Special Session with Bryan Schott

>> Bryan Schott: Foreign.

Buckle up, politics junkies. It's time for another

episode of Special Session, the show that helps you

wade through the capital chaos. To help you understand

what's really happening. Think of it as your political

decoder ring. I'm your host, Bryan Schott,

managing editor of Utah Political

Watch. This week on the show,

it's budget time on Capitol Hill. And

while could be a little light,

lawmakers want to make it harder and more expensive

to find out what the government's up to. And

we're supposed to have three co equal branches

of government, right? Not so

fast. My guest this week is Jeff Worthington.

He's the president of the Utah AFL

CIO. And we'll discuss the politics

behind HB267. That's the

union busting bill that lawmakers rammed

through during this session. It takes away the rights

of, uh, public employees to collectively

bargain. Unions in the state are hoping

to put the issue on the ballot through a

referendum, but they got to get a whole bunch of

signatures and have very little time to do it.

That's coming up a little later in the show. But now

let's get to this week's headlines.

It's budget time on Utah's Capitol Hill, and lawmakers got

some not so great news about next year's

budget. The revenue estimates that

tell them how much money they should have to spend

in next year's budget, they came in lower than

expected. The general fund and

the transportation fund had a little bit more

money than what they thought they would have. But the income

tax fund, which can only fund public education,

higher education and some social services,

was about $127 million

less than their last projections, which were

in October. That lower than expected number is

about $73 million less in one

money and $54 million less in

ongoing money. The October revenue

projection showed $87 million

more to spend in next year's budget in one time

money and $342 million

more in ongoing money. These new revenue

projections have dropped the ongoing revenue

available to spend to just $14

million. And the ongoing revenue they have for schools

and public services is instead of

$342,288,000,000

now. Like a lot, but a

lot of the money was already spent. And for this

to come in lower than expected, that's really going to put a crimp on

how much money the legislature can put

towards public education. Now, back in December,

lawmakers did boost how much the state

spends per pupil. That's called the weighted pupil

unit. And Utah spends right around 44,

$4,500 per student here in

the state. They boosted education funding by

$200 million in December. That increased

the weighted P unit per pupil spending by about

4%, and it also covered any enrollment

growth in public schools. But here's the catch.

Lawmakers are required to do that by law.

So that 4% bump in public

education funding, they had to do it. They had

no choice. What these lower than expected revenue estimates

mean is they're going to have a lot less

extra discretionary money to put towards public

schools. Now, what is that going to look like? Who

knows? The Public Education Appropriations

Subcommittee, in their budget recommendations that they made

to legislative leaders this week, they're asking

for another 1% discretionary

increase in the weighted pupil unit, which is the per

pupil spending, and that's about $42 million. And they're

also recommending an extra $40 million to

the Utah fits all Scholarship program, which

is the state's private school voucher program. Now,

if they approve that extra money for vouchers,

that will bring the total funding for that program to

$122 million. They started

with just $42 million. Last

year, they added another 40 million. And then this year,

the sponsors wanted 80 million more, which would double

the total money going to this vouchers program. And the

education appropriation subcommittee cut that in half to 40

million. But that would be $122 million going

towards private school tuition or homeschool

expenses that could go into public schools. And if

you do the math, if they put that money into schools,

that would increase per pupil spending by about

another 3%, because that

funding comes out of the same fund, the income

tax fund. Now, even though these numbers are lower than expected,

legislators have not taken proposed tax

cuts off the table just yet. In December, when

they were making all the budget decisions before the

session, they took $165 million

and set it aside for another round of

tax cuts. They've cut taxes in each of the last

four years, that $165

million. If they do an income tax cut,

if they cut income, that would be

just enough to cut the state's income tax

rate by 0.1%. And as

we've reported in the past, I've told you in the past, when

they've done that over the last four years, the lion's

share of that money goes towards the

top income earners in the state. It goes towards the

wealthiest Utahns. Some projections have shown that

60% of that overall

cash goes to the top 20% of

income earners in the state, while the

bottom 80% have to div up

the remaining 40%. And people at the lower end

probably don't get any money at all, because even though

lawmakers did give them an earned income

tax credit, it's not refundable. And some of the estimates have

shown that, like for the average family earning around

$80,000, every time they cut the

income tax rate by 0.1%, you'll see

somewhere between 7 and $12 a

month extra. So it's a hundred dollars a

year. Put that over four years. Lawmakers are saying, well, you know, they've gotten a couple

hundred dollars. But those at the top end of the inc.

