The most feared journalist in Utah!
>> Bryan Schott: Come one, come all to a beautiful
show. It's gonna be awesome.
>> Speaker B: And some other stuff.
>> Bryan Schott: Some other musical stuff.
Hello and welcome. This is special
session for the week ending Friday, December
20, 2024. I'm Bryan Schott,
managing editor of Utah Political Watch.
This week on the show, Senator Mike
Lee says Elon Musk or Vivek
Ramaswamy should be the speaker of the House of
Representatives. Phil Lyman loses again.
That guy has more Ls than the planet
Krypton. Looking like Jesus is
proving to be a lucrative side hustle in
Utah. My guest this week on the show is
Jackson Lewis, who was just elected to a seat on the
Canyon school board. At 19 years old, he's
believed to be the youngest elected official in Utah
history. We have a delightful conversation about the
importance of getting involved in the political process. I
can't wait for you to hear that. Plus,
it really seems like the Utah legislature is
afraid of my journalism. I'll explain why
I am now the most feared journalist in the state
of Utah. Remember to subscribe to the
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Now let's get to this week's news.
Senator Mike Lee wants either Elon Musk or
Vivek Ramaswamy to become the next speaker of the House of
Representatives. On Wednesday, Republicans in Congress thought
they had a spending deal done to keep the government
funded through March. But Elon Musk decided he didn't
like it. Took to so social media started attacking the spending
plan. Donald Trump then gets involved and
they scrap the idea. Then on Thursday,
Republicans show up with a very stripped down version of
a spending bill that Donald Trump endorses.
But this thing fails on the floor of the
House of Representatives. It doesn't get enough vote, goes down in
flames. Mike Lee goes on Benny Johnson's podcast.
Lee says that he thinks House Speaker Mike Johnson isn't
up to the task. And when the new Congress gets underway
in January, the Republicans there, who will have
a majority should elect either Elon Musk
or Vivek Ramaswamy as the next speaker of the
House.
>> Speaker C: We're going to need new leadership. we've got
new leadership in the Senate coming in the coming year.
And I believe that the writing's on the wall. Unless
I'm just mistaken, it seems to me that new
leadership in the House is almost inevitable. If that's the
case, I think we need to go outside the box. I
think we need to look to a different place. Remember the
cons. Neither the Constitution nor the House rules
require that the speaker be a current
member of, the House, of Representatives. Look, the
Doge movement is enormously popular in the House.
just listen, to House members who are
Republicans. They can't get enough of them, including many other people who
have been part of this swampy process. They praise Doge.
Oh, Doge is going to say this if that's the case.
That being the case, given that they all express such
affection for Vivek and for Elon, let them
choose one of them, I don't care which one, to be their
Speaker. That would revolutionize everything.
>> Bryan Schott: Shortly after he was elected, President Elect Donald Trump
appointed Musk and Ramaswamy to lead
a new Department of Government Efficiency, or
doge. And that body has been
tasked to advise the Trump administration
on a large scale structural
reform of the federal government. I want to remind you that Musk
and Ramaswamy were not
elected by anyone to
lead anything. But they're now in charge of
making these broad recommendations. Now,
you don't have to be a member of the House of
Representatives to be the speaker of the House.
That's not in the Constitution. But they've
never elected anyone who was not a member to become
the Speaker. It's never happened before.
And putting Musk in that position would
present some problems because he would be
third in line for the Presidency. Musk is not a
natural born citizen. He's not eligible to become
President. So that would create a very
thorny constitutional situation. If
he were to be tapped for that role, Benny Johnson's name might
ring a bell. He was previously part of a group called
Tenet Media. And that organization,
according to an indictment from the Justice Department, was
allegedly part of a Russian
funded influence operation leading up to the
2024 election. The indictment, which was unveiled in
September, revealed that two of the
Russian state controlled media outlet
allegedly funneled about $10 million
into tenant media and pushed
them to create content that was
favorable to Donald Trump. Now, for his part,
Johnson claimed that he was just a victim in all of
this scheme. He didn't know where the money was coming from. Lee's
connections to Johnson go back a couple of years. In
the summer of 2022, Johnson was one of the
people who encouraged Senator Lee to
start his personal based Mike Lee account
on X Twitter. And since then, Lee has
posted on that account thousands of times a week.
Or should I say he shit posted on that account thousands
of times a week. So we can all thank Benny
Johnson for that.
Utah's on track to add a seat to their
congressional delegation in
2030. The new census numbers that
were released this week showed Utah was in the
top ten in, population growth. All
states. They were the tenth largest growth.
They were the tenth largest in real numbers. They
added 36,498 people. And that was
also good for the ninth largest percentage increase
at 1.1%. If those trends
continue, Utah is on track to add a seat
to their House delegation in Congress. They would go from
four to five. They use the census numbers
to divvy up how the 435 House
seats are distributed across the country. And Utah would be
on track to add a seat. If you remember, Utah came
really close to adding a seat in 2020, but
fell just short. And it looks like this population
growth that the state is undergoing right now, if the
trends continue, we'll be adding one seat in
Congress in 2030. The projections
show that two other Western states would be adding a
seat. Those would be Idaho and Arizona.
Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South
Carolina and Tennessee would also gain
seats. Other states have to lose those seats. And according
to the projections from the Brenn, states that
would be on track to lose seats would be
California, New York, Illinois,
Pennsylvania, California would lose four seats, four
seats under the current trends. And that would mark just
the second time that California
has lost representation in
Congress.
Utah had only one seat in Congress when it was admitted
to the Union in 1896. They gained another in
1910. And then they stayed at two
seats for a few decade until
1980 when population growth gave
them a third seat after that reapportionment.
