♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

Jason Perry: On this episode of "The Hinckley Report," the governor signed several notable bills while advocates push for him to veto others, members of Congress return home to engage with their constituents, and Utahns weigh in on major national issues.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 2 News; Brigham Tomco, politics reporter with the "Deseret News"; and Marty Carpenter, partner with Northbound Strategy.

So glad you're all with us.

Interesting week in politics, a lot on the national stage, a lot locally, and I want to get to what's sort of happening after the legislative session ends.

A lot of these bills--all the bills end up on the governor's desk.

He's got some decisions to make about what to do with those bills, and there are a lot of them, 582.

Brigham, you've done some reporting on this.

Talk about this because the governor's weighed in already this week about the number of bills that he's had a chance to go through and make decisions about.

Brigham Tomco: Well, it's the second highest number ever in the state, and we had a record number of bills introduced this session.

And so, Governor Cox is repeating a message that he really pounded home last year, which is there are too many bills and the number of bills hurts thoughtful debate and also the cost of implementation.

So he talked about that yesterday during his broadcasted press conference, and there's been some pushback saying, "Actually, a limited number of bills would just give legislative leadership and the governor potentially more control over the process," and Utah actually ranks towards the bottom compared to other states in the country in terms of how many bills are actually passed each session.

Jason Perry: It's interesting, you brought up--let's play that clip and then, Marty, give us a little commentary about it because it goes to the number of bills but also the implementation.

Governor Spencer Cox: There is a cost to administering these bills that sometimes gets left out.

We're barely, barely, getting through last year's bills and getting them implemented, getting them where they need to be.

And now we're just overwhelmed.

We've had to add positions in state government just to implement bills.

Marty Carpenter: Jason, you and I know from our time in the governor's office, the worst part about the process is that the session ends, the legislature goes home.

It feels like school gets out and then the governor's office has all the homework and the grading of the papers that you have to do.

Five hundred bills is a lot, but a lot of those, you have to remember, are things that do have to get done.

There are a number of things that aren't just all sort of elective bills and things that we just came up with this idea and needed to go and improve things.

I can understand, certainly from working in the executive branch, that there's a lot to implement.

I don't know that I would say that we're that far off, really, even though it is a record number of bills, that we're all that far off from what has normally been done over the past, you know, decade or so.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, I think there's a lot to go through, too, for people at home because I think there's probably a dozen bills that get people's attention during the session that they really understand what's happening, and then you have those hundreds more that you have to explain to viewers how it's going to change their lives and what's going to happen.

Republicans like to talk about having a small government, but when you look at more than ten bills a day, it's a big government approach.

There's a lot going on, a lot that changes in the state after those sessions.

Marty Carpenter: It's ten bills a day, but it's over 45 days.

So, you spread that out over the whole year and it's really not that many bills per day, right?

Jason Perry: Well, Marty, since you have a connection to this, talk about what's going through the governor--his office right now.

There's a lot of pressure for him on a couple of bills to veto.

He has 20 days from the end of the legislative session to sign these bills, and he can veto.

And sometimes, you have bills that he might not agree with that might be veto-proof, but tell me what--tell us what the process is, what the pressure from externally and what the governor has to try to do.

Marty Carpenter: Yeah, the nice thing to remember here, I think, is that it's not the first time the governor's office has seen the bills when they land on the governor's desk after the session.

The governor's team and the governor himself have been working with the legislature to shape the policy to get it where they need to be.

In a lot of this situation, it's mostly checking to make sure that the changes you agreed to actually got into the bill, but yeah, there is some pressure.

I know from my time in the governor's office, a lot of times we go through and say we had negotiated on all of these and we're gonna check, and they all got what we had agreed to in the bill, but, boy, we still feel like we should probably throw a little bit of an elbow and maybe veto one or two.

Some years, that's easier to do than others.

I think the governor vetoed seven last year and the year before that it was zero.

Jason Perry: Yeah, so, Heidi, talk about that because the governor has said that this week.

He said, "I'm not veto--I may veto some bills."