Have really gotten a lot more money, because that's where the

lion's share of this goes. Now, this money,

this $165 million that they've set aside

if they do an income tax cut, that also comes out

of the same pot of money that funds

public schools, higher education,

and some social services. So that would

be enough to add about another

4% to the state's per

pupil funding, the weighted pupil unit at

$165 million. Or they can cut the income

tax rate by zero point. Governor, uh, Spencer Cox,

in his budget recommendations, he was asking for them

to eliminate the income tax on

Social Security benefits, which would also eat up that

entire $165 million that

lawmakers have set aside now over the past four years.

And if they do it again this year, it'd be more than a billion

dollars of ongoing revenue that is

paid for out of revenues that could be going

towards public education. That's a lot of money that

could go into education that's been eaten up by tax

cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and the

private school vouchers program. Now, don't forget,

Utah is consistently at

or near the bottom of per pupil funding among all

the 50 states and the District of Columbia. If you look

at studies, Utah's behind states like Idaho,

Mississippi, Alabama. Utah does not spend

as much per student as those states do.

Here we are again with legislative leaders looking to cut

taxes in what is a down budget year. The last

four years when they've cut taxes, they've had

a lot extra money to spend. And that's because Covid

relief funds, federal money, was flowing

through Utah's economy and artificially

inflating a lot of the

revenue that states get. A lot of states did this. A lot of states

saw that they were getting a lot of federal money. They had a lot. They

were flush with cash. So lawmakers

cut taxes. And there were warnings

saying, you're doing this in years where this

extra money is not going to be sustainable and you're going

to have to come back and then cut the budget. And if

you think that lawmakers are going to raise

taxes to meet shortfalls, then

you have not met the Utah Legislature. So just pay

attention to this going forward.

Lawmakers are trying to make it a hell of a lot harder

for the public. That's you, or the media,

that's me. To get their hands on

government records. There's a couple of bills that are quite

alarming. They're going through the process right now. Let's talk about them. The

first one is HB69. That one is sponsored by

Representative Stephanie Gracious. And what this bill does

is it's going to make it a lot more expensive to fight

a denial of an open records request.

Currently, the process looks like this. You submit an open

records request, it's called a grammar request here in Utah,

which stands for Government Records Access Management act,

and you submit that to whatever agency you're trying to get

documents from. If that is denied, then you can

file an appeal with that agency. And they usually have

about 30 days to decide on that appeal. And if they deny

that appeal, as it stands right now, you take that

appeal to the State Record Records Committee. We'll

get to some changes about that in a second. But right now,

you appeal that to the State Records Committee. And if they

deny that appeal, or if you win your

appeal but the agency still doesn't want to turn over the

records, then you can go to court. And if you win that court

case, usually you can get the state

to pay your attorney's fees. Not anymore.

HB6E9 significantly raises

the bar for getting awarded

attorney's fees in court. The bill says you

can only get your attorney's fees if one of the

parties acted in, quote, bad faith.

And that's incredibly hard to

prove in a court of law. If you go to court and you're trying

to get those records and you win,

you're going to have to show that this agency was

intentionally trying to hide something from you, that they

acted in bad faith. That's what HB69

does. It sets an impossibly high standard to get your

attorney's fees. Think back to the fight over former

Attorney General Sean Reyes's calendars. A number of media

outlets asked for those calendars. They were denied

by the Attorney General's office. They appealed. That was

denied. They went to the State Records Committee to

appeal The State Records Committee said, yeah, turn them over.

And Reyes refused to do it. So they had to go to

court. They went to court several times

because Reyes actually sued one of the reporters

trying to get access to his records.

