Special Session with Bryan Schott

>> Bryan Schott: Come one, come all to a beautiful

show. It's gonna be awesome. And some

other stuff,

some other musical stuff.

Welcome back to special session. I'm your host, Bryan

Schott, publisher and managing editor of

Utah Political Watch. On this week's

show, unions busted

more money and more limits for

Utah's school voucher program. The

Utah Bar association has some

concerns about a few bills,

pride flags, no Nazi

flags. A. Okay. And

Burgess Owens, country music

expert. If you want to keep up with what's

happening in Utah politics, take a minute and

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only newsletters. Plus you'll be supporting independent

political journalism in Utah. Now that that's

out of the way, let's get to this week's news.

Governor Spencer Cox late Friday

signed HB 267 which strips public

employees in the state of their collective bargaining rights.

He signed that bill into law. So as it stands right

now, the unions, specifically the Utah

Education association, can no longer bargain on behalf

of its members. They didn't bargain on behalf of every teacher.

It was up to individual school districts as to whether they could

collectively bargain or not. But now there is a ban

statewide on that. Utah joins a handful of other states

that do not allow public employees to

collectively bargain. So what happens going

forward? Well, the bill did not pass with a veto

proof majority in both the House and the Senate. And not

only is that a, uh, not only does that mean that it was open

for a veto, but there is a possibility

that there could be a referendum where union

members and they've been talking about this getting together, gathering

enough signatures to put the bill on the

2026 ballot up for a public vote.

If, uh, a law does not pass with 2

3rd in either the house or the Senate,

you can launch a referendum. This has happened a couple of times in

the past. Back in 2007, the legislature passed

a public school vouchers program and

that one the Utah Education association

organized and got enough signatures to put it on the

ballot where it was defeated. Lawmakers

didn't try again to pass a voucher program

until they passed the Utah Fits all scholarship,

which is a voucher program a couple of years ago. And

we'll get to that in a second. And back in

2019 the legislature

passed a sweeping overhaul of the

tax system and they were going to add sales taxes to a

number of services. Right now you don't pay sales tax

on some services. They were going to add all services

into that. And that drew a lot of opposition from the

public. So opponents organized and

got a lot of help from the Harmon's grocery

chain who allowed them to collect signatures in the entrance to

the stores. And they were able to get enough signatures that

it would have gone to the ballot. But

lawmakers, the next time they met, repealed the law

before that chance because they didn't want to suffer defeat at

the ballot box. So there is a possibility of a referendum.

It's really hard to get one of those on the ballot.

Organizers will have just 40 days

from the day that the legislature ends

to collect more than 140,000

signatures statewide. And they also have to hit certain

signature requirements in a number of

Utah's counties. I think it's 15 of 29 counties.

They have to reach signature thresholds in order

to put it on the ballot. If they're able to do that, then

the goes on hold until the public can weigh

in at the ballot box. That's an extremely difficult

thing to do. But union, uh, members have, uh, been

talking about trying to put this up to a public

vote. Now, lawmakers will not admit

this, but this bill was a, was

retribution for some actions taken

by the Utah Education association last year.

First of all, they came out against Amendment

A, which would have changed the way that public

education is funded in the state right now. Income

taxes can only fund public education, higher

education and some social services. And

Amendment A would have opened up that constitutional

earmark to other parts of the budget. The UEA

opposed that, which angered lawmakers.

Eventually that amendment was put on hold because lawmakers

didn't notice it properly, as per the

constitution. They didn't publish it in a newspaper. And then

the teachers union also filed a lawsuit

challenging the vouchers program. The Utah fits

all scholarship, saying it's unconstitutional, saying it

takes public school money and gives

it to private schools. And lawmakers have never.

