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," as the government shines a spotlight on social media companies, parents weigh in on how they are keeping their children safe online.

Recent polling showcases how Utahns feel about issues that will impact the 2024 election.

And as temperatures rise, state and local governments prepare for flooding.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Leah Murray, Director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics and Public Service at Weber State University; Taylor Morgan, partner with Morgan & May Public Affairs; and Thomas Wright, Utah businessman.

We're so glad to have you here.

A lot of really big consequential things happening in politics, not just across the country but here in the state of Utah.

I wanna start with one here, Thomas, first with you on social media.

We've been talking about the social implications of it for a while now, now we're really talking about the political implications, and we do have elected officials weighing in quite directly and even with legislation.

I want to get to two bills.

Let's talk about this, because we've done some polling on where Utahns are on this as well.

I wanna start with two and then get your take on this.

The first is--was called social media regulation amendments.

This is Senator Mike McKell that says that social media companies have to obtain consent of a parent or guardian before minors could maintain or open an account.

This is a pretty big statement.

It's a pretty big shot at these social media companies.

Thomas Wright: Well, there's a lot to unpack here.

First, I watched a documentary, "The Social Dilemma," and tech experts that created these social media applications were basically confessing how bad they felt about it, how addictive it is, and how they regret a lot of what they did.

So we all recognize--even the people that created these things--how detrimental it is to society, but you have kind of two different things going on here.

On the one hand, we know we need to protect our kids, and we know it's a problem.

I have teenagers, I've seen it, and I've seen their friends, and it's changed the way they interact with each other and the way they feel about themselves.

On the other hand, though, you have first amendment rights.

So while all of this legislation is well intended, the question is, is will it get mired down in the courts, and is it constitutional?

And I just remember Ronald Reagan once saying, you know the words I'm here from the government, I'm here to help, and you know, government is so well intended but the bigger they get and the more they try to do, the worse everything seems to get.

We know that there's a problem, and families and parents in our community need to step up, and we need to lead the charge from inside of our homes.

I don't believe government will ever be able to solve this.

Jason: So, Leah, it's a very interesting point right here, too, because our elected officials right now are hearing these first amendment concerns, some of these things about whether or not the government should be in this space, and they're saying we're not-- we don't really care, we're going for it.

Leah Murray: Right, and I don't understand that, because I also have teenagers, and what I'm gonna tell you, I think they believe whatever process the government is going to be put in place, they're going to end run around that process in about five seconds.

So I think they're feeling pretty confident there's nothing that's actually going to prohibit it.

And I think you could spend the money that you're otherwise spending on litigation on education.

And if it's a mental health issue, you could spend money on supporting mental health intervention.

So I'm not sure I agree with that path forward of we're good to be litigating, and we're good to spend millions of dollars on this.

Taylor Morgan: If I can weigh in, I really appreciate all the attention on the negative impacts of social media.

Like Tom has said, as Leah has said, no one's debating the fact that social media is having a very negative impact on the mental health of kids, that's all over.

However, having government step in to regulate is not going to work.

Not only will kids find a way around it, but there are real privacy concerns.

It's not just kids who will have to verify their identity, it will have to be everyone now.

Everyone, adults included, will have to provide some form of photo identification, government identification, just to open a new Twitter account or an Instagram account.

That's pretty ridiculous in my eyes.

Jason: Leah, I wanna show a clip from the governor talking about this, and it goes to your very point to see where he is and where we might see this going.

Let's roll this clip.

Spencer Cox: You don't need to just rely on the experts for this.

You can ask parents, and they will tell you.

You can ask teachers, and they will tell you.

Better yet, ask the students, ask teenagers.

This is one of my favorite things to do.

I asked them, are you seeing an increase in your own life, amongst your friends, in your school in depression, anxiety, and self-harm?

And every one of them will say yes.

And then I ask the question, what do you think is causing it?

And every one of them tell me it's social media.

Leah: So I'm not even sure.

So I wanna just push back a little bit.

