♪♪♪ 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," the legislature made significant changes to numerous laws this session that will impact upcoming elections.

Rumors start to swirl as experts make predictions on issues and candidates for the 2024 campaign season.

And which Utah leaders are having the biggest impact on the national stage?

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

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

Covering the week, we have Scott Howell, former Democratic state senator; Saige Miller, political reporter with KUER; and Rod Arquette, host of the Rod Arquette show on KNRS.

I'm so glad you're here tonight, 'cause this is gonna be very interesting.

We're gonna talk about elections, election laws, and maybe even will take a minute to get some prognostications about what's going to happen.

And it is not too early to start talking about this, because candidates are thinking about it already.

So let's talk about how the elections are going to be shaped up and up to next year.

And I want to start talking about some of these election law changes.

Scott, let's talk with you.

You're a former elected official.

You have to wade through these election laws.

I want to talk about a couple, because sometimes they're just sort of procedural in nature.

Sometimes they're quite substantive.

Let's talk a couple--about a couple of the administrative ones first.

This is a Senate Bill 63.

What's so interesting is up until this session, only certain things could happen for a party to replace a candidate that has won office and then left.

Scott Howell: Right, well, and I think this is--could be referred to as the Joel Ferry Bill.

Jason: Yeah, Joel Ferry Bill, exactly.

Scott: If we really wanted to talk about that, and I think it made sense that we'd have to have a criteria that would be able to allow people to step out at the right time.

I was frustrated because I thought just out of integrity that they would get off the ballot and move on and move forward.

But this clearly now sends a direction of in case of death and mental disability, and I can't remember the other things in there.

Now this pretty much codifies what the law should be.

Jason: Yes, Saige, talk about that for a minute, 'cause it was Joel Ferry, member of the legislature, elected, and then was appointed by the governor to run the Utah Department of Agriculture--Natural Resources, Natural Resources.

And so, uh he left, left an opening, and a lot of controversy about how his position is filled.

Saige Miller: Yeah, there was a massive debate specifically with the Democrats of whether this was constitutional or not for Joel Ferry to hold a position in the legislative branch and the executive branch.

And so they filed a lawsuit, that lawsuit did not go very far, but they did cause a bunch of kerfuffle.

They had really great messaging around how this could be an issue.

This is abuse of power, this is going to cause future problems if we don't fix it now.

And so I think that this bill was a response to kind of ease the waters a little bit and make sure that this kind of messaging and this kind of angsty debate doesn't continue forward for future generations.

Rod Arquette: Yeah, they cleaned things up the way they should.

I mean, there was obviously a conflict there, clean it up, move on, and I think they've taken care of it with this bill.

That's what--that's, you know, there was a controversy that shouldn't have been a controversy at all.

Scott: I love the word kerfuffle.

That's exactly that.

Word of the day.

On behalf of the Democrats I can tell you that we wanted to raise the issue so people would listen to us a little bit.

Saige: And it worked, right?

Scott: And it worked, yeah, it worked, but it was legitimate too.

Yeah, it was just arguing to argue sides.

Saige: And you know, there's people on the other side of the aisle too.

Even Republicans being like maybe this is something that we should, you know, prioritize or even just kind of hone in a little bit to make sure that we don't have this constitutionality issue, so it worked out.

Jason: Well, I want to get a couple of these other election laws for our viewers.

There were 36 separate bills filed, introduced, dealing with election laws, 13 of them actually became laws.

I want to get to a couple of those.

But first to tee this up, we have a student at the University of Utah who has submitted a question.

Getting into these next questions.

Let's listen to this question.

Diya Rao: Hi, my name is Diya Rao, and I'm an undergraduate student studying psychology and health and policy at the University of Utah.

My question is what is the expected effect of House Bill 365?

Were the nearly 100,000 voters who changed their affiliation in order to vote in the Republican primary previously politically engaged?

And are they expected to continue changing their affiliation annually?

How will this impact Utah's overall political landscape?

Thank you so much.