We don't know which ones yet, but he is saying part of the reason why there are not more vetoes is because he was weighing in through the whole process.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, he figures if he negotiates along the way, that he should let it go through.

But he has a chance, if there's a bill, let's say, for example, the flag bill, and he doesn't like it, like the LGBTQ and sports bill a few years ago, if he feels strongly, he can veto it.

It'll be overridden, but he can still have his voice heard.

The question is whether he does that because money makes the world go round and there are talks about possibly losing the Sundance Film Festival if he does that.

So, I think there's always more going on behind the scenes than what you're really seeing because sometimes it's not always your feelings, but you want the money too.

Jason Perry: Yeah, absolutely right.

A couple of bills are on the list for potential vetoes.

Brigham, you've done some reporting on this, but one of these in particular is the flag bill about what flags can be flown outside, maybe--or in prominent display areas of government buildings.

Brigham Tomco: Yeah, so what this flag would do is prohibit public school classrooms and government entities, like a city or county or the state, from displaying flags, with the exception of about a dozen specific flags that are outlined in state code, and this includes like the official US flag, the official state flag, official public school sport team flags.

And this has drawn lots of push back and conversation during the session.

It was one of the more controversial bills that drew a couple of protests to Capitol Hill.

And Governor Cox has said that this is a veto-proof bill and has suggested that he'll probably sign the bill.

And we've heard, you know, some hints at possible resistance or lawsuits coming from municipalities within the state.

You know, particularly Salt Lake, where we have seen government entities, you know, fly the pride flag, for example, and this would not be allowed once this bill goes into effect.

Jason Perry: Marty, we are hearing that from Salt Lake, go ahead.

Marty Carpenter: Well, Heidi says that money makes the world go round, I think the other factor there is election timing really plays in on this, and everyone's fresh off an election.

So, as I used to tell the governor, mostly jokingly, I would say, "We're going to find a lot of other ways to make people mad between now and the time they vote for or against us."

So, that takes a little bit of the pressure off even when you have what looks like intense public pressure to take one action or the other on a bill right now.

Everyone's about as far away from an election as they can be.

Jason Perry: They are, but this discussion is still continuing on.

You know, the flags are sort of the piece about this idea of political statements, you know, and so that's why you're seeing Salt Lake make some comments about this.

Maybe put this in context for us a little bit, Heidi, too, because they are saying this is just one of those examples of where we want the government to not make political statements.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, I think, you know, whether it's a political statement or a social statement, that's the question.

And I think the question I'm hearing from people at home right now is, "Should the state be deciding what some of these cities are deciding?"

Because what Salt Lake City voters want is going to be drastically different than someone, you say, in a smaller town like in Monticello, Utah, or if you're going to Eagle Mountain.

And so, should they be letting cities and counties making the decisions, what's best for their voters and what they want, or should the state make that decision for them?

It's a difficult one, and I think that he's going to have to decide which way to go on that.

And there's always a chance to correct, where we've seen it before in the legislature.

If something passes and it's not working, they can always come back the next year and rediscuss it and figure it out again.

Jason Perry: Well, maybe--tell us if you see any other potential vetoes coming.

We know that there are--100 bills have been signed, so Brigham, there's a lot of reading still to do from the governor's office.

Brigham Tomco: Absolutely.

I mean, there's a couple of bills that have been proposed as potential vetoes.

Lots of people have reached out to his office about vetoing a bill that would prohibit counties from acquiring fluoride in the water or putting fluoride into public drinking water, but my guess is that it might look more like last year, where that we saw seven vetoes that had to do with almost instructing the legislature on what kinds of bills the governor thought were necessary or weren't necessary, and this had to do with the same theme of the governor thinking that the legislature is passing too many bills.

And so, I suspect it might be more along that route.

Marty Carpenter: Also interesting to watch when bills are signed and which bills are signed when, right?

You want to bury the ones you don't want people to talk about, traditionally, on a Friday because that puts you into, sort of, take-out-the-trash day and the news doesn't cover it as well on the weekends.