I'm not even sure it's a causal relationship, right?

So we see correlation between the introduction of social media and use by teenagers, but I haven't seen any research that says it's causal, meaning there are many variables in play with teenagers right now, and why they are struggling, and maybe I don't think that I would lay it all at the feet of social media, especially if--and probably definitely if--teenagers are the ones who are telling me.

Jason: Thomas, one more-- go ahead, please.

Thomas: All of this said, I give credit to the legislature and to the governor and other people who are raising awareness on this issue.

I think the talk about it and the talk about these pieces of legislation despite all the challenges that we pointed out has been really positive.

It's brought more awareness to me, and it's caused me to have a better interaction with my kids about the causation or correlation of social media and the way you feel about yourself.

Jason: I wanted to do some polling on the issue, but Taylor really quick, just one final bill that gets to this very point as well.

This is Representative Jordan Teuscher on social media, bill--it did pass and was signed by the governor--says that prohibits social media companies from using a design or feature that causes a minor to become addicted to their service.

This is that very point, this piece of legislation that did pass.

Taylor: Yeah, I think this is getting at algorithms in social media.

This is particularly problematic on TikTok, and there's a whole host of other issues with TikTok that make it very, very problematic, but again, we are trying to outsource good parenting here to the government, and that will never work.

Jason: Let's talk about where parents are.

I wanna do some polling.

Hinckley Institute of Politics has just recently completed with the Deseret News, Leah, on a couple of things.

First, we asked people in the state of Utah what age they think it would be appropriate for a minor to access sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

What's interesting is 36% of Utahns--36% said 16 to 17 was when they should be allowed access.

Leah: Right, no, I think that seems reasonable.

I mean, I feel like with my children, my son desperately wants to be a famous YouTuber, right?

And I said not until you are some arbitrary age, and one benefit to the government talking about is I was able to say it's the law, you can't do it until you're 16, so that took it off my shoulders, a little help in the parenting.

But I feel like probably they're in it earlier, right?

My kids are in Discord, which we haven't mentioned, but Discord is something they use to figure out what tests are coming up and how they're supposed to study.

They're in these groups.

So, I think it's happening before 16.

Jason: Taylor, 33% of Utahns said 14 to 15 was the right age, and 8% said 13 or younger.

Taylor: Yeah, I--look, I have a 12-year-old son, and he just got his first phone.

He doesn't have social media yet.

No way.

No way will we let him have access to social media before he's 16 or 17.

What I would like to know is how many of these parents feel strongly about these ages but yet don't monitor their own kids' use.

Jason: We did do some asking about that.

So, Thomas, let's get into that for a second, about what kind of precautions people are taking.

But this is the question, these are people who have kids in their household, says what statement best fits your views about the steps your family takes to stay safe online?

Sixty-eight percent of Utahns said I have taken all necessary precautions to protect my kids.

Thomas: You know what?

As a parent of four children, three of which are college age now, your best intentions, your best efforts are still probably sometimes not enough.

And that's the danger.

And that's why we need to educate kids on the ills of pornography, social media.

All of the things that are out there online, they are good, they're crafty, and if we try to become the gatekeepers, all that's gonna happen is they're gonna become more crafty, and the companies that are there to help them break those rules are gonna be there.

We need to teach them these correct principles about what's going on and then ask them to make the right choices, and that will set them up in life to make good decisions down the road.

They're confronted later in life with similar challenges that we're all faced with.

Jason: We are seeing this on the federal level, Congressman Stewart putting a bill forward to keep students from being able--kids from being able to access social media until they are older.

Leah: Right?

And he's right if you think the answer is government, if Utah locks down, students will figure out how to get a VPN from like Wyoming, right?

Like they're gonna figure this out.

So if you actually want to have these kind of prohibitions, you need a national--mind you, I'm not agreeing with that necessarily, but you would need a national prohibition to do what I think they want to get done.

Thomas: To me, the Utah way is let's change our curriculum in the schools.