Jason: A lot in this question.

So this House Bill 365, so this is what it did, it--you have to register with the political party before April 1st to take part in the primary elections.

Rod, let's start with you, because it was the 31st of March, now it's April 1st, but talk about that.

But let's talk about--let's talk about the why, because there are some historical reasons why--Republicans primarily, they're the ones that have the closed primary wanted this change.

Rod: Well, this goes back to the Jim Debakis call years and years ago, as you recall, you know, urging Democrats, hey, jump, sign up right now for the Republican Party.

And that just angered the Republicans.

The Republicans want pure Republicans voting in their primary as much as they possibly can.

And the question that was asked, are they going to have to change every year?

Most likely they will.

I mean, that's what the Republican Party wants, and that's what they see as a benefit.

They see the party as a private organization, and they want to protect that private organization as much as they can.

Jason: Let's talk about how the parties can sort of work the process.

Scott, I wanna give you a couple of numbers because it was in response to a couple of these elections, and I just wanna give you a couple of numbers, talk about what this might change compared to what it used to be.

So, in like in the 2016 election, for example, we had a lot of unaffiliated voters in Utah, which there are more than people realize unaffiliated, but they affiliate for this primary.

There were the unaffiliated voters we lost, 14,754 of them became another party, they affiliated for that primary.

But in 2020, which is what Rod just mentioned, this is the big change, and talk about what happened here.

Republicans gained 70,752 voters for that primary.

Democrats lost--these are people who affiliate with them-- lost 10,032, unaffiliated lost 45,258.

Something was going on here.

Scott: Well, Diya first of all, thank you for the question.

And if you were here with us tonight, Diya, I would ask you, did you switch parties?

Did you re-affiliate?

I have a feeling that you might have.

Well, I think what's happening in Utah is that Democrats have no voice, and it's-- Rod: Well, they have no-- they have no candidates either a lot of times.

I mean, the candidate--the candidates on the Republican side, you know, you have the conservative, you have the moderate candidates on the Republican side, I think in many cases.

I don't see that choice on the Democratic side.

Usually you have one candidate.

Scott: One candidate that's in there.

And I think the majority of Democrats who switched over-- and those numbers are compelling.

I mean, they really are.

It makes a great case.

They just wanted to have a voice in who their governor would be, who the US Senator would be, even maybe who a congressman would be, and they're so frustrated, and we probably do need to get better qualified candidates.

But I believe that they just have found a way that they wanted to have a voice in who the next congressman is, the next governor, and it's a simple process, they just switch parties.

Now, I didn't because I would be a pretty obvious person leaving the Democrat.

But, a lot of our family switched parties.

Jason: Yeah, well, to your point, like some high profile Democrats like Jim Debakis was saying go ahead, jump.

Saige: And they--and the Democrats and a bunch of other like nonprofit organizations that definitely lean a little bit more to the left had a huge messaging on social media telling a bunch of registered Democrats to jump in order to exactly what Scott said, have their voice heard.

They didn't necessarily want Mike Lee, they didn't necessarily care for the other two, but they just didn't want Mike Lee, right?

And so they're willing to try and get those powers and numbers because it is a predominantly Republican state.

They want power in those numbers to have another option of a candidate.

That's happened multiple times.

It happened when--the Governor Cox and John Huntsman, right?

Where a bunch of people jumped because they wanted Huntsman over Cox, and so changing it by a day, I just think messaging might get stronger on the left side to be like registration has changed.

Like giddy up, let's go.

Scott: And it is April fools day.

Jason: Scott just one comment on this, too, because we--what you mentioned was interesting because one might say jump parties so you can sort of pick a candidate that's less strong.

That's not necessarily the case though.

Sometimes it seems like you're saying it's so we can pick a candidate that we want the most.

Scott: It really is, it's 100%.

And I think Jon Huntsman was a great example of a lot of Democrats liked him, and they wanted to switch over to have that voice and it's 100%.