Their argument is that lawmakers have never fully

funded education as it is. Utah's in the bottom

three consistently for per

pupil spending. Among all of the states that are

behind states like Idaho and

Mississippi. Some people been talking about the unions going on strike,

and that's a possibility, but it would be extremely

rare. Teachers have only gone on strike twice in Utah,

and that was for a total of three days. Back in

1964, the Utah Education

association went on strike. It uh, was

statewide. It was one of the first statewide teacher strikes in

the United States. And that was part of a year long

dispute over school funding. Teachers were

leaving the state in droves because of low

salaries. Half of the teaching positions in the state

were being filled by people with little or no

qualifications. And school buildings were

in disrepair. Um, there were stories around the time

of one school building where the roof collapsed in while

the students were in class. And so at that time,

educators were refusing to sign contracts

for the next year. And the National Education

association came out and sanctioned

Utah's public education system. And that was

to keep teachers from moving here to take

jobs because the education system

was such a mess, at least from the way

that the teachers saw it during this crisis. The Utah

Education association, they voted to call for a

two day public school recess. They didn't call it for a

strike. They didn't call it a strike, but they called it a rece

because then governor George Clyde

refused to call for a special legislative session

to appropriate an additional $6 million for school

funding. Um, the Utah State Board of Education

was against the teacher walkout. But they did

walk out for two days. And that brought lawmakers

and the governor to the table.

And they made enough progress

that the teachers union a few months

later voted to resume contract

negotiations. The second time that there was a strike, a

statewide strike in the state, uh, was September of 1989,

and teachers walked out for one day. About

20,000 of the state's teachers walked out of school for

one day. And they were protesting the

legislature using a $38 million

budget surplus to pay for tax cuts rather than

putting the money towards education. What does that sound like?

M. That sounds familiar. You know, they say history

doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Um,

the one day walkout shut down most of the school districts in the

state. It affected more 450,000 students

in 800 schools. Norm Banger, who was governor at the

time, really angered the teachers union

because before the walkout he was quoted as saying that

when he gets upset, quote, I take two aspirin and

go to work. And that's what teachers should do. And there were

protests after that where teachers shook aspirin

bottles, uh, to mock Bangerter. The

background of that 1989 teacher strike is very

interesting. In 1987, Bangerter

successfully pushed lawmakers to

raise taxes by uh, 100,000 dol

$166 million to better fund

public education. And that prompted a

big backlash, though a number of anti

tax measures made it onto the ballot as

citizens initiatives. All of them lost by

a large margin in 1988. But Banger

came really close to losing his

reelection bid. It was a three way race between

him, Democrat Ted Wilson and independent Merrill

Cook. And Bangor got just over 40% of the vote. So it was really

close to not winning another term.

What happened was after that,

lawmakers went on a tax cutting spree and they started cutting

taxes and then they got this extra money and instead of putting it towards

education like the teachers wanted, they paid for a

tax cut. There was almost one other strike.

Uh, in 1990 teachers came very close

to a statewide strike, but they backed off after

lawmakers at the last minute approved

some increases for education funding

which included a thousand dollar pay raise for teachers and a

4% increase in per pupil funding.

So it' happened in Utah. It's very rare for teachers to go

on strike, but it's happened here in the

state. Recent, um, teacher strikes have been

pretty effective. There was a study of

nearly 800 teacher strikes between

2007 and 2023. And all of

those shows that they led to some significant gains

for educators. That's where we're at. So

teachers and police officers, firefighters,

other public employees no longer have the ability to

collectively bargain for contracts and

benef because Governor Spencer Cox signed

HB 267. Not sure what the path

forward is, but history shows that it's very

hard to get a referendum on the ballot. And teacher

strikes did send a message, but it's only happened

twice.

Speaking of, uh, the school vouchers program,

or excuse me, the Utah fits all scholarship

program, Representative Candace Perucci, who

was the sponsor of the original bill two years ago

when lawmakers passed it, she is looking to

now put some curbs or at least some

guardrails around the program after it's

been in effect for one year. What this program does

is it gives parents who want to take their kids

out of public school. It gives them

$8,000 per year, uh, that they

can put towards private school tuition, homeschooling

expenses, um, even some activities

like ski passes. Yeah, you can buy ski

passes currently under the Utah fits all

scholarship. That $8,000 that parents are given under the program,

that's almost twice as much as Utah spends

per pupil with the weighted pupil unit. That's

when you hear wpu. That means the per

pupil spending, that's almost twice as much as

Utah spends on kids who are in public school.