Let's teach kids about the ills of it.

Let's teach them the dangers.

We have brilliant kids in this state that are smart, and they'll figure it out.

If we teach them and we inspire them, they will rise to the occasion.

The opposite of having government regulated and mandated isn't gonna accomplish much, and it's not gonna empower our kids for the future.

Taylor: Yeah, regulation is usually reactive, it is not proactive, right?

This--we are seeing so many conservative Republicans jump on this bandwagon of trying to regulate social media use with government.

It just won't work.

Jason: Where is this going to end here?

Do, do you think that we are going to see the federal legislation sort of trump these patchwork of state legislative efforts?

Leah: Right, I'm interested, because I think it's a valance issue for party elite, meaning Democrats and Republicans both think it's a good idea to regulate, which then I wonder who's pushing back, right, in the rooms where it happens.

So I think we're headed that way, and then I think we're headed for litigation.

Jason: Okay, so we're gonna continue some very interesting political conversations, because this may play into a couple of races.

Can we talk about what might happen in 2024?

This is a very interesting week.

Let's talk about the United States Senate race, all right?

A lot of eyes are on this particular race, including what does Senator Romney decide to do, if he's going to run again or not run again, but Taylor, you followed this closely, I know too.

So Senator Romney did file with the FEC this year--this week about running for office.

Talk about what that means and implications.

Taylor: He quietly filed a declaration of candidacy form with the FEC.

That is it's merely checking a box, it's a formality, he has not announced a campaign.

His team has been very clear that it's not official.

We haven't made a decision yet.

This is simply a requirement by the Federal Election Commission that if we are to run again, we need to check this box now so that we're following all the rules as we raise money and prepare for a potential run.

Jason: Thomas.

Thomas: As somebody who's run for a major political office, I can tell you that when your name is mentioned in rumor, people ask you if you're running, and they're convinced that you've made a decision, and they think you haven't said what you're gonna do, and you know, but you're not disclosing it.

In this particular case, I believe Senator Romney.

I don't think he's made up his mind as to whether he wants to run or not.

I think he's weighing the options.

Probably, you know, there's days when he probably feels like he can make a difference and that he's vibrant and that he wants to go in there and take on these issues and make a difference.

And then there's probably days when he wants to spend it with his wife and his grandkids and enjoy his life.

So, it's this tug of war back and forth.

I've been to through it, and I take him at face value that he hasn't made up his mind.

And I think some of the things this week maybe will encourage him even more probably to run.

Jason: We'll talk about that a little bit, but so this filing with the elections commission, that doesn't necessarily mean anything, it's preserving the option.

When as a former candidate, when does he need to really in earnest decide what he's going to do?

Thomas: Well, I think Senator Romney obviously has big name ID.

He's been the former nominee for president.

Everybody knows him.

I think everybody's formulated an opinion on him.

There's probably a few undecideds out there depending on if he were to run and who he was running against what they would do.

But at the end of the day, he has a really long time.

And don't forget, in Utah our biggest challenge in elections for challenging incumbents and people with big name ID is plurality.

I was in a race with four candidates for governor, and when you're the low name ID candidate with high name ID candidates, that's a big challenge, because all they have to do is get 30%, 35% and they win.

And I think Senator Romney, if he were to run, 35% or 40% is probably a pretty easy number for him to get.

Taylor: The legal timeline, Jason, for his actual campaign would start the first week of January 2024.

That's when he would declare his intent and his candidate signature declaration in January.

Jason: It's interesting, because races like this don't come open very often if he decides not to run.

But some of the things maybe going into that decision, I want to do some polling we have done and have you talk about this first, Leah, because we asked Utahns recently about whether or not they approve or disapprove of Senator Romney's performance.

And what's interesting, he has 52% approval in the state of Utah of his performance, 44% disapprove.

Leah: Right, so that seems to me not safe.

Does that make sense?

Which to me explains why quality challengers would get into the race, but as Tom--you were saying earlier, right, the answer is that's still a good enough number, right?

