♪♪♪ male 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 spotlight of the national media shines on Utah as national Republican leaders meet and consider holding their 2024 convention in Salt Lake City.

State lawmakers shift into high gear as they reach the midway points in the 45 day session and pass consequential legislation.

And Utahns share their concerns on hot button issues, from rising inflation to dipping approval ratings.

♪♪♪ CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM 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 Chris Blake, partner with RRJ Consulting; Sophia DiCaro, executive director of the governor's office of planning and budget; and Jay Evensen, senior editorial columnist with the Deseret News.

So glad to have you with us.

So many important issues for us to talk, particularly as we get to yet another week of the legislative session, a lot of interesting bills, big impact.

I want to start with one--with you Jay, though, because one I guess was kind of aimed at you, maybe not personally.

This is Senate resolution 1 has to do with media inside the legislature, where they can go, where they can't go, and that process.

Talk about that, because this is sort of a new conversation Jay Evensen: Oh, this is kind of inside baseball, but it's important to the media, and this is Senate resolution 1, and what it would do is to restrict where we can go when the gavel sounds ending the daily floor session.

And as it is right now, the media can go onto the floor of the Senate.

You often will grab a senator and say, hey, can you clarify something here?

Or it's, you know, it's an opportunity to talk a little bit informally.

What S.R.

1 would do is require us to get permission from a media designee-- I'm not quite sure who that is-- to speak to somebody in one of these areas that are not open to the public, and so it would make it much harder for us to just get a clarifying question in.

The second part of it is in a committee meeting, this would keep the media from going up on the dais and behind committee members, and particularly photographers and television photographers.

Now, I've been around for a while, and I remember my first session here was 1987 legislative session.

And the media used to be on the floor back then.

We had a section on the floor, and it just seems like bit by bit they'd been moving us farther and farther away from from the legislators themselves, and what they're saying is that, oh, there are so many more media now than there were before, because anybody who has a blog can call themselves a journalist.

I've not really seeing that.

There is a credentialing process up there, and that kind of keeps it to the legitimate media.

A suggestion was made that we form a Capitol press corps that would kind of police itself and would handle some of these issues, but the committee said, yeah, we like that idea, but we're going to pass this out anyway, so S.R.

1 went to the floor the other day.

Jason: Of course, it only applies to the Senate, the way this is written.

Jay: It only applies to the Senate.

Jason: I'm just so curious, 'cause this is unique that we have the two of you, Chris and Sophia here as well, Sophia former legislator, former chief of staff to the Speaker.

Talk about, both of you, start with you Sophia, about this idea, because you've been in this committee hearings where the media is right behind you taking pictures and.

Sophia DiCaro: Yeah, I mean, I can understand both sides.

We're in a different environment than we were years ago, so I think it's natural to have some change occur over time and just the nature of the sentiment, the public sentiment we have.

Right now there's a lot of anger, we have a lot of division, and I can--there's a real need to balance out safety and elements of privacy as well as the ability to just do your work as a lawmaker.

Oftentimes you're getting information the same time the public's getting the information, and when you're not able to deliberate and hear what's going on, or you know, if you're disrupted from being able to absorb the information, it can hinder some of the work that you need to do when you're the one having to make the vote.

So I know that there's gotta be a delicate balance, and you know, hopefully those conversations can continue, because it is a very important role that the media plays, and hopefully we can have some resolution going forward that makes everybody happy.

Chris Bleak: You know, we've all had to deal with this, what there is to Jay's point back in 1987, even when I started in 1998, members of the media were on the floor.

I think in 1987 lobbyists were even allowed on the floor, which obviously, is not the case anymore, but so there is always a balance.

We're seeing an increase in safety and security type measures up at the Capitol, and I give both the Senate and House a lot of credit.

They hold daily press briefings where those folks are able to come in and ask those questions, and so it is a balance that's constantly going on, and I think there are even issues around when you're up on the dais it can be a little bit distracting.

You've seen before like D.C. hearing all the camera people kind of flood in, take all the pictures up front, and then kind of dissipate, and so some of these things need to be worked out.