That's really expensive. Now imagine that you're just a

regular citizen trying to get a hold of these

records. That is so expensive. And you're

going to think twice, maybe five times before you

go to court to try to get these records. So that's the first bill that lawmakers, ah, are

pushing through to try to limit your access to government

records. The public access. Remember, government works for the

public, but you know, if they want to hide something, it's going to be really hard

for you to get your hands on it. The second bill I want to talk about is

SB277 from Senator Mike McCale. Now, I told

you earlier about the State Records Committee. That is a seven member

committee and they meet monthly to hear

appeals over denied open records

cases. Well, this bill from Senator McEl would,

would get rid of the State Records Committee, completely disband it

and replace it with one person, an administrative

judge, who would be appointed by the governor. Right now, the State

Records Committee, they have someone representing the media on

the committee. They have two seats representing the public, There are seats

representing private business, there are seats representing government.

So that's seven members, a diverse group of people

who come from different backgrounds. And then they

deliberate and vote on whether or not to

grant an appeal or deny it in a open

records case. This bill gets rid of that committee and replaces

it with a, a single person, an administrative

judge, who is appointed by the governor and confirmed by

the Senate. So instead of seven people appointed by

the governor and confirmed by the Senate, you would

have one person appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.

And if you'll remember, there was a whole backlog of the

State Records Committee earlier this year because the Senate

was upset about a number of their

decisions giving records to the media and

the public, especially in the calendar case. And

so they just refused to confirm new

people. And then the committee didn't have a quorum and they couldn't

meet for several months. And what this is going to do is

instead of seven people, it'll just be one person,

uh, who will decide whether or not to hand

over government records to the public or

the media. You hear legislative leaders talk about

transparency a lot. They want to be transparent in what they

do. No, they don't. You look at these two bills,

HP 69 and SB 277,

they don't want to be transparent. They don't want to be accountable to the

media. They don't want to be accountable to the public.

I'm going through that right now. I'm having to sue the

legislature to get a press pass

so I can attend media briefings with the Senate

president or the speaker of the House. I can't even get the

House to answer my questions. I send them

emails, I send them text messages asking questions

for stories I'm working on, and they just completely ignore me.

They will not answer my questions now. So when you

hear these elected leaders talk

about transparency, it is bullcrap. They do not

want to be accountable to anybody but themselves.

And that's why these two bills are so,

so dangerous.

This bill is interesting. Uh, it came out late last

week. HB533 from Representative Jordan

Tusher. Uh, what that bill does is it creates

a new mechanism for residents in

a county to break away and form their own

county. The last time Utah formed a new county was

1917, when Uinta county was

formed, because residents in the

northeastern corner of that part of the state,

uh, it was really hard for them to get to the county

seat in Vernal. So they voted to create

a new county so they could

get to the county seat in order to do business. That's the last

time it happened. I mean, right now, there is a mechanism in Utah law

which requires of people who want to form a new

county, they have to get signatures from at

least one quarter of the registered

voters who live in the proposed

new county, then they can petition the

county government. So if they get enough signatures from a quarter

of the people who live in that area, uh, and then take it to

the county government, county council, county commission, what have

you, and put that petition, then it goes on the ballot. And then the

people in that part of the county would vote whether or not they

want to break off. This bill from Representative

Tusher creates a new mechanism

for doing that. If there's a county with a million more people,

oh, say, I'm just pulling out the top of my head, Salt Lake County.

And you have some cities, uh,

who total

330,000

residents in that county. If the

governments of those cities or

municipalities, like the town council or the

city council, they could pass similar

resolutions to then put this on the ballot.

So it makes it a lot easier to put it up to a vote about

whether you want to break off from Salt Lake

county and the. The southwestern portion

of Salt Lake County, Riverton, South Jordan, West

Jordan, those areas of Salt Lake county, they are much more

conservative than the other parts of

Salt Lake County. Those cities, the city

councils in those areas, uh, could pass

resolutions that define the new

county. And if they pass similar resolutions and then that

would trigger an election for people live in that area, if they get a majority, then

boom, bingo, you got a new county. The bill

requires that there has to be a feasibility study

to make sure that the new county and the old county or

the remaining county could function properly

financially. Look, uh, at the division of assets

because this is a breakup. So they would have to see how they would divide

up the assets within the county. The bill could not

split a municipality or a city in half,

but this would make it a lot easier for,

oh, you know, as I'm spitballing here, Salt Lake county, part

of Salt Lake county, to split off and form their

own county. Foreign.

The Republican controlled legislature is also moving

to get revenge on the courts for having

the gall to rule against them. In a number of

cases last year. There was the gerrymandering case, there was

Amendment A, there was Amendment D. Legislature

lost all of those court

battles. They still could lose over the

challenge to the private school vouchers bill.