To not be too worried about it.

Jason: You can say yes to that, Thomas?

Thomas: And let me say, like, there's a lot of people, a lot of people that would probably get in the race if Senator Romney decides not to run.

Jason: So, really, that's the question.

So I know that's true, okay, go ahead.

Taylor: I was just going to say that polls are not predictive.

Polls are a snapshot in time right now.

Those numbers are going to be very, very different next year.

Leah: Right, but 52% approval, right, is not like 65% approval is what I'm saying.

Thomas: We also have to look at Republican primary voters.

Obviously, the people that are pro-Trump are obviously not pro-Romney, that number is really low.

So there's a lot of factors here.

I'm not saying it's a guarantee or anything like that, but it's very hard to beat name ID candidates.

It's very to beat incumbents, and it's even more difficult when you have plurality.

Jason: Yeah, so let's talk about what Thomas just mentioned here.

Even with you, potentially, there is--is there a different slate of people who might jump in if Senator Romney doesn't run than the list that would jump in if he does?

Leah: There should be, except that we had someone announce yesterday that I would consider a high-quality candidate, so now I don't know the answer to the question.

Does that make sense?

If we were talking earlier, I would have said until he decides we won't really know the full slate, but now I'm thinking with the speaker in the race, I don't know.

Jason: Yeah, so let's talk about that.

So, Taylor, Speaker of the House, Brad Wilson, announced yesterday an exploratory committee.

Taylor: Well, did he announce, or was it leaked?

I'm not certain that that was intentional, right?

It was discovered through some back end web sleuthing that he had registered an exploratory committee for the US Senate race.

Again, I haven't spoken with Speaker Wilson.

I'm not sure exactly what his intentions were, but we do know now he's considering running.

The timing seems a little strange to me.

Honestly, I think everyone is just waiting to see what Mitt Romney does, but this was an interesting shot across the bow.

Jason: Implications, Leah.

Leah: Of?

Jason: Of him jumping in this race.

Leah: Yeah, well, I think then I think Senator Romney is even more unsafe, right?

So my answer is incumbents usually have really high advantage because they don't get quality candidates, right?

The issue is low name is part of--like, just all those issues, but I think Brad Wilson has high name recognition, probably has a pretty good war chest, that's a significant challenge I think, right?

Jason: So, one last thing on this, Thomas, what happens at the national level, who runs for president, who the candidates are, that is going to have an impact on whoever does get this position.

Thomas: Yeah, it does, and it will, because we are looking now at who's going to be the Republican nominee, who's going to be the Democrat nominee, is President Biden gonna run again?

Who, you know, your potential head-to-head match ups, Republican versus Democrat, and then that factors into the equation for sure, who will support whom, who has the support of whom, who doesn't have the support of whom, and that does factor in, and the candidates that are looking to run in 2024 are making that calculus.

The problem right now is that is very fluid on both sides of the aisle, and it's not becoming any more clear as the days go on, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out into the late spring and early summer.

Jason: We'll be watching it closely.

Of course, sometimes there are certain events that happen that can help your campaigns or not.

Unfortunately, sometimes those are disasters where we get to see the leadership of people in the state of Utah.

We have Governor Cox is running for office, and he's also been out this past week, Leah, talking about flooding in the state of Utah.

Leah: Right, and trying to figure out what is the plan for what might be a major disaster, right?

Jason: That's right.

In fact, the governor addressed it in a press conference just this week about what's happening with the state.

I want to watch this video, and then, Taylor, let's talk about what can happen with our elected officials in these offices to help keep people in the state safe.

Spencer Cox: Because of the temperatures that are forecast right now, we're not as worried as we might otherwise be.

If you show me three days in the 80s coming up anytime soon, then I'm really gonna start to panic in lots of different ways.

But if we can keep it in the 60s with cold nights, that also helps.

One of the problems the last few days is we never got below freezing at night, even in some of our higher valleys.