So uh, this was established in 2023. They

initially, uh, funded it at like $42

million. Last year they doubled that amount. Even though the

program hadn't been in effect yet, hadn't even started yet,

they doubled that to 82 million do. And, uh,

Perucci was asking for another

$80 million this year to

double the funding again. But last week,

the Public Education Appropriations subcommittee only

recommended $40 million of new funding. So

if that passes the funding, the total funding for the program would be

$122 million. But anyway, back to

Perrucci's bill,

HB455. Uh, and what this

does is it's sort of putting more guardrails

around the program. Right now it

is administer outside organization called the

alliance for Choice in Education. Ace. What

Peruzzi's bill does is it transfers oversight of

the program to a newly created position called

financial administrator. It's going to be part of the State Board

of Education's department of Operations, but it's going

to now be housed within the State Board of Education

rather than an autonomous organization.

Perrucci also wants to put some revisions on what

this money can be used on. Right

now, as I said, you can buy ski

passes. You can't buy a SE season pass. You can't buy a pass for

the whole season, but you can do like day passes.

And, uh, they were also allowing what are called

chaperone expenses. So if a parent wanted to

take their child skiing, they could buy the

child ski pass using these public

education funds and then pay for their own because they

were the chaperone. What Perrueci is trying to do is

she's changing that. No longer could you buy ski

passes or lift tickets or tickets

for entertainment events. And you cannot use

this money to pay for chaperone expenses. So if a parent wants

to go, they're on their own. Um, they're also going to put some limits on

how much of that money can go towards something.

Under, uh, Perucci's bill, only 20%

of the total scholarship amount could be put

towards extracurricular activities. And then there's another

category called physical education experiences. That means

like fitness centers, golf clubs, gymnastics, rock

climbing, you can only use another

20% of the funds for

that. And you can see all the things that are

currently permitted under the program. If you

go to the Utah Fits all scholarship program, I linked it in my

story at UtahPoliticalWatch News.

So with 20% of the scholarship money being

able to go towards extracurricular activities and another

20% towards physical education

experiences, that's $3,200 a year out

of the 8,000, uh, that

families get per child if they're approved for

the program that can go to those things. So that's

a lot of money, a lot of your tax money that's supposed to

go to public education. In fact, that 3002 is

just about $1,000 less

than what the state spends on

each student in public school. And that money

right now can go, uh, or at least under

Perruecci's bill, that money could go towards physical

education and, uh,

extracurricular activities. In the first year

of the program, about 27,000

people applied, but only about a third got

scholarships. And a significant number of those

went to people who are homeschooling their kids. So

your tax dollars at work, money that's supposed to go to public

education, going to homeschool students who don't want anything

to do with public education, but they're

happy to take your tax dollars

to support that. And there was a great story. Uh, Channel

two looked into it and they found that a number of the people who

applied didn't get the full $8,000. Anyway.

Uh, they only got a portion of that money.

Bottom line, they're asking for more money for this program that could boost

the funding up to $122

million per year.

million boost goes through. But they want to

dial back on what that money can be used

for because, you know, it's not a good look when they're taking

taxpayer money and paying for ski passes.

So I told you earlier about how the Republicans are mad at

the Utah Education association because of the

Amendment A and the lawsuit against the vouchers

program. Well, they're also mad at, at judges who had the

gall to rule against them in the

Amendment A case, the Amendment D case, the

gerrymandering case, which a judge

could rule on anytime. Judge also expected to

rule anytime on the suit against the, uh,

private school vouchers program. So there have been a

number of bills up on the Hill that take

specific aim at the judiciary. So earlier

this week, the Utah Bar association sent out letters to

their members asking them to contact

lawmakers about several pieces of

legislation that they say could be

unconstitutional because, quote, they undermine the

fundamental principle of the separation of powers. This

letter listed five bills. It was

SB203 and SB204. Both

of those are from Senator Brady Brammer.