A judge's ruling on that could come any

day now. And lawmakers are, are frankly pissed

off about it. So what are they doing? Well, they are going

after the independence of the judiciary.

I've already told you about the bills from Senator

Brady Brammer that would change

who can actually sue in court. And if a

state law is found unconstitutional, then it would

stay in effect until the appeals process

is over. I've already told you about those. Well, there's a

couple of other bills that are new up on the Hill

that are also attacking the judiciary.

HB 512 from House Majority Whip Carrie Ann

Lisenby should really set off some warning lights on your

dashboard. You know how when you vote on your ballot, there's

a long list of judges asking whether they should be

retained on the bench. Those judicial retention

elections, well, HB512 could

really have a big impact on that. Right now. There's a bill out

there which would raise the threshold for a judge to

keep their job from a simple majority to

67%, which would be the highest in the nation.

Meaning if you wanted to get rid of a judge, you could run a campaign

campaign. And all you need to do is convince a third

of the population to vote against them.

HP512 creates a brand new legislative

body that would have broad powers to investigate.

And it says this in the bill Any issue brought up

by lawmakers or the public

about a member of the judiciary. If this

commission decides to open an

investigation into a judge, a member of the

judiciary, then under the legislation, they would have

to send out a press release announcing that they

were opening this investigation, they were going to hold a hearing about

it, and they would name the judge. It's just an

allegation at this point. There's nothing proven against it. But already

you've got this thing out in the public record in a press

release saying, we are investigating

allegations against this judge. And at that public hearing,

the committee could vote to not recommend

that the judge be retained in those judicial

retention elections. And that would show up on the

ballot. There's already a recommendation from

another body that evaluates the performance

of judges, but now you have a second one. So you. You could have one body saying

the judge should be retained, and then the legislature saying,

no, they should not be retained, and that will show up on

the ballot. One of the biggest questions I got during

the 2024 election is where can I find out

information about these judges? Where can I find out, uh,

about their performance? Well, there's already a body

that judges the performance or evaluates the

performance of these judges, and now there's going to be two.

And for voters who don't really pay attention

and then they start reading it on their ballot, you could see

conflicting recommendations on the

ballot about whether or not to keep a judge. And

if they raise the threshold to

67%, like under the other proposed piece of

legislation, then that would be enough to kick a

judge out of their seat. This new legislative committee

would evaluate the judicial performance, but it doesn't have any

guidelines. There are absolutely no guidelines on what judicial

performance means. So they could

decide anything. If a lawmaker didn't like

their ruling, if a member of the public was upset with the judge

and made an allegation and they opened an investigation. There's

no standards in this bill for this

legislative committee to evaluate the performance

of a judge. What this is going to do is it's going to

make what is right now a nonpartisan process.

Judicial performance is nonpartisan. And what this bill is going

to do is it could inject

politics into that process and make it

really, really rancorous. And it also cuts

directly against the separation of powers,

because they're now going to ask judges

to answer to lawmakers. That's not how

this works. We have three co equal branches of

government. We have the executive, we have the legislative, we have

the judicial. And what this is going to do is it's going to

make one of those branches answer to

another branch. And that is really, really

troubling. There's also proposed legislation out

there that would add justices to the Utah Supreme Court. Right

now it's five people on the Utah Supreme Court and

the legislature is upset at them because they ruled

against them in the gerrymandering case and in Amendment D.

And we're probably going to rule against them in Amendment A. So the

legislature's upset about there's proposed

legislation to change how the Chief

justice of the Utah Supreme Court is selected. Right

now it's a vote of the members of the

Supreme Court and it would change it so that the

Chief justice is appointed and then confirmed by the

Senate, which would bring it in line with what they do in

Washington. All of this proposed legislation

is a way to bring the

judiciary to heel because legislative

Republicans don't like being told no. So the

only check right now on what, what is

becoming an increasingly imperial

legislature and what I mean by that is a

legislature that is accruing more power unto

itself. The only check right now is the

judiciary and lawmakers are trying

to bring them to heel because they don't like it when

they're told no.

Joining me now on the show is Jeff Worthington. He is

the president of the Utah a AFL CIO and we're going

to talk a little bit about unions in the state. Jeff,

thank you so much for taking the time.