I was in Park City to some meetings, and once the snow starts melting, it just compounds on itself until you get those freezing temperatures that slow it down.

Taylor: Jason, when it warms up, snow melts and that turns into water.

I don't want to sound too cynical, I want to thank the governor and his team, certainly, Mayor Mendenall.

Our elected officials are doing a tremendous job with having prepared for flooding and now communicating with the public.

However, as a political consultant, I have to point out this reminds me a lot of Governor Cox back in 2020 when he was lieutenant governor running for governor, and he had this very, very impressive platform to speak with voters about the pandemic on behalf of state government.

I'm sure Thomas does--hasn't forgotten about that, but the-- Governor Cox is a master at public relations, Jason, and I think he's doing a very good job not only of leading the state but of running for re-election right now.

Jason: It's interesting, one of these things he's done is allowed all state employees to take administrative leave to go sandbag and help their neighbors, Leah.

Leah: Right, no, that's interesting, right?

Raising the numbers of volunteers, and it looks good.

I mean, it's probably totally the right thing to do, but what you just said to political point, right, like it looks really good.

Jason: Before we leave, so on the local level, Thomas, we've also had the Saul Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall also up for election.

We'll talk about that race more in just a minute.

Issued an emergency order and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson also issued a state of emergency.

Just talk about what this means and implications for us locally where we're seeing flooding right now.

Thomas: Well, they're raising the issue and making sure we all understand flooding is an issue, and as the snow melts, it's gonna pop up in different areas.

Our infrastructure has dramatically improved since 1983, the last time we were in this situation, so it's really unpredictable where the flooding is going to happen.

And this is what we love about Utah.

Utahns rally, they rally, and our leaders are doing a good job of rallying people and getting state employees to where they need to be to protect people's homes and to get us through this runoff.

But it's really positive news.

Other than the people whose homes are affected and my thoughts and prayers are with them, this is really good news for Utah to have this amount of water to see our reservoirs fill, to see the Great Saul Lake levels rising.

This is really positive, and I applaud our local leaders for rallying, because it's difficult.

You just don't know where the flooding's gonna pop up day to day.

Jason: Yeah, you have to be very quick here.

Let's talk about uh Mayor Mendenhall for a moment, Leah.

She is in an interesting race with a former mayor, Rocky Anderson.

Talk about this race for just a minute and then this is gonna be not just because of the candidates, this would be a different kind of race than what we've seen in the past.

Leah: Right, because it's ranked choice voting and no primary.

Jason: Yeah, so this is a vote of the council, right?

That this is what they're going to do.

Talk about what that means maybe a little bit on ranked choice voting, because you are our expert on this also.

Leah: Sure, so ranked choice voting basically means instead of having a primary where then you choose a head-to-head competition, everyone who's running is on the ballot, and then we expect voters to have enough discretion--may be the right word--to go down a list of people and say this is my first choice, my second choice, my third choice.

So what's interesting about ranked choice voting--and we've seen it, I think 22 cities used it last municipal cycle--what's interesting about ranked choice voting is the way that you run your campaign is different.

And so I would argue in the same way that when baseball adds a pitcher's clock, right, it changes the rules a little bit.

So candidates have to figure out how best to campaign in that new environment.

Taylor: Yeah, candidates need to campaign to be not only a voter's first choice but their second choice as well.

Which is going to be an interesting dynamic for this race between former Mayor Rocky Anderson and Erin Mendenhall.

The real thing to watch is how many other candidates get into this race in order to divide the vote and change the order of ranking.

Thomas: And I'm not sure how many voters really understand that there are candidates campaigning to be second place, and that by doing so they can actually win the election.

So voters need to really understand ranked choice voting.

It's new in Utah.

I hope people go out and study it, because the implications that you have when you rank your second, third, and fourth matter a lot, and this is in direct contrast to the--what I talked about with plurality.

At the state level, you could have four or five people in the primary and the person with the highest number wins.