I have a belief in the legislative process that as the media expresses their concerns the legislature will express theirs, and they'll find a balance that will make sense, including the potential of a press corp, which could could make a lot of sense as the media grows here in Utah.

Jason: Very interesting idea that's being discussed there, though, 'cause when these rules come out, what recourse do the press have?

Who do they go to?

Jay: Exactly, and this is following a national trend too.

There are other state legislatures dealing with this.

My concern is I don't see what problem really is being solved, and I know there's an increased concern about safety these days, but nobody on that committee could point to any instances where the media has caused problems.

Chairman Curtis Bramble talked about one instance where somebody was trying to speak to committee members during a committee hearing, but other than that he said mostly, you know, things have been the way they should be.

So I'm not sure what problem we're trying to solve, but this is a trend nationwide.

Jason: Let's get into a couple bills.

One really caught fire.

It was so interesting to watch, digital driver's license amendments.

Chris, I wanna get your take on this, this is Senate bill 88, Senator Lincoln Fillmore.

Interesting, it's allowing people to--it's a pilot program to carry a digital driver's license.

Wow, talk about this committee hearing, 'cause we saw some things.

Chris: Well, I love this idea, I've been dying for it, because I want to get rid of my wallet.

I don't want to carry anything.

I can't pay for--with cash anymore anyway.

Nobody wants to take it.

So I've loved the idea of a digital driver's license.

There are legitimate privacy and security issues that the legislature has always been concerned about, right?

If you get pulled over by a police officer, you don't want to hand over your phone, and so how do you go about creating that?

And we've seen incremental steps in terms of, you know, ID-- or excuse me, insurance and some of those are the things.

I think that's a natural step.

The thing that I find a little bit ironic, if you're concerned about privacy and security, why are you carrying a cell phone around?

And so my issue is not that, you know, there are legitimate issues there.

I don't think the issues that were brought up are as legitimate, but there are legitimate ones that the legislature has been looking at solving, our driver's license division have been looking at, and I think that this is the appropriate next step, and I hope the legislature can get there.

Jason: So, Jay, it was a privacy issue, but this is not just a picture of your license as you might see it.

This is a QR code that connects to the driver's license database.

Jay: Right, I spoke to the sponsor, Senator Fillmore yesterday, and he's a little bewildered by all this.

They've been working on it for three years.

Now, you're right, Chris, that there's a lot of legitimate criticism and some of it from the left.

The ACLU has issued papers concerned about this, and they have a list of things they think should be addressed before this becomes, you know, a thing.

Senator Fillmore's addressed almost all of those.

In these three years that we've had this pilot program, it's been tweaked, and there aren't that many issues left to go over.

And you're right, you know, if we're going to really have a question about security, it should be a much broader one than that.

But there's another question here, and that is can you simply defeat a bill by coming in and claiming all kinds of conspiracy theories, you know, saying that this is the mark of the beast from Revelation.

There were all kinds of things brought up.

Jason: They did say that too.

Jay: They did say that in the meeting, and the committee adjourned the hearing.

And I talked to Senator Fillmore, and he said he doesn't expect it to come back this session, and he wasn't sure about next session.

Jason: What will happen when you got these kinds of calls, 'cause it was a huge campaign, and people who are worrying about this slippery slope, as they called it, of privacy.

Sophia: Right, it's hard for government to innovate for these reasons, right?

It's hard for government to take the next step and innovate, and sometimes it does take three to five years to get meaningful things like this passed and get, you know, take the next step forward.

We need to, you know, help the public feel confident that government has the ability to keep up with those innovations, to make sure security patches are being addressed along the way as these things roll out.

But I think it's healthy to have the conversations, and technology is gonna move forward anyway, and it's gonna come time.

Chris: Yeah, Sophia makes an interesting point here, and I think it's one we--because we often talk about government should be a business or government needs to be more cutting edge or why can't I do this online or this when--and a lot of the times it is legitimate, you know, public criticism or public feedback that is slowing down that process, and so maybe it's an argument that the process works, but sometimes it is going to slow government's progress as they try to move forward and keep pace with some of the things we're seeing in the private sector.

Jason: Let's carry on this idea of privacy and some concerns people have about some of the technology that's going forward.