SB203 limits who would have standing

to bring a lawsuit. The letter says this changes

the long standing common law principles of standing. And I've talked

about this bill before. What it does is

it says that, uh, someone can only sue

on behalf of another person,

uh, if that person is also harmed

by whatever law the legislature passed. And

it also says that associations can only sue on behalf of their

members, uh, if that

association either has, uh,

a legal relationship with those people or if they

are also harmed. And s Bill 204

gives the government the ability to appeal a court

ruling that a law is unconstitutional

directly to the Utah Supreme Court. They don't have to go through the normal

appeals process process. If it's in the Utah District Court, they

won't have to go through the Utah Court of Appeals and then the Supreme

Court. This bill says the government can appeal

directly to the Utah Supreme Court

and that the law would remain in effect during that

appeal instead of putting it on hold. And this is

widely seen as a reaction to, uh,

court putting Utah's abortion trigger ban

law on hold. After the overturn of

Roe v. Wade. Planned Parenthood sued

on behalf of some of their clients to

challenge the constitutionality of that law, which is a near

total abortion ban. And so that law is on hold.

Well, SB204 flips that around.

Brammer, uh, has a couple of other bills that they are concerned about.

SB154 and

SJR4. Both of those give

legislative auditors the authority to

require someone to give them

information that right now would be subject to

attorney client privilege. So those two bills

from Brammer would require

someone to break attorney client privilege

and give information to legislative auditors.

Another bill, HB 451 from Representative

Jason Kyle, that raises the

percentage that a judge must get at the ballot box. When you

see those judicial retention elections, um,

right now it's 50% plus one for a judge to

stay in their job, he would raise that

threshold to 67%. The Bar

association says, quote, this increased percentage

vote would be the highest in the nation. Its extremely high

threshold would make it difficult to attract and retain

qualified judges. And it allows outside and

special interests to campaign against judges when they

only have to convince a third of the populace to vote

against a judge. So the Bar association is

concerned about those bills.

There's probably another bill that will get their

attention as well because House

Majority Leader Jefferson Moss, he opened

a bill file last week that could lead

to expanding the Utah Supreme

Court. Right now it's got five justices and he's

talking about adding more to it. Why? Well,

the Utah Supreme Court ruled that the

legislature overstepped its bounds when

they gutted the anti gerrymandering

proposition, Prop 4 after it was passed at the

ballot box in 2018.

So expanding the court, at least

the Republican legislature. Republican legislature

sees that as a way to get rid of activist

judges. And I'm guessing that that the impetus

behind this bill from Representative Moss,

and I'm sure that the, uh, Bar association might have

some thoughts on that one as well.

Republican Representative Trevor Lee says that

displaying a pride flag in a public

classroom or in a government building

is too divisive. It causes

divisive ideologies to make their

way into government, and it

pulls people apart. So his

HB77, which passed through a committee this

week, would only allow an approved list

of flags to be displayed in schools

and at government buildings. What flags are allowed?

Well, here's the list according to Representative Lee.

>> Speaker B: Um, a couple clarifications with this as it

pertains to the K12. Um, there are

instances where in classrooms, you have curriculum that is

needed to use a flags, such as World War II, Civil

War War. You may have a Nazi flag, you may have a Confederate

flag. And so you are allowed to display those

flags for the purpose, uh, of those lesson

plans. So if it's part of the curriculum, then that is okay.

>> Bryan Schott: So under Lee's bill, a rainbow pride

flag is too divisive, but a Nazi flag

would be just fine. Black Lives Matter. Way too

divisive. Confederate flag, just

fine. Now, it must be said that a Nazi flag or

a Confederate flag must be part of an approved

school curriculum. But you can't get around the fact

that under Lee's proposed legislation, a

Nazi flag would not be seen as

divisive, but a pride flag would. A Confederate

flag. Not controversial at all. Black

Lives Matter flag. Absolutely not

allowed. Lee has watered down his proposal

just a little bit. The original version would

have allowed a parent to actually go to court

if there was a pride flag

or some other politically themed flag that they

disapproved of in a classroom. That would

be if they informed the school district that the flag was

there. And the district didn't do anything to rectify

the situation. They passed an amendment in committee

this week that took that part of it out, but he did

expand it from classrooms to

cover all government buildings. I was really

struck by part of the debate

during the public testimony around this

bill. Lee was asked by Representative Carol Moss if

there were specific examples of this happening.

And. And Lee was 100% confident

that it was.