I know in the senate race, lots of my friends um were done with Mike Lee, and they wanted a woman.

Allie and Becky fit the profile of what they were looking for.

And Rod made a good point.

They're moderate Republicans, too, as opposed to a far right Republican.

And I think that that's really where our state is, but Rod's also right.

The candidates that Democrats have to have.

We've got to have really good moderate candidates that appeal to everyone.

Rod: Yeah, but I think you make a good point on the other candidates versus Mike Lee.

If you were at the state Republican convention, Mike Lee is a rock star right now with that conservative crowd.

I mean, he is a rock star, and they want to protect their rock star.

The conservative base of that party wants to protect Mike Lee, because to him, he is their rock star.

Jason: Rod, the final point on this, these changes of the law, this party rating idea is what people call it here.

Is it resolved now do you suppose?

What are you hearing in Republican circles?

Well, I don't think it's resolved still.

I think there's still some out there who are having questions about this.

They want to debate this a little bit more.

I mean, you saw--you know, you saw the party chairman trying to get rid of the caucus convention system yet again.

There's still a strong core of Republicans out there who like the caucus convention system.

They don't want to do the signature route.

But I don't foresee that changing right away.

It may not--it may be there forever at this point.

Yeah, it will be a fight if it is, yeah.

Jason: I want to talk about a couple of these bills that did not pass, because that can tell us a lot also about where the parties are not, which is interesting, because some of them people who are worried about going into it, for example, Scott, vote by mail.

There was a bill that would have eliminated Utah's universal vote by mail system, didn't even get a committee hearing.

Scott: Well, and rightfully so.

I mean, this is the best way, and we've never had an infraction in the state of Utah on voting, never, ever.

I look at Sherrie Swenson who was there for--I don't know how many years, a long time, but she ran that with pure integrity, not Democrat or Republican.

It was pure integrity.

And the representative who brought that bill out, I really wanted to talk to her and see what was behind the motivation on it, because voting by mail-- who doesn't want that anymore?

Saige: Well, first and foremost, Utah was one of the very first states to roll out vote by mail, and it's been incredibly successful.

To use the word kerfuffle again, we're one of the only states that didn't have a massive kerfuffle in 2020 when most people were voting by mail because of the pandemic.

We wavered very well.

The lieutenant governor and the lieutenant governor's office and the people who oversee elections were very proud, they, like, applauded.

Scott: Certified everything.

Saige: Yeah, they applauded the way that we ran it very smoothly, and there was also that Hinckley Institute of Politics and Deseret News poll that said most people are pretty stoked by vote by mail.

Jason: Eighty percent, yes.

Saige: So it seems like it would be going against the populace of constituents to try and erase that.

Additionally, vote by mail is very good for rural areas, and it allows them easier access to exercise their constitutional right of voting.

Scott: Rural and senior and citizens--Saige: People who have disabilities.

Scott: Exactly.

Saige: There's a whole section of people, so it seems like you would be annihilating a vote--a base that would most likely vote for you if you did this.

Rod: I was surprised on the vote by mail that she didn't try and shrink the window a little bit.

I think that's a concern that some people have, the window is too wide open.

Things can happen between the time you can start and when the election happens to shrink that window down a little bit.

That's the one thing that surprised me, but people like to vote by mail.

I'm one of the old guys.

I still go and vote in person.

I'm one of those guys that does that.

Jason: You want the sticker, right?

Rod: I want that sticker.

But this time I went and vote by person, but I dropped my ballot in a drop box and still got my sticker.

So I think, you know, the surprise that I had was that uh Kira Berkland, who was the representative, didn't try and shrink the window at least a little bit more than what it is, what?

Forty five days now, I think it is?

Scott: Rod, don't you think that really is part of a larger agenda from the far right nationally and going all the way down?

Because I've heard the same things in other states where it's--it seems like to me like it was a Trump agenda.

Rod: Well, a lot can happen in 45 days, and I think they're saying wait a minute, how about two weeks?

You know, let's do two weeks.