And Jay, let's talk about some things with voting.

Very interesting, we had 23 cities in our last municipal election that used rank choice voting, Representative Mike Winder had a bill to make this the process.

Some of these same people that had concerns about drivers license say absolutely not on rank choice voting.

Jay: Yeah, and I've written a lot about this, and I think rank choice voting is a really good idea for primary elections when you have people within the same party, but when you're talking about going beyond that, in the culture that we're in right now where there are some people questioning the legitimacy of elections and election security, you're adding another layer of complication when you add rank choice voting.

And there is the possibility that a third party candidate or somebody, you know, third or fourth down the list ends up being elected because he or she has the most second place votes.

So there are concerns about that, but there's nothing inherent in rank choice voting that's corrupt, it's just a different way of tallying votes.

But here, again, you have people who see something more sinister and deep happening.

Jason: So that bill's--looks like it's not proceeding.

There's one more associated with this, and I'm curious through the lens of a former elected official too, Sophia, Representative Jon Hawkins on he called election security amendments, and it was 24-hour video surveillance on ballot drop box, some information that he wanted to start adding to our our mail-in ballots, 'cause even those seem to be under attack a bit.

Sophia: Yeah, yeah, you know, it's difficult.

You have to balance access to the ballot, which is important.

We want to increase access to the ballot, and we have to also make sure that those are legitimate people voting as well, and balancing that is tricky.

I have a lot of confidence in our elections offices in our state.

We have a robust auditing process that takes place to protect against those types of things.

I know there's concern about adding, you know, personal identified information on ballots.

There's some security risk in that kind of practice that I think ought to be considered, and so I think, you know, we just have to be careful in making that balance.

Jason: Uh-huh, so interesting, Chris, 'cause that balance-- there are some in the community, they're still trying to have this conversation, they're worried about ways that the voting process could be infiltrated in some way, even in an initiative that looks like a may have failed to get rid of main-in balloting.

Looks like they're not gonna get enough signatures, it requires them by February 15th.

Chris: Right, I saw just this morning that they're suggesting that they are going to file a lawsuit to extend the deadline.

Getting a initiative on the ballot should be challenging.

Passing a law is challenging, going through the process is difficult, and so I think it's beneficial the initiative process exists.

It serves as a check, but I don't want to see us get to some other states where initiatives are so easy to get on the ballot or money drives them onto the ballot that I think it corrupts or change--not corrupts, but it warps the process in terms of how you get a law passed and what impact that has on citizens.

And so I think that it's an appropriate check but that it should be difficult, and I think they're seeing and others have seen it is a challenge to get a law on the ballot, and that's only really step one.

Jason: Absolutely, go head, Jay.

Jay: Well, going going back to elections, and I know you want to get into our Deseret News Hinckley poll, but we asked that question about whether people thought the upcoming election would be handled correctly and would be legitimate, and I think it was about 82% in Utah that said they they do think that, they have faith in it.

So, really, it's a very small percentage of the people here who are concerned about it and who are I think have a little bit more power than what their numbers would suggest.

Sophia: Yeah, and I just want to add, too, you know, we were positioned really well when the pandemic hit that we had access to the ballots through vote by mail, and a lot of other states didn't have that in place and had to go through that hurdle, go through those implementation pains, and we didn't have to do that.

We were already advanced to that level, we were already doing it, and we were able to get through an election during a pandemic no problem because we had that in place.

Chris: And it's another example where the state moved slowly on this.

You know, they did it--if I remember correctly, they did it in municipal elections.

They tested it out, they saw and have slowly expanded it so that people, A: feel more comfortable with it, but also have a better understanding of how the process works, what the security processes are, what you do if you spoil a ballot, those types of things that have made it more secure and people are more comfortable with it, to Jay's point.

Jason: So interesting.

I want to talk about another bill, because we talked about this on the show in the early stages.

It's House Bill 162, period projects--period products in all K through 12 schools.

We talked about it here.

Chris, I want to get your experience on this, too, because this is one of those bills where a ton of work, private sector, the public sector involved, but unanimous through each committee, unanimous on the floor and in the house.