>> Jeff Worthington: Uh, thank you for having me. I appreciate the uh,

invitation.

>> Bryan Schott: Let's go through what happened with HB

267 which was uh,

sponsored by Representative Jordan Tusher. And

it, I called

it a union busting bill. It's a union bus busting bill.

Um, what it did is it removed the collect

the rights for public employees, teachers,

firefighters, what have

you, uh, to collectively bargain. There are a few other

things in the bill as well. Um,

let's talk about how that moved through the process

because at one point it sounded like we had a, uh, there, there was a

compromise in, in the works with, with lawmakers,

with the Republican controlled legislator and then it fell apart at the

last minute. So give me your perspective on what

happened with that piece of legislation.

>> Jeff Worthington: Okay. Uh, yeah, we uh, seen the

bill coming and uh, we read through

uh, the bill when it was finally uh,

made available for everybody to uh, uh, read

it. And we knew immediately that we

did not like the bill.

Went to the maker of the bill and told him it's just not

a doable thing. And uh, he

offered a

second substitute uh, to

which at that time I had told him,

okay, we're. Well, uh, I can tell

you right now that uh, we could stand neutral

on this, but I have to get the

approval of my affiliate unions.

And so I went back to my affiliates

and I, um, told them what the

proposal was and what the uh, second, uh,

sub did, and they did not like

it.

>> Bryan Schott: And to be clear, that second substitute,

it did put back the rights to collectively

bargain. But the sticking point, as I understand it,

was a, uh, provision that required those

unions who did represent public employees to hold

a recertification vote every few years. Um,

and that needed a majority of all the

union members, not just the people who would cast a ballot.

So if no. If a member did not cast a ballot, they

would be counted as a no vote.

>> Jeff Worthington: That's correct. That's correct. And that was a

big stickler for us. And, and uh.

So, um, at the

time they were advertising it that, yeah, the

unions have agreed to this. And uh,

when I went back to uh, Representative, uh,

Tusher and said, no, uh, my unions

did not agree to it, you know, we're going to have to

oppose, ah, the second sub.

And so then that's when everything

kind of went up in flames. And then

they came out with a third sub. Sub,

which we would have been,

uh, in favor of,

but on the reading calendar it still

showed first sub on the Senate floor.

So as long as the first sub was sitting on the

reading calendar, we had to stay in an opposed

position. And we were waiting for the third

sub to be introduced to where that

we could say, okay, we're okay with the third sub, because

that took, um. It changed

the voting measures, uh, to where we

still didn't like it, but we could live with it.

So, uh, but the third sub never materialized. Uh,

so.

>> Bryan Schott: And uh, it seemed like one of the sticking points

or the last straw for members of the

legislature is they thought they had an

agreement. And you. And you alluded to it, uh, that you

would be neutral on the bill.

And uh, when. When they

finally decided to move on the. On the original version of the bill and

abandon the uh, the. The

compromise, uh,

legislation, it sounded like they were really angry

that um, they were still getting angry

calls and texts from union members who didn't like

this. And that seems

like such a weird way, a weird reason

to abandon, you know, what. What could be seen

or to abandon working on a

compromise because they. Hearing

from people who opposed what they were trying to do.

>> Jeff Worthington: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much, um, you know,

as it progressed and while we were waiting for

that third sub to come out in the Senate, it, uh,

became more and more evident to us that they had

no intentions of ever introducing

the third sub. Uh, they had the original

bill and it had passed out of committee

and made it to the floor. And uh, they

were hell bent on getting HB260

passed out the way it was, uh, written.

>> Bryan Schott: Um, why do you think. I mean,

obviously, uh, and I've written this and there's

been. They won't say this, lawmakers won't say

this, but there's a lot of conjecture and you can make a pretty

compelling case that this bill was

retaliation against the teachers unions

for some actions that they took last

year. Um, um. But they decided to go after

all public employees, not just the teachers,

so it wouldn't look like they were going after the

teachers. Is that the way that you read this?

>> Jeff Worthington: Yes, very much so. Uh, you know, in the

beginning, my public service

employees, which are my ask me group, my

uh, firefighters, police officers aft,

uh, they were not the target. Uea, uh, was the

target because they had poked the bear a few too

many times. And uh, we were kind of

collateral damage. And so we had to,

uh, protect or try to protect, uh,

our, our positions, our rights.