>> Speaker C: Is this happening in schools? I mean,

my daughter teaches high school. I know a lot of teachers,

but I mean, is this a bill to

say in case any teacher

puts a, um, pride flag or

trans flag up, then this is. We're going

to make sure that it's illegal. But is

this happening? I don't even know. I don't even

hear about it. I don't know. Teachers putting these flags in

their rooms.

>> Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely happening.

>> Speaker C: I mean, you've heard specific

examples.

>> Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah, absolutely.

>> Speaker C: Can I just say, are they in high school or

elementary?

>> Speaker B: Most of the examples that I've had from parents that have come to me concerned

has been within the high school realm, but it even has gone all the way down

into elementary schools that we've seen and had problems with

it.

>> Bryan Schott: I really wish Representative Moss would have followed up and asked

for specific examples because they just kind of let it go.

That Lee says, oh yeah, sure, it's happening, it's absolutely

happening. And that's where a lot of this debate comes around.

It's a lot of conjecture, it's

a lot of anecdotal evidence. My

brother's sisters, cousins, mailman

saw this happen, you know, that sort of thing. But that's used as

concrete evidence that this is an urgent

problem that needs to be addressed. Lawmakers tried

this last year. Former Representative Kara Berklin

had a bill in the early part of the session that

specifically banned pride flags. It mentioned it in the

legislation and that would just seem to be a bridge too far

for lawmakers. That bill didn't go anywhere. I there were some

significant constitutional concerns around it.

But then on the final night of the

2024 session, in the final hours of the

session, they tried it again. They tried to sneak

through a bill very similar to what Lee

has proposed here. I remember sitting in the Senate with just a

couple of hours to go before the end of the session

and one of Berkland's bills was on the board

up for final passage. Originally, Berkeland's

bill was supposed to provide some

guidelines as to how to deal with public school

employ who are the subject of a criminal

investigation. Her proposed legislation would

have suspended them without pay

until the investigation was over. But

she and Senator Dan McKay

conspired to strip that out of the bill.

They stripped all that out of the bill and then put in essentially

a pride flag ban. It was a list of approved

flags that could be shown in public

schools. This was something they were trying to sneak through with

just an hour or two to go before the end of the session. I

remember you. Utah Eagle Forum President Gail

Ruzika came into the Senate gallery,

which was my clue that something was up. And they

tried to resurrect this pride flag ban.

There just wasn't enough appetite for lawmakers to do this

at the last minute. They weren't going to take this

step because the bill hadn't been through a committee hearing.

They were trying to substitute it at the last

possible second before sending it back to the House. And they just

couldn't get enough votes in the Senate to make this happen.

So it's back again this year. So after passing out of committee,

that bill's heading to the full House for a vote where they

get to weigh in on whether they think pride flags

and Black Lives Matter are more divisive

than Nazi flags and Confederate

flags.

There's one bill that was introduced last week that I was very

interested in, and it comes from Representative ryan

Wilcox. It's HB474.

So normally what happens when the legislature

passes a law to regulate a business,

that's up to state agencies to implement

rules, uh, or to come up with a rule to

implement these new regulations. And

what Wilcox's bill does is it says if a state

agency implements a new rule or comes

up with a new rule because the legislature passed a

law, but that rule cannot

have a fiscal impact of more than $1

million on a single business

or a single person over a five year span. So

say there's a new pollution control measure that a state

agency wants implement. If a business, if one

business or one person can say, this is going to cost me more

than a million dollars over five years,

$200,000 a year to come into compliance with

this, well, then the state agency

cannot implement that rule. They have to go back to the

drawing board. But the bill also

allows individuals to

challenge professional licensing

regulations. So anyone can petition

the Utah Office of Professional Licensure

Review. This is a new agency that was

create. Governor Cox was elected for his

first term and their job is to go through and

look at all of the licensure requirements

for every profession that is subject to a

license and determine whether or not the

regulations for that business or that license

need to stay in place. Or if they could do something

less onerous, well, this would allow any person

to petition that body to repeal

or modify a licensing regulation.