I think a standing ovation on this particular bill in the Senate yesterday.

Talk about the significance of that and this particular issue.

Chris: Well, I think what's exciting here is you have folks that have gotten involved at the grassroots level and have pushed this and have worked hard to not only build support, some grant funding, but also then move forward with the legislature.

My daughter got involved, has been interested in it, come up to a rally and supported, and so I think it's a great thing, but I think it shows the power of the of the grassroots.

Those individuals that have decided to really push this issue, have gotten involved, have done it the right way, and have taken the incremental steps that they need to do to get to the point where I think it's going to pass and move forward.

It's a great thing, it should be available much like we expect toilet paper or anything else in a bathroom.

Jason: Sophia, that was the argument, in fact, some things are just in bathrooms.

Sophia: Yeah, you know, and some of--those used to be very difficult conversations, and I love the fact that we can talk about them now and people are embracing that, and you know, we're in 2022 and having that conversation now, which is just astounding.

But you know, I'm with Chris.

I love that it's grassroots and made this happen.

Jason: Yeah, Jay, another bill that was interesting, a new state holiday potentially.

Representative Sandra Hollins, Juneteenth.

Talk about that for just a second, its historical perspective, which is very popular right now with our legislature, very much supportive.

Jay: Right, and the Juneteenth is the day when slavery was officially abolished, or when word of that--Jason: Word of that, yes.

Jay: Finally reached the farthest regions of the country, and so it's a very important thing, very important thing for the African American community, but I think for the state as a whole.

I remember some of the problems and some of the wrangling that went on over the Martin Luther King holiday 20-30 years ago.

We don't see that this time, and I think it's a good thing.

I think it's gonna be good for the state surely.

Jason: This is 1865 in Galveston, Texas, when the Union troops let the enslaved African Americans there know that two years previously the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Lincoln, very important, and we're going to see that more in the next couple of days.

Hey, Sophia, I know you love talking about the budget, okay?

This is part of your primary responsibilities.

Can we please talk about what just happened, a tax cut, tax credits, tell us what just this week and what's going forward, because you got the--you have a seat that no one else does.

Sophia: Oh, yeah, no, you know, it's been interesting.

The Senate wanted one thing, they were very focused on a income tax cut, the House wanted some other things as well, and of course, the governor had a proposal.

The Governor Cox and Lieutenant Governor Henderson, their proposal was $160 million tax cut with about 90% of that going to people making $100,000 or less, very targeted grocery tax credit.

Other proposals came forward and ultimately ended up with an earned income tax credit cut, about 16 million, an income tax cut from 4.95% to 4.85%, about 160 million there, and, then another 15 million for social security tax credit cuts.

So at the end of the day I think there was something in it that made everybody happy, which is I think the Utah way, and I think we had a win overall.

We had about a $200 million tax cut approximately, and I think it will be--it was a good compromise, and it will be a good thing for Utah and a good balance I should say, as well, into the future.

Jason: I'm curious about the retroactive nature this, back to January of this year, that's interesting addition.

Sophia: Well, and it's nice because it will align with the calendar year as people do their taxes and as, you know, we do revenue estimates on a quarterly basis, and so we'll be evaluating that again, seeing what those estimates look like, but it's nice because it will keep it cleaner, and it will help us look at things going forward.

There was cut in 2018 as well, so I would applaud the legislature for being measured and not taking drastic cuts at any given time but being measured over time so that we don't create structural issues down the road.

Chris: Well, I was just going to say I think Governor Cox deserves a lot of credit.

Obviously, Sophia and the team came forward with a proposal on the grocery receipt credit--I might be saying that wrong, but--and so this is a pivot there, but it hit some of the same type of folks that they wanted to target, and so that's the key here is how do you find that balance, how do you negotiate to find something that all parties can agree on, hit some of those targeted folks, lower the income tax rate?

And so I think all the parties deserve credit here.

And ironically, it's gone through.

I mean, we're still a couple of weeks from session, they're already agreed to that, make some of the budgeting the decisions easier as they move forward with that, and so you know, plaudits to all those involved in this.

Jay: It's a modest tax cut, which is important, because we're very uncertain economic times right now.