I don't know how much that plays in anymore because people have more time to flip through their phones on the weekend.

So, I'm not sure if that dynamic is flipped, but it's still interesting to watch.

When did they decide to take action on each one?

Jason Perry: Even in politics surround those decisions, interesting.

Okay, speaking of some political issues, Department of Education.

Can we talk about executive orders just a little bit, including this one?

Just this week, the Department of Education started in 1979 and--an executive order.

Heidi, let's talk about what's happening here, efforts to unwind and, you know, farm out pieces of the Department of Education.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, I think there's been talk for years here in Utah and other states about possibly unwinding it, and Utah has actually set itself up in a position where unwinding it would be easier than in other states.

I think generally across the board about 10% of the budget is taken from other departments of education on a local level.

Utah takes about 5%.

The concern I'm hearing from people at home are, "Is it going to hurt Title I schools and is it going to hurt some of those special needs programs?"

I guess that's the big question, is to--if that money comes in a block grant, but the president did say and the White House has said that that money isn't going anywhere, you'll have it.

Right now, they're just cutting back on a lot of that overhead that's happening in Washington.

How it trickles down to the states is going to be the big question, but I think Utah definitely is set up to be ready for it more so than other states.

Jason Perry: Brigham, talk about this for a moment because Heidi brings up a couple of very interesting points.

One of these is connected to the--our own governor wrote an op-ed about this just this past week.

And this idea of the states getting control of education, that seems to be at the heart of what some of our elected officials are saying.

Brigham Tomco: Yeah, Governor Cox is one of several Republican governors who wrote op-eds this week supporting the elimination of the Department of Education, or at least the paring down of its responsibilities.

Some points that he made out in that article then reiterated again yesterday is that the Department receives about $270 billion and only about $70 billion of that finds its way to children in public schools.

And his argument is that that money would be better left to the states to manage and to administer.

And in response to worries that this would lead to variation between how, you know, states function in their public education, he said that's what federalism is all about, and Utah is ready to show the rest of the country what we could do with those federal dollars without all of that overhead that he says actually leads to some school administrators or teachers spending most of their day working on paperwork, you know, for these federal programs.

Marty Carpenter: Or even better, don't make it federal dollars.

Keep the money in the states and watch what the state can do.

Jason Perry: Talk about how that plays out because that is the discussion now, is do you start getting the block grants back to the state or you just not take it to begin with?

Which could have implications on, you know, not just our funding for education, but even down to income tax.

Marty Carpenter: I mean, all things that need to be figured out, and we were probably at the meat cleaver stage of this and not the scalpel stage of this process, and we'll have to figure that out.

I think Utah would love to just have the money stay here and let us put it into education where we now have a pretty consistent track record of putting money into education and increasing funding for education year over year.

I think the really interesting thing on the Department of Education, started in 1979.

I am one year older than the Department of Education, right?

This is what the Department of Education looks like.

It's very much middle age.

We have enough of a track record to see how its performance has been.

If you adjust for inflation, the amount of money we put into it in 1980, its real first year of operation, was about $330 billion.

Now it's about $800, okay?

So we should see twice as good performance by that, or at least improving performance.

We spend almost--the most of any country in the entire world on education and our results just aren't there.

We're, I believe, something like 18th overall in reading and 37th in math.

Something about what we're doing isn't working and it makes sense to a lot of people to say, "Why are we sending money to DC to send it back to us if we're not getting the results?

Let's try something different."

Jason Perry: As we start talking about these executive orders go into effect, there are a lot of legal challenges to many of these executive orders that are either in the courts or the courts have made a decision.

Heidi, is putting--the executive branch is sort of at odds with the judiciary as recently, including President Trump calling for at least one judge to be taken out of office.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, and as quickly as that happened, Justice Roberts came out with a statement that is pretty unheard of, saying that, you know, that's not the way that the system works.

We let it play out.

I think the question that we're seeing right now is that, you know, some people are saying this is lawfare, that every executive order that comes out gets stopped by an activist judge.