I think 45 days, to me, I think to the Republican side, conservative side, the window is too large.

Bring it down a little bit is what they're asking for.

Saige: I do have a question, if you go to a dropbox at like a ballot location to drop off your ballot, is that considered vote by mail?

Because you've got your ballot in the mail when you're dropping it off.

Rod: I went on election day, so I'm not sure.

I went on election day, but that is-- [crosstalk] Jason: Let's get to one of these issues that seems to come up every single year, and it's regarding what we affectionately call Senate Bill 54.

This is your ability to get on the ballot by signatures instead of through the caucus convention system.

What was interesting this year is that we had this bill come back again, this is House Bill 393.

But this is what it said that if you get 70% of the delegate votes at convention, you are the party's nominee even if people got signatures.

This bill did not go forward.

What does that mean, Scott?

Scott: Well, I hope it means that there's some sanity coming back into the Republicans on-- Poor Mike Leavitt.

I always think of Mike Leavitt on this SB54 and all the things that he went through.

But the mere fact that it didn't make it out of committee.

I don't think it made it out of committee.

Jason: Yeah, I think that's right.

Scott: Yeah, and I think it was stuck in--I think that people are starting to get fatigued over this issue and--but, you know, they keep trying.

Rod: Well, but the 70% is what-- from what I understand in talking with Carson Jorgensen and talking with the representative--the 70% is the issue that they had when Count My Vote began and that effort they said, you know, they wanted the 70%.

So they brought it back this time and it still got shot down.

So I agree with Scott.

I think it's starting to wear thin with some people, even though the core Republicans out there are hanging on to that hat caucus convention system.

Jason: The conservative members of the Republican party, they're still--do you think they're still gonna be pushing?

This is not gonna go away.

Rod: I don't think it's going to go away for a while.

Saige: I think this bill is going to be resurrected.

I think that there's some kinks that need to be ironed out.

I spoke to Count My Vote about this bill, because they agree that there needs to be some changes when it comes to signature gathering, and they think that the threshold is too high, and so they'd like to lower it, but they also have some concerns over having it solely essentially be a caucus in a convention.

It's really hard for people to show up on a Tuesday on a random Tuesday and like, pick their candidate.

Rod: But I wanna add, I think it will come back because I think this legislative session, Brad Wilson told me at the convention we're gonna have a more conservative legislative session.

I think we saw that this year, and I think they're looking for it again in '24 where they can get even more conservatives.

More conservatives you get in there, I think the chance of this changing back again could in fact happen.

Saige: However, even if it does pass next legislative session and there isn't negotiations between the bill sponsor of the legislature and Count My Vote, if they cannot come to agreement, Count My Vote has said they will take this to the ballot, they will make an initiative, and there's already been money thrown at the possibility of this happening.

So regardless if it passes or not, I go back and reiterate, it's gonna be a fight.

Rod: Yeah.

Jason: Two more really interesting ones, I think, that did not pass, Scott, ranked choice voting.

We had the experiments, sort of the pilot projects in some part of the state.

There was a bill that would have ended that.

That did not go forward either.

That remains a potential pilot project in the State of Utah.

It gives me hope for the Republican Party, that they will be a little more progressive, and rank choice voting, at first I was very skeptical about it, but the more I've learned about it, I think it's great.

I think it is a solution that will help democracy to flourish as we move forward.

So, I was happy that it never-- again, it didn't make it out of rules.

I think they had a list of bills that just absolutely are not gonna go anywhere and then some--we'll give you some for that far right.

Rod: I have one word for ranked choice voting, Alaska.

Major problems with ranked choice voting in Alaska.

And I think people are going to use that and say see the problems that developed in the state of Alaska with rank choice voting?

Saige: I think they're also gonna look at Salt Lake City, because they're doing ranked choice voting, and that's gonna happen with the mayoral race, is that the right word?

Rod: Yes.

Saige: And see kind of how that plays out, because you do got-- you do have a lot of--I think you have like three candidates so far in that race.

