.

I think there are pros to having an appointed attorney general.

There are certainly cons, we've seen that on the federal level.

But I think it's pretty clear we're not getting rid of an elected attorney general.

And so, you know, they might put more guardrails, but that's where we're going to keep it.

Jason Perry: Okay, one more bill to talk about.

Oh, go ahead, Heidi.

Heidi Hatch: Nothing, I was just going to say the interesting thing with appointing is I think it was Herbert who appointed AG Reyes.

He was then elected.

but at least if you're elected, you have a chance, as the people say, "We want someone else out."

If you're appointed, you know, where do you have that ability to get rid of them if that one person decides they want you there?

You know, so, everyone has an agenda.

Jason Perry: Politics.

Really quick before we leave this, because you're our resident expert, Kate, are we gonna have any alcohol bills?

Kate Bradshaw: There is an alcohol bill this year, and it will actually be discussed today.

And we'll have, you know, a series of changes that are gonna come through.

Probably the most significant change that's in this year's alcohol bill is a change to the ratios for alcohol licenses for bars and restaurants.

We have a population quota system that says how many bars and restaurant licenses there can be based on the population of the state of Utah.

So, as you grow, you slowly gain more licenses.

There has been, if you're a watcher of the Department of Alcohol Beverage Services Commission, a--there's a waiting list of people who are seeking licenses in order to open up new bars and restaurants.

And it's been an incredible challenge from an economic development standpoint.

And so, the most significant change is they are lowering that ratio from 10,200 people to about 7,200 people for the bar licenses, and then a corresponding ratio in the restaurant licenses.

They are doing it over a series of years.

It is a highly negotiated number that is in there.

And there are also some other considerations in that bill.

There is an increase on beer and wine and spirits, and some of it will fund compliance offices-- officers, but some will also just quite frankly flow to the general fund for other uses.

Anyway, there's always a whole bunch of interesting things because all alcohol policy in Utah is wrapped up to--in one single bill.

Jason Perry: Yeah, just the last couple of words on that one, Heidi, because you have lots of groups up there on the hill.

Some of them are really much talking about the the travel tourism components of this very bill.

Heidi Hatch: You know what?

I am going to have to step aside on this one because I am not very educated on it.

So, I'm just going to have to listen to the other wise people in the room on this.

Jason Perry: Yeah, well, we seem to have these every legislative session back from when you were in the house, right, Chris?

All right, well, thank you so much for your insights this evening on these very important bills.

More to come.

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.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is provided in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Foundation Fund, Merit Medical, and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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