And I kind of said, you know, Mitt could win with 30%, 35% of the vote.

Ranked choice voting, you need a simple majority, but you're running down people's rankings, and if it goes to the second and third ballot, the person that's ranked second or third can win just by virtue of jumping the person who had the most first place votes, so to speak, when the first round was counted.

So very dynamic, it's very tricky, and it's worth studying if you're voting in a ranked choice voting election.

Jason: We'll watch this one closely.

This is unique, but the experiments continues on this ranked choice voting.

Taylor, you are connected to this issue of the state flag.

I feel like we have to--we talk about on the show a lot, because a lot has happened.

This week it was known that the signature gatherers did not get enough signatures to take this new flag off.

Taylor: That is right, yesterday evening the lieutenant governor announced that the flag referendum had officially failed.

My hat is off to them.

I have done more initiative and referenda.

Jason: You have, you're a signature gathering person.

Taylor: And I'll tell you what, it is hard, it is not fun, it is a ton of work, and so a lot of credit to those folks who ran that referendum.

They officially gathered just under 20,000 signatures.

An additional about 25,000 were submitted but not verified, because they would have never had enough anyway.

So the referendum failed.

They have vowed that they will continue their efforts.

I'm not sure what that means.

Personally, I hope they would redirect their passion in a constructive way, but certainly appreciate their engagement in the process.

Jason: Before we close here, I want to talk about another major announcement this week.

Thomas, baseball.

Are we gonna get major league baseball here in the state of Utah?

Thomas: We could only be so lucky.

You know, I got to applaud the Miller family.

They have done so much for the state and to have us on the radar at the top of the list, really in a very competitive situation to make this happen is something we should all be really grateful for.

It's a game changer for the Salt Lake City area.

It's a game changer for Utah.

I can't wait.

I'm just gonna assume that it's gonna happen.

I can't wait to be sitting in that stadium.

Jason: I want to get your comment on this, too, but while you're giving that, we're gonna show some pictures that were released at this announcement, so go ahead and talk while we're looking at these pictures.

Thomas: I love it, I am thrilled, I'm giddy, but I thought the whole point was to get rid of those smoke stacks, Jason.

You can't turn an eye sore into an icon.

Let's revisit having the smoke stacks there, blocking-- Leah: But not revisit baseball.

Thomas: Not revisit baseball.

I am all in, just no smoke stacks.

Jason: Uh-huh, Leah, go, talk about this here, but also what this means for the state of Utah.

We are a growing place, great interest from around the country, and maybe we've hit the time where we have the population and the interest to get couple, maybe this, and maybe even hockey or something like that here in the state.

Leah: Yeah, wouldn't it be lovely?

Like, I moved here 21 years ago from New York, and I was like so the only professional sports team is the Utah Jazz, and I became a loyal fan.

It would be so lovely to have baseball in addition to soccer, right?

And the media market growing and how like the recognition of our state and how cool it is here, no matter what Charles Barkley says, it would be awesome.

Taylor: If the Yankees were in town, for whom would you cheer, Leah?

Is the question.

Leah: I would cheer for both.

Taylor: We'll convert her.

We'll move her over.

Jason: Leah remains a Yankees fan, so Thomas, just our closing couple of seconds on this, in terms of from the political lens, is this a big get for Utah?

Thomas: Yeah, absolutely, it says a lot about where we are as a state, what we can do as a state, bringing shareholders together to make something like this happen.

It shows how much we are on the radar, how big our economy is getting, how legitimate we are, and how people view us, so, yeah, I think it's big for the state.

I mean, a lot of us kind of begrudgingly embrace the growth, right?

Like we want the Utah of yesteryear, and I'm probably one of those from time to time, but Utah has been discovered, people are coming here, and this is just another indication that this is the most desirable place in the country to live.

Taylor: Can I add?

Jason: Last second.

Taylor: Best economy in the country, youngest population, most little league players in the country.

Jason: Very good, thank you all.

Thank you for your comments tonight.

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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