And uh, we got sucked right into it.

And um, it wasn't

a position that I wanted to be into.

And uh, you know,

there was just no way of separating

my public service employees from

the UEA factor, uh,

in this. And so it became a collective deal.

And thus, um,

we've seen the consequences, uh, of that.

>> Bryan Schott: So, so what's the path forward? I mean, I know that

there's an attempt to collect enough signatures

to put this on the ballot as a referendum. Um, you need about

140,000 signatures and you have like 40 days to

collect those. And you have to hit certain signature goals in 15

or 29 counties. Very hard to get a referendum on

the ballot. Um, and I know that that effort is coming,

but one of the things that I hear from so many people

is why doesn't. Why

isn't there, you know, like, at least the threat

of a strike to try to, you know, uh,

because, um, if you look at. And

I'm not, I'm not advocating, I'm just. I'm just curious as to

why the. Why we're not hearing more about this. In

recent years, and there's been some studies, teacher strikes have

been very, very effective in, uh,

in. In getting improvements for teachers or

accomplishing some of the teachers policy goals. And I

went back and looked, it's only happened twice here in the

state.

>> Jeff Worthington: Right. Um, you know, it's interesting

that you'd bring that up, Bryan. Um, day one

of the session, we met with

our uh, Utah One Coalition, which includes all

the uh, teachers and public service employees. Uh,

and uh, I challenged UEA on

that day to go on strike.

I said this is when you need to step up to the

point plate and go on strike to,

to oppose this bill. And

uh, they wouldn't. They just wouldn't. They, they

said that they have a contractual

agreement that they got to be in the

classrooms and you know, this and that. And

I told them, well, you know, a strike by

the teachers would be a short lived strike

because when the teachers don't show up and the kids

don't have anywhere to go and the parents start getting mad,

the parents start calling the legislators and

things happen fast. Uh,

but uh, our teachers

association here in Utah,

um, the

leaders I believe, did not have the

desire to go on strike. When we held our rally in

the Rotunda where we had a thousand people there,

uh, there was a lot of teachers in attendance to that.

And all the teachers were chanting

that they wanted to go on strike. So this

is uh, the grassroots level

wanted to go on strike. It was their

local uh, leaders that was refusing

to uh, go on strike.

>> Bryan Schott: So that surprises me because this

bill, um, it's an existential threat

to the Utah Education Association. I mean what,

what is the, what is the reason? What

is the um, uh, uh, incentive for teachers

to join the uea, to be a dues paying member of

UEA if they can no longer collectively

bargain on your behalf? Now it doesn't happen in

every district. It was a district

by district thing. But in those in those

districts where they did do the bargaining, they can't do that anymore.

And so this just seems like m, uh, uh, an

existential thing. They've got that brand new building that they're

putting up, um, in Sandy. And

it seems like, you know, when

you're facing something that threatens your very

survival, you have to do whatever it

takes. And so what you're telling me kind of

surprises me.

>> Jeff Worthington: Yeah. Yeah. Well,

you know, to me that showed the difference

between an association and a

union being uh, a unionist,

uh, for over 45 years now, um,

I know the value of what unions do

and the collective group uh,

of unions that will support other unions. Unions.

And uh, if we decide to go on strike, the other

unions support us. And uh, you

know, with uea, we would have supported

them. We, we were offering our support

as unions to

uh, walk with them, to pick up with them whatever they needed

to do. But uh, they

are

um, timid. They,

they've never walked, they haven't

been on strike. They don't know what it is. Uh,

you know, I gave them the example of the uh, ski

patrollers recent ah strike up in

and uh, how effective that was. You know, they

were out for 10 days and they got everything that

they wanted uh, because

they banded together and they walked the picket

lines and the local community up

there donated uh, into their strike fund

to where they could have been on strike for a long

time. And uh, but UEA

just uh, doesn't have that

um, desire to strike. And uh,

it's a weakness, it's a weak. They're going to

be um,

they're going to be attacked more and more. If they don't show that

they will bow uh, their necks and stand up to

the legislature and say enough is enough.