When you take a step back, you look at how our country works, and we have systems in place and balances.

So we have to watch and see if this quickly plays out, or if it does drag through the courts and makes it so the president really can't accomplish what he wants.

I think having those checks and balances is good.

Senator Lee brought up an interesting idea of maybe instead of having just one justice judge, that maybe you have to have a panel of three so there's not just one person making that decision if it's going to stop an executive order of the president.

It's an interesting idea, whether it goes anywhere, I don't know.

Jason Perry: Now let's break that down a little bit, Brigham.

To Heidi's first point, it was sort of unusual.

You got the chief justice making a statement.

This is what he said, this is what Heidi was referring to.

"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision."

That's a pretty strong comment and maybe a little bit of a stake on the separation of powers.

Brigham Tomco: Yeah, absolutely.

I think lots of people were surprised when the chief justice made that comment.

The Trump administration entered office the second time around with lots of legal theories that had--are either unprecedented or, you know, totally novel.

One example of this was using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 over this last weekend to deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan violent gang, and take them to El Salvador.

And a--one of these district judges that Senator Mike Lee and President Donald Trump have kind of excoriated, he gave a written and verbal order to turn the plane around, which didn't happen, and they're--that's working through this legal process right now.

But we see lots of the supporters of the current president saying the judicial system is an obstacle right now for the president's agenda.

And one other thing I'll add to this is that the president of El Salvador posted on X, or formerly known as Twitter, this week that America is facing a judicial coup, right?

Kind of this big statement that ended up getting like 200 million views and Elon Musk re-shared this.

And our senator responded to this message saying, "We have the best judicial system in the country, but there are tweaks we need to make to stop things like this from happening."

Jason Perry: Give one more final comment on this, Marty.

There have been 89 executive orders so far, and this idea from Senator Mike Lee is you don't want to have just one judge being necessarily the one that's staying these executive orders.

Maybe you should have a panel of three justice judges who would make those determinations.

Marty Carpenter: I think it's a recommendation that makes a lot of sense.

I know, as someone who is a member of the Republican Party, as I watched, I say, boy, a whole lot of good has gotten done by executive order.

I do start to feel a little trepidation saying, you know, anything we can do in 50 days in--under an executive order can be undone and gone the other direction just as that's exactly what we're seeing.

That's not how the country is supposed to work.

So, more so than the judicial thing, what I'm looking at is saying I hope that the Republican Party, while it has control of all the branches of the government, is getting ready to legislate and put some of this into actual law and not just keep flipping it back and forth by executive order.

Jason Perry: Before we leave the federal side, Brigham, I want to talk about an interesting initiative that was announced this week on housing.

This is an issue, you know, we talk about in the state of Utah a lot.

So much of our land is owned by the federal government.

And this new federal initiative, and it's a bit like what Senator Lee had, what's called his HOUSES project, has something to do with what you can do with federal land and maybe building property on it, some housing.

Brigham Tomco: Yeah, exactly.

So, there was an announcement this week from the secretary of interior Doug Burgum and the secretary of the housing and urban development department, which handles housing affordability, and that is Scott Turner.

And this announcement was a partnership between the two departments that would allow localities and states to explore affordable housing developments on public lands or federally managed or federally owned lands that are close to, you know, city limits, county limits.

And like you said, this mirrors a bill that Senator Mike Lee has been proposing for the last three years, the HOUSES Act, which would make these federal lands available for affordable housing projects as long as there's some sort of zoning or price requirements there.

Jason Perry: Heidi, this is such an interesting issue.

That, apparently, there are about 220,000 acres that would fall into this category.

You're adjacent, you're within the city limits, and the idea is you have affordable housing, which is something even our governor has been talking about recently.

This may be a way to use some of that land for a more productive purpose or for state purposes.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, and we have a lot of that land in Utah.

How easily that will happen is a big question.

We're watching something play out, I believe it's in Ivins in southern Utah right now, where there was some land that was originally protected, where, I think it was because of the tortoise, where people lost their grazing rights, and now, all of a sudden, it's been approved for building.