So if you don't like a regulation for your license,

if you're required to get a license license to do business in the state for

your profession, say you are a nail technician

or say that you are a

life coach and you're required to get a license and you don't like

some of the regulations, well, you can petition the Office of

Professional Licensure Review and say this either

needs to be repealed or you need to do something

that isn't so hard to comply with. Once a

petition is submitted, the office has 90

days to either repeal the rule or justify

why it should stay in place, or they can modify

it to reduce the burden on people who have to get the

license. But if the petitioner doesn't like that

decision, say they come back and say the rule needs to stay in

place, or we're going to tweak it slightly, but we're not going to get rid of it.

Well, it creates a path for petitioners to go to court and then

challenge it if they disagree with the result. Um, a

little bit of background that is probably

helpful. This is very similar to some of the things

that Senator Mike Lee has been trying to do on the

federal level with trying to, uh, rein

in federal regulations, uh, which has been a longtime

complaint of his. And Wilkins Cox was in the

legislature and then left to go work in

Lee's office. And then when he came back, he got

reelected to the legislature. So there's a lot

of influence from Senator Mike Lee in this bill.

I'm going to need you to take a minute and listen to this clip from

Representative Burgess Owens. Last week he

was asked by some right

wing YouTube person about Beyonce

winning the Grammy for best country album for

her album Cowboy Carter. And Burgess

Owens, well, he was not a fan of that

decision because. Just listen.

So country music is so popular in

Utah. What was your take on Beyonce winning,

uh, best country album at the Grammys?

>> Burgess Owens: Closest thing to DEI we're gonna see right now. That is that.

I mean, I'm not a country country's, um, um,

fan. But I can tell from the response from country

fans, they did not appreciate you put all

that hard work, you develop your fan base, you go out there, you

work to develop a reputation, and all of a sudden

somebody comes out of the blue because she's popping something else

and she gets the best. Nobody, uh, really expects

that. And unfortunately, because of that, Beyonce will not

be respected by that core group of people that she's now

singing to.

>> Bryan Schott: So Owen thinks the only reason that Beyonce won this award is that

because she was popular because of the previous

music that she had created and she decided

to go into country music and because of that

popular elsewhere, she just waltzed in

and won this Grammy over other people who may be

more deserving or have spent their

entire life working on country music. And she just

waltzes in because of her popularity.

Burgess Owens, his claim to fame before he was

elected to Congress was that he played in the NFL in

the 70s and 80s. He won a Super bowl in

1981 with the Oakland Raiders

over the Philadelphia Eagles. And Burgess Owens

will not let you forget the fact that he won a

Super Bowl. I've seen this in public. He

aggressively urges people to

wear his super bowl ring. It goes with him

everywhere. And anybody that he takes a picture

with, uh, I've seen him shove this super bowl

ring onto their finger. Because he

was able to parlay his popularity in the NFL

as an NFL player into a seat in

Congress. Because if you look at what happened between the

NFL and Congress, it was pretty

unremarkable. He had a number of failed

businesses. He declared bankruptcy a number of times. He

started a charity. That investigation after

investigation shows it really didn't do anything.

It raised some money, but a lot of that money didn't go to what

it was supposed to. And then he came

to Utah, where he has really no ties to the state other

than the fact that he's a member of the LDS Church.

And then he got elected to Congress. So it's really

interesting that Owens would slam

Beyonce for winning an

award in something she had

not done before because of her popularity

in a another venue, another field.

It's really fascinating that he would

be upset about that, especially in light

of his career up to the time that he was elected

to Congress and the rest of the clip. I don't know.

He says that this sort of thing is the reason why

Donald Trump got elected, because he wanted

to restore fairness. And there's some DEI

thing, I don't know. Listen, you think it diminishes her

respect overall?

>> Burgess Owens: I think it diminishes her. I think it's diminishes the

awards. Um, and I think you have a lot

more people, have a lot less people watching. As time

goes on, no one realizes fear. Fairness is

what our country is all about. That's why we're so excited about what President

Trump did with protecting women from men.

We do not like unfairness. We see that, we turn away,

we go another way. And, uh, I think

Beyonce and the Grammys, uh, whatever Grammys I think it was, they're going

to suffer long, uh, term because of that.

>> Bryan Schott: At this point, I would like to raise a practical question.

Do you think that Beyonce even has the

slightest idea who Owens is?

There's a lot more that we could talk about, but we're going to have to

leave it there for this week. Thank you so much for

listening. If you have not subscribed to this

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SA.