>> Bryan Schott: I think that um, I, I

can't pass up asking you just about

the attitudes towards organized

labor from this legislature in

particular. They tried to do something like this last year but they were

targeting all unions with a recertification

vote, um, and they backed down

after massive opposition. But this year they decided to go

through. I don't think it was a coincidence that

a few days after Governor Cox signed this

bill into law that

um, uh, there was a press release

from alec, the American Legislative Exchange

Council, which is a right wing pro

business group m, uh,

uh, heralding Representative Jordan Tusher who's the

main uh, sponsor of this bill, and Senate

Majority Leader Kurt Cullimore who was a Senate sponsor,

uh, praising them for passing this

legislation. That, that does not seem

like, that does not seem like a coincidence at all.

>> Jeff Worthington: No, it not a coincidence.

Um, you pointed out Jordan Tusher

and uh, Kurt Kolomore uh, being

uh, patted on the back by alec. And I think

if we dig a little bit deeper, uh, you'll

find out that the Senate President

Stuart Adams sits on the board of

alec.

>> Bryan Schott: Yeah. And he was the president of it

for um a ah few years ago because he had their annual conference

here in the state.

>> Jeff Worthington: Yes, that's, that's the case. So um,

you know, and this is the thing that really upset me about

this session and these bills in particular.

And there's still more bills coming up where Jordan uh,

Tusher wants to embed right to work

into the Constitution.

>> Bryan Schott: Huh.

>> Jeff Worthington: Which, which is just a complete bizarre

move.

>> Bryan Schott: Yeah, talk, talk, talk a little bit about that. Uh, Jordan

Tusher is, is proposing A constitutional

amendment that would enshrine right to

work, meaning you cannot be forced to jo

As a term of employment into the

state constitution. A few states do have that. But uh,

talk about why you think he's, he's doing, doing,

doing that and why you oppose that.

>> Jeff Worthington: Okay. Um, you know,

right to work is a national law.

It's all across the country. It affects every state

the same. Uh, right to work means that uh,

you know, if you want to

uh, go to work for a company that's a union

company, you don't have to agree to pay

the dues and you cannot be prevented from

working for that company, which, you know,

that's the law that was passed. We may not

agree with that 100%, but that's the law that's

passed. What Tusher is trying to do

is to get the amendment

into the constitution of Utah,

therefore make. Making it

extremely, extremely hard for

Utah to ever overturn right to work.

Because once it's into the constitution,

then uh, it takes a two thirds vote.

And uh, it's uh, it's a major

effort to repeal something that's in the

constitution once it's there.

>> Bryan Schott: And the only people who can propose a change to the

constitution is the legislature. So if the

people vote for this and put it in there. That's the same argument with

amendment D and amendment A from last, last year. Um, you

know, a constitutional amendment can only be

proposed by the legislature and it's all.

And, and the people can't re. Repeal it if they don't

like, like it.

>> Jeff Worthington: Right? Yes. We would have to have a

majority Democratic, uh, uh,

legislature in order to ever repeal something like that.

>> Bryan Schott: Well, you would need a 2/3 legislature, right?

>> Jeff Worthington: Yes. And it's not going to happen anytime

soon. So that, that's the

tactic being brought uh, forth there.

And I think the citizens of Utah

need to understand the uh,

underlying reasons for what

Representative Tusher is doing. Ah,

um, it's not forthcoming.

You know, I think he's trying to slide it in, in the

shadows of darkness, you know. So, so it's

something um, that's.

>> Bryan Schott: Well, and, and I mean to uh, play the devil's

advocate on this though, of seems like it might

be a reaction to sort of the populist

turn that the Republican Party has taken under

Donald Trump. Um, you know, uh, uh, in the

past it was very pro business and if you

got uh, and if, and if the working class,

if the Republican Party is now becoming the party of the working class

as we are seeing in election results,

um, you know, this sort of thing, you

know, they might become more favorable

to unions. Donald Trump's pick for the Secretary of

Labor as a union supporter. So,

you know, that's, that's one of the arguments that I've heard as to

why they might want to do this to preserve

Utah, uh, to preserve these

Republican values or these pro business valve

values, uh, and protect against a possible

populist turn.