And so, I think there's a bit of a tug of war going on even there where people know they need the housing, but they're saying, "Wait, years ago you wouldn't let us use it for this.

Why do we get to change it now?"

So, I think it is a change that would benefit the state of Utah, but I don't think, even if it happens, it'll be a smooth process because I think that there's a lot of hurdles to overcome in even just our cities and counties because not everyone wants something in their backyard even if they know they need it, yeah.

Jason Perry: These issues are just so interesting.

They are getting people, kind of, to be very active.

And I want to talk about that for just a moment because we're looking across the country right now at town halls.

These items that are being brought to the people are coming through town halls, and we even had one here.

Brigham, you were at one at the University of Utah yesterday, right?

So there was a town hall, Congresswoman Maloy, Congressman Kennedy were here.

At the University of Utah is where it ended up being.

Talk about what you saw right there, and so--and kind of the messages that are being given sort of by the mess--by what we're hearing from people who are very upset.

Brigham Tomco: These voters were angry, to put it simply.

They were Salt Lake City residents who had come to a town hall of Representative Mike Kennedy of the 3rd congressional district and Representative Celeste Maloy of the 2nd congressional district.

And their big question or demand of these two lawmakers was to answer for the Trump administration's actions on public lands, on some of these federal agencies that are seeing cuts, you know, from DOGE and Elon Musk's efforts there in Washington DC.

And really, it was a spectacle of shouting down these two lawmakers and you could hardly two--you could hardly hear these two try to explain their positions on some of these complicated issues.

Jason Perry: So Marty, talk about that because some of our delegation--in fact, across the country, people have been told, "You might want to postpone having these kind of events for a little while," because of the reaction that was just described.

But there was a lot of anger in this one.

And it was even interesting, maybe this was a microcosm, there was--someone was just holding up a sign that just said, "Eggs," just eggs.

Talk about this because this was tied to issues of inflation, gets tied to a couple of the other actions taken by the administration.

Marty Carpenter: I think the really interesting thing about a town hall is that it can be high intensity, but that does not make it scientific in the sense that it's not necessarily a real representation of how all of your constituents feel.

That's what I would advise any office holder who goes to hold one of these, or a candidate in the future who goes and has a similar kind of town hall experience.

The people who are showing up feel really passionate about the thing that they're there to talk about.

That does not necessarily make them the majority.

So, you take it as a data point and say, "Hey, there are some people who feel very intense about this."

That does not necessarily mean that everyone who didn't show up feels the same way.

So, you've got to take that into consideration.

So yeah, you go do them if it's something you decide to do, but I don't know that you walk out saying, "Well, everybody must feel this way," because 100 people showed up to feel that way tonight.

Jason Perry: But it was clear, Heidi-- oh, did you have a comment first?

Heidi Hatch: I was just gonna say, it's a repeat of 2017.

When you look back, I think Congressman Chaffetz made national headlines because of one of his where he held it in a high school auditorium, and it was kind of the same thing.

So, I think this pushback maybe we forgot was expected.

It happened after Trump was elected last time.

I think there was a lot of frustration.

They want to hold someone accountable.

I think the problem is, though, is when you look at people who want answers, I think there's some people who show up wanting to ask questions and hear those answers, and then the problem is that there's a lot of other people there just to yell, where there's not a lot accomplished.

And I think that if you really want to hold people accountable, you have to be willing to sit down, shut up, and listen for a few seconds.

You can't keep talking if you want to hear what they have to say.

Jason Perry: Yeah, it's interesting.

The final point on this, Brigham, too is like, as you heard from those members of Congress and others too, is they're finding themselves in an interesting position where they're being asked to explain or defend or justify, when these are not necessarily their actions.

And Congresswoman Maloy even made some comments about maybe we need to reclaim some--the power of Congress, of what their responsibilities are, or maybe even in light of what seems to be an increased amount of power from the president's office.

Brigham Tomco: Yeah, that was the central discussion point last night.