We have inflation at 7.5%, and we have a lot of one-time money coming into the state.

No one knows what the budget's going to look like next year, and there are a lot of states around the country doing a lot more in terms of tax cuts, but there's a worry that they're going to have to come back and raise taxes next year to make up for that.

We have other problems in the state.

I spoke with Speaker--House Speaker Wilson the other day, and as we were finishing our meeting, he mentioned that we still have a budget imbalance, and you remember we went through tax reform a few years ago, but we still have--the sales tax is not growing as fast as the income tax, and the sales tax is primarily what funds the general fund.

He says that we barely have enough money to give state workers pay raises, and yet the income tax is flush, and so look for some measures maybe not this year, but in coming years to try to fix that imbalance.

Jason: One more thing about legislative session, Chris.

It wouldn't be a session without talking about daylight savings, is it over?

Chris: I hope so, but my guess is no.

Jason: Sophia says no.

Interesting, 2020 legislation, Congress says okay for Western states, none of that happened, so this one is none of that, just we're done.

Jay: Marco Rubio's got a bill that would--it's okay if you want to do standard time year-round like Arizona does, but you can't do daylight saving time year-round, which is what apparently most people in Utah want to do.

And Congress has to make that legal, and it just doesn't seem to go anywhere.

People get upset about it four days of the year, usually the day that we change and the day after, and then we get used to it and nobody talks about it anymore.

Chris: I want to see the federal government send the US Army out and change all of our clocks.

Let's just stick with it, and let's, you know, rebellion, let's stay on daylight savings.

Sophia: I'll just predict that we'll see this year after year after year after year.

Jason: Uh-huh, good prediction.

Let's talk about some things happening in Utah with federal connections.

This last week we had the Republican National Committee here in the state.

Part of this group was here looking at the state of Utah as a site for the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Support--is there support for that in the state, Chris, for that convention?

Chris: Oh, there's huge support for it in the state.

My understanding, just from reading you know some different sources, it's going to be a hard get, and certainly when you compete against a city like Nashville, you know, that's-- but Utah's been in the running.

I think we need to continue to position ourselves and look for opportunities to show off our state and have people here, and they would love it here, and hopefully we can get it.

But I'm guessing it's not gonna be in 2024.

Jason: Okay, go Jay.

Jay: Well, it's interesting because there wouldn't be any any political advantage to coming to Utah.

It's already a very red state, and parties tend to look at places where they think, you know, there's a toss up and they can win voters for their side.

But I have heard some say, look, this would be great for the party to come to a state run by Republicans that's run so well.

We are one of the best manage states, we have one of the best economies in the country, and this would be kind of a showcase for the party.

So there is that aspect.

Jason: As soon as--several members of this group, Jay, were here looking at the state for this event.

They met together and took some actions.

Talk about what those actions were and members of their own party, current sitting senators.

Jay: So they passed resolutions that condemned Liz Cheney, representative of Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for their part in the January 6th Commission, that's trying to ferret out what happened there.

And it's part of that resolution, they said they condemned them for going after innocent people who are engaged in legitimate political discourse, which is I guess, how they were trying to describe what happened on January 6th.

Now, the party tried to back away from that later and say, oh, we were only talking about those who were engaged in that, not those who were engaged in violence, but that message didn't really get out.

It was those three words describing the January 6th riot that got national attention, and party leaders such as Mitch McConnell were quick to come back and say, no, that was violent insurrection.

But it highlighted some of the rifts in the party.

When you're having--this is February, we're a long ways from November--but when you're having a party meeting, you would think that the focus would be on the the opposing party, on president Biden, on 7 1/2% inflation rate, on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and that type of thing.

Instead, they're focused on disloyalty within their own ranks, and it's an interesting message to send I think.

Jason: Yeah, in our last 30 seconds, Chris, got a pretty quick response from Mitt Romney.

Chris: Yeah, I think Jay's right.

They should be focused on what's ahead, and you know, Senator Romney has been right on this issue in my estimation for a long time, and let's not focus on calling out members for our own party, focus on where you're leading with the party.

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

Thank you for your great insights this evening, very informative.

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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