>> Jeff Worthington: Yeah, uh, that, you know, there again I

think it's uh, uh, smoke

and mirrors, uh, tactic by the Trump

administration on this. Because if you, if you take a look at what

he done, the uh, nlrb,

uh, he has uh, actually fired the two

Democrats that were on that board. Taking it

down to two members now to which

is, does not satisfy a quorum. So they

cannot even convene a

uh, meeting of the NLRB

to handle uh, labor disputes and stuff.

So

in that effect he's uh,

destroying organized

labor from the top down now.

>> Bryan Schott: So is the game plan for the referendum to file

as the moment that you can and then

go for one of a better phrase, balls to the wall

for four, 40 days?

>> Jeff Worthington: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. Um,

as you know, referendums are not

cheap. And uh, so that's one of

the big things right now is, is uh, rounding

up the financing to finance the

referendum. And once the money's in place, then

we will push uh, the referendum throughout the state.

And uh, you know, right now we're uh,

in the process of getting uh, information

out to the constituents of Utah

through social media, um, through

other avenues so that they can become educated

on what really is happening. And uh, you

know, under the recent polls, uh,

that have been uh, done in Utah,

uh, the constituents of Utah are behind

labor, uh, in the high 70s and

80 percentile, uh, brackets.

So there, there's not a,

A, a uh, taste

to uh, or an appetite to, to

destroy unions in the state of Utah. People support

unions and they support the fact that

if unionists want to

contribute money to their union dues, they

should be able to do that. That's their paycheck. They should be able

to pay their union dues. If they want

to uh, contribute to PAC funds and stuff,

they should be able to do that because that's their money.

You know, and I understand that, uh, you know, uh,

as far as the PAC funds go,

um, you know, with the public sector

employees that, okay, they don't want

the employer to be able to take that money

out to contribute to the PAC

fund. And I understand that, you know, with a governmental

agency, but for the rest of the unions, it's a

totally different animal, totally different story.

And uh, the rights of the unionists should not be

taken away. That's their choice. That's what the

freedom and democracies all about.

>> Bryan Schott: Jeff Worthington, President of the Utah AFL cio,

thank you so much for your time. This has been a great

conversation.

>> Jeff Worthington: Well, thank you, Bryan. I appreciate the time.

>> Bryan Schott: Before we finish up for this week, it's time for me to

shamelessly plug some other stuff that I doing.

If you don't know, I run an independent political news

website. It's called Utah Political Watch. You

can sign up for my newsletter for free at

Utah Political Watch Dot News. You'll get all of

my journalism, every story that I wrote, delivered straight

to your email inbox. I promise there won't be too

many emails, but it's a great way to keep up with what's

happening in Utah politics.

If you'd like some extra content, well, you can become a

paying subscriber for as little as

$5 a month. For that, you can get access to

my Morning News Fix newsletter. That's a curated

roundup of the top local and national

and international headlines that you need to start your day.

And during the legislative session, you get the

subscriber only Daily Dispatch

newsletter. That's a roundup of what happened up

on Capitol Hill that day afternoon

headlines from all the local news sources.

Also, we take a look at some of the newly introduced

bills and I'll tell you what's on the next day's agenda

that's worth paying attention to. If you get all of

that for just $5 a month, it's a hell of a

deal. This podcast and my website,

Utah Political Watch, they're all reader

supported. I don't sell advertising. I

don't have big corporate donors. That means

subscribers are my boss. I am answer to you.

You know, it takes time and resources to

produce this kind of work. And if that's important

to you, I'd really appreciate it if you thought about

becoming a paid subscriber. I know not everyone can afford

that right now, but if you can,

I'd really appreciate it.

M

and that's it for this week's week's episode. My thanks again

to Utah AFL CIO President

Jeff Worthington. If you have a guest that you'd like to hear

or a topic you'd like me to discuss, drop me an

email, send me a message. On social

media, I'm on almost all of the

platforms except, uh, for the one, and I

think you know which one. That one is. Anyway, send me a

message. I'd love to hear from you. If you haven't

yet, take a moment to subscribe to this podcast. Leave

a rate rating or review. That's that's how

new listeners find the show. That's how the algorithm works. If you

subscribe to the show and tell other

people how good it is, or if you hate it or

whatever, that's how new people find the show, then

the algorithm suggests the show to more people.

So I'd appreciate it if you did. That special session

is written and produced by me, Bryan

Schott. Thank you so much for taking the time to

listen. We'll be back next week.