And they're, yeah, they kind of feel like we're gonna see how this plays out with the--to see if Mendenhall keeps her spot.

Jason: Really quick, one more thing, we'll see how it plays out.

This is one more of those things.

The governor's finished signing bills including what they call a historic tax cut, $480 million were cut off, but what we're going to see going forward is a lot of conversation into this next election about this constitutional earmark on education.

So, Scott, what are we gonna see happen there, because it's tied directly to sales tax on food?

Scott: Yeah, there were two things that happened during this legislative session that were really concerning to me, one was the voucher bill, and it was kind of the same thing.

We'll give teachers a raise, but we're going to allow parents who home school to get eight grand per kid.

And, you know, you think about some of the polygamous families that we have in--down south, you know, they could have 20 kids.

So when they see this big number we're gonna get $8,000 per student and the accountability on that is really small.

There wasn't anything in that bill that said we're going to follow everything that we need to do in order to make sure that money is spent right.

But the second one is sales tax on food.

We'll take the sales tax off on food if you'll not allow--if you'll change the constitution, that we--that earmarked money for public education will go away.

I wouldn't trade off for that.

I think that's wrong.

Jason: How are people feeling on that trade off?

Saige, you're interviewing a lot of people I know.

How are they feeling about that trade off?

Is it being well received?

Saige: You know, that's something that's still yet to be seen.

I don't think that people-- we're a little bit far away.

I don't think this is really kind of garnered a conversation.

I know that there's already been some ads about let's remove the state portion of the food sale tax.

I think it's important to note that the county and the city aspect of a food sales tax is still gonna be there.

This is just a county portion, it's like what, 1.7%?

So that would go away.

But I do know that Spencer Cox specifically is pretty gung-ho for getting rid of the food sales tax and being able to shift around how the legislature spends income tax.

And he says it's up to voters.

Do they want to keep this, or do they want to spend less money on food?

And additionally, that's just going to be something up to the voters.

Do they want the legislature to play with the education fund, or do they want to spend less money on food?

Jason: So, Rod, talk about this for a second, particularly through this lens of legislators saying they're codified the protections including a constitutional protection for public education.

And that is the trade off that they're selling.

Rod: Yeah, well, two things on this.

I want to respond to what Scott said just quickly.

I think it was brilliant that lawmakers tied this together, and they tied them together, and I think it was a brilliant move on their part.

In talking with lawmakers and both with Stewart Adams and with Brad Wilson, they have got a task in front of them to explain to the public what they're trying to do.

It can be very, very complicated for people.

They've got to really lay it out in a very simple message for them to understand.

And we'll see if they can come up with that, because it does-- you know, okay, I do this, and we do this, and we do this.

They've got to be able to explain it, and that's gonna be a challenge.

Saige: Yeah, and the Democrats have spoken out against this, so I do think that it's gonna be a pretty big-- Rod: And where will the teachers come in on all of this?

You know, where is the union on this?

And we'll have to see what they do when it comes up for a vote.

Scott: I think our founding fathers here in the great state of Utah knew that public education was critical to the sustainability of our state and our community.

And I, you know, even when I was in the legislature, there was talk to take that money out of the constitution, earmarked for public-- I don't wanna mess with that.

I think our education system is under attack every single session, and to remove that, let's just take the sales tax off foods.

I ran that bill 20 years ago.

I did.

Senator Waddoups and I ran it together, and we got it off for a while, but then it was re-enacted, but when we have surpluses of three and five billion dollars, we can do better.

But let's don't sacrifice our public education.

Jason: Of course, uh, these policy changes depend on who wins the, the election, right?

And so could you mind if we do some prognostications a little bit now?

Because it's so interesting, and it's not too early.

We're gonna start seeing some people announcing in the very near future, and I want to talk about a couple of those.

Uh, first, let's talk about the governor's race a little bit.

Governor Cox announced very early, which seems to be his trademark.

Rod: Kind of quietly too.