And Representative Maloy ran for office on a platform of retaking some of the powers from the executive branch that Congress has ceded to the president.

And she said that this is a unique time where some of her Democratic allies feel the same way.

And so she said we should take this opportunity to place some guardrails, she said, around the president's authority so that Congress can continue to function within its Article I responsibilities.

And one other thing she mentioned is that she had reached out to the White House about a decision that would have laid off probationary public workers like national park employees, and they have since been reinstated.

So she said that's one example when she has pushed back against the Trump administration.

Marty Carpenter: The problem with that effort is that if Congress says, "Hey, we want to take our power back," the president has to sign away some of his power.

The best opportunity the country probably had to do this was the first time that President Trump was elected, and in that time when he was the president-elect, to have worked with Obama to say, "Hey, there's some concern about how this is going to go.

Let's put a lot of power back in the legislative branch."

That didn't happen.

That's a good indication to me that it's never going to happen, that we keep sliding more and more, because it's easier and easier at the national level for the power to be pulled away from the executive.

Interestingly, we see kind of the opposite here.

We've seen the trend over the last two decades of more and more power going to our legislative body because of their ability to get on the same page.

That's the only way it works if you're going to do it at the national level-- Congress would have to get on the same page, good luck.

Jason Perry: Yeah, let's see how some of these issues are kind of playing out here, too, because we have an interesting kind of power struggle brewing in the Republican Party, Heidi, here in the state of Utah.

The Utah Republican Party has to elect a chair soon and it's very interesting.

We have Rob Axson, who is the current chair, and going to be challenged by Phil Lyman.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, this is going to be interesting because I think whoever wins is really going to set the tone for how things move forward in the Republican Party right now.

When we see conventions and when they decide who their leader is, whether it's the left or the right, they usually are more to the right or the left, a little more extreme than probably the average voter at home.

I think that Phil Lyman in the last year has a lot of people who are those delegates that are backing him.

They feel frustrated, like somehow he was wronged, so he's going to have people in his back there.

But Rob Axson, I think, really wants to keep the voices of all parts of the party there and make sure that there are people who are to the right that are heard, people who are more centrist, you know, and listen to all those pieces.

So, the struggle is on right now.

It'll be interesting to see which way it goes.

I do think that sometimes when you push too far to the right or the left in the party, you might drive some of your voters to the other side.

So, there might be some Republicans who get frustrated if Phil Lyman wins and they might end up voting with some more centrist Democrats.

And if that's what the Republican Party wants, they have to make that decision, yeah.

Jason Perry: Two very interesting choices right here.

And does a prior election give us any instruction about where the party might be going, at least in terms of the delegates?

Brigham Tomco: Well, last April the 4000 state delegates overwhelmingly selected Phil Lyman to be their nominee for governor.

Sixty-eight percent of the people present at that state party convention selected him.

And so if that's any indicator, Phil Lyman definitely has a fighting chance.

But something that I heard in conversations with the party's two national delegates and county chairs and other prominent party insiders is that the function of the Utah Republican Party is to support its candidates, its nominees, and also to have a good relationship with the legislature to promote policies that it supports.

And so, that, you know, requires fundraising prowess and also some bridge building and know-how.

And something that they've mentioned to me is that Rob Axson over the last two years has actually been the most successful fundraiser that the party has seen in recent memory.

Jason Perry: Can--our last 30 seconds here.

You've been connected to this issue for a very long time.

Break this down, what we're likely to see and what kind of impact it might have.

Marty Carpenter: It wouldn't surprise me if it goes either way--I know that's a cop-out kind of answer, but I would say this: It's part of the existential crisis that the Utah Republican Party has been facing for about the last 15 years.

And that is, they go and select candidates as delegates, and then when they get to a primary with folks who've gotten on there with the signatures, usually the guy who got the signatures trounces whoever the party has sent out.

There's a disconnect between what the delegates think and what the rest of the state's party members think.

Jason Perry: That's gonna have to be the last comment.

Thank you for your insights this evening and thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast on pbsutah.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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