I mean, no big announcement, just kind of, yeah, we'll run for reelection.

Saige: Yeah, he announced it during a press pool individual with reporters.

Like, it was very quiet.

Scott: By the way.

Rod: Oh, by the way, I'm running for reelection.

Saige: Like, one person asked the question, he was like, yes, I am going to do that, next question.

Jason: So, some speculation there too.

We, we see some Republicans even now who are going out saying they have some interest in that spot.

Carson Jorgensen of interest was the chair of the Utah Republican Party is stepping down.

You see anything there, Rod?

Rod: I do see something there.

He's interested in doing something, and it wouldn't surprise me if he does go for governor.

I think there's something.

I think he wants to do it, and we'll see what happens.

Jason: Okay, how about Senator Romney?

Scott?

Will he or won't he?

Because it's a big question.

If he decides to run, it changes who gets in this race in a very significant way.

Scott: Well, people know my feelings about Mitt Romney.

I think he's one of the best senators that we've ever had from this state.

I put him in the category of Frank Moss and people like that.

And I think Mitt is a even-tempered moderate that looks at both sides, and he's willing to take on the hard issues.

But I'll tell you, it is a tough, tough position for him with the far right.

I mean, he has not made any friends there.

It's been very difficult for him.

I hope he runs again, but he's given a lot of public service, and we have a good chance of getting the Olympics, who knows?

He might be the next Olympic guy again.

So, it's gonna be interesting.

I've heard other names on the Republican side, Thomas Wright, John Curtis.

Jason: Congressman John Curtis, Speaker of the House Brad Wilson.

Scott: Brad Wilson.

Rod: Jason Chaffetz is out there.

His name has been mentioned.

Jason: You want to take-- oh, go ahead, Saige.

Saige: Yeah, I think this is going to be an interesting race.

I would be surprised if Mitt Romney threw in the towel, he's been in the game a really long time.

I would understand during the later years if you just wanted to calm down, hang out with his family, figure it out.

But I do think that whoever his predecessor is, is going to kind of show where Utah politics is at.

Mitt Romney is a moderate, and we also have to look at the fact that a lot of Utah voters are moderate.

They're purple, they're unaffiliated, they're kind of on the fence.

They're not all Mike Lee stands, right?

So if somebody like John Curtis were to step up to the plate, I think that that would kind of fill the void of Mitt Romney.

It would be a good replacement for that pool of voters that like Mitt Romney and don't want to see two Mike Lees in the legislature.

Rod: I said at the beginning of the year I think he runs, and I think he wins again.

And I'm holding to that until something backs out.

He does have challenges on the right, but there are a lot of moderates, the unaffiliated, who like Mitt Romney.

He's got a book coming in out in October.

We'll see what happens and what he says in that book and where that may take them.

I think a few of the Republican candidates right now that have been mentioned here are kind of holding off right now just waiting to see what he'll do.

They may form exploratory committees just to take a look and test the waters out there, but I think it all hinges on what he wants to do.

He will have a challenge at the convention.

That's gonna be a huge challenge for him.

He'll have to go the signature route, he really will, because I don't know if he'll even get at out of convention.

Scott: You know, the other guy that I heard, Jason Perry, and I don't know if we can confirm that right there.

Saige: You did not hear that.

Scott: I have heard that in the past that he'd run for office, but I don't want to put you on the spot.

Jason: Thank you for that.

Rod: I wanna go back, there were a lot of people who I hear from who say we voted enthusiastically for Mitt Romney six years ago, and they're very disappointed in him primarily because of his stand against Donald Trump and his coziness with some of the Democrats, that angers a lot of people.

And I hear a lot of people enthusiastically supported Romney when he ran for president, when he ran for Senate, now they're really thinking.

Jason: We're out of time, so it's a one word answer.

Biden's gonna run again?

Scott: Yes.

Jason: Okay.

Scott: Watch Michelle Obama.

Jason: Okay, very good.

Thank you so much for your great insights this evening, we appreciate it.

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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