And then Utah added their current fourth seat
in 2010. That was after they narrowly missed
out on a seat in the year
2000. Actually, there was a lawsuit from the state
claiming that the Census Bureau did not
count missionaries overseas in
Utah's population estimates. And the state argued if they had
done that, they would have gotten that fourth seat in Congress. They
didn't win that argument. But then 10 years later, in
2020, they added the fourth seat where the state
sits at now. Utah came very close to
adding another seat just four
years ago when the census showed that Utah was
the fastest growing state in the Union. Population
growth was 18.4%
between 2010 and 2020. Very close
to giving Utah another seat in Congress, but
the state fell just short. But it looks like if these current
trends continue, they will be adding a fifth
seat in 2030. And you can
expect that the batt redistricting in
2030 will probably be quite
intense.
How can we miss you if you won't go away?
Utah's political Don Quixote Phil
Lyman suffered yet another loss in
his bizarre quest to
somehow undo his loss in the
Republican primary to Spencer
Cox. Last week, Supreme Court Justice Neil
Gorsuch denied Lyman's request for an
emergency injunction in his case that sought to
prevent Spencer Cox from being
certified as the winner of the November election.
That order was issued without comment. Now Lyman has
zero legal avenues left to stop Cox
from being sworn in for a second term
as governor next month. You remember Lyman
ran as a write in candidate in November's
election. He finished in third place, got about
13% of the vote. Lyman has been trying
to sow doubt, raise questions about the
legitimacy of Cox's candidacy. A
couple of weeks before the election, he started
raising questions about whether or
not Cox had legitimately qualified for
the primary election ballot. Through gathering
signatures, he and his allies submitted a rash
of open records requests trying to get
access to Spencer Cox's signature packets.
Those requests were denied. He sued the state
to try to force them to turn it over. A judge said,
no, that's not possible. He didn't stop there, though. Lyman
then tried to leverage his position as an elected
official he's in the House of Representatives to
gain access to election data that
state law specifically says is off limits.
Of course, those efforts were rebuffed. He
wasn't able to get his hands on that. Lyman
twisted those results to falsely claim
that the audit showed that Cox did not submit
enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
That's not true at all. The audit did not make any
determination about whether Cox had submitted the
required signatures, but said that he would have had
plenty of time to gather more before
the deadline if he had fallen short. And then in
October, Lyman asked his
Republican colleagues in the legislature to
convene an emergency session to try to force Cox
off the November ballot because he was
claiming that Cox's win in the primary election
was illegitimate. After all of those efforts
failed to bear fruit, and because he probably
doesn't know when to quit, Lyman goes to the Utah
Supreme Court and he asks the justices
to kick Cox and Lieutenant Senate Governor Deidre
Henderson out of office for malfeasance.
Kick them off the ballot and
completely upend the state's election system. The
court rejected that challenge, and so then he appealed
to the US Supreme Court. That appeal is still
pending. Lyman's argument to the Supreme Court
hinges on the supposition that
the Utah Republican Party's internal
rules should override state election
law. He claims that SB 54, which
is the 2014 law that made it so so
candidates could gather signatures to get on the
ballot, violates the First Amendment
rights of, political parties to choose their nominees.
Lyman argues that since he won enough of
the delegate vote at the state GOP
convention to win the party nomination, he
should not have been forced into a primary with Cox,
who collected signatures. As precedent, he
cites the court's 2008 decision
in New York State Board of Elections versus Lopez
Torres. That case challenged New
York's use of the convention system to
nominate judicial candidates. The plaintiff in that case
argued that the system violated the First Amendment
because it made it too difficult for candidates
who were not favored by party leadership.
Now, in that decision, the court said that, yes,
political parties have a First Amendment right
to use their own process for nominating
candidates, but states have
wide latitude in regulating the
election process and that political parties can be
forced to comply with states. So I'm not quite sure
what Lyman is arguing, because
that decision by the Supreme
Court says state laws can trump
party rules when it comes to putting candidates on
the ballot. Both Governor Cox and Lieutenant Governor
Henderson, who were named as defendants in the case, waived
their rights to file a response to his
complaint. Lyman supporters seized on that, saying, oh, they
must be guilty because they didn't file a
response. No, actually, what happened was they
didn't deem Lyman's complaint worthy of
a response, so they didn't want to waste the time. The
justices are scheduled to consider lyman's appeal on
January 10th in their conference. That's when they meet
and decide which cases they're going to take up
and which ones they're going to reject.
It's highly unlikely the court will agree to take
Lyman's case. Of the thousands of cases filed
every year, the court takes only about
1% of those. But let's play pretend. Let's
hypothetically say that the justices do agree
to take his case. What does Lyman want to have
happen? In October, Lyman told his
volunteers during a video call that
he'd love to see the higher court kick it
back down to the state Supreme Court to reconsider their
decision or maybe force
a new election. The odds of the justices ordering
either of those are Extremely remote. But
Lyman's not going to go away. He recently told his
supporters that he intends to run for governor again in four
years in 2028.
Utah's top state leaders are threatening
Salt Lake City to clean up the homeless problem,
and they're giving them a month to do that. The
Salt Lake Tribune reported that Utah governor Spencer
Cox, House Speaker Mike Schultz, and Senate President Stuart
Adams sent a letter to Salt Lake City Mayor Aaron
Mendenhall regarding the city's handling
of homelessness and public safety issues. In that
letter, they criticized the ineffectiveness of the Salt Lake City
Police Department, and they demanded that they come up
with a more robust safety plan by
January 17, 2025. The
letter urges Mayor Mendenhall to focus on the,
quote, disorder in the city, and that means
focusing on laws and ordinances related
to homelessness and crime. The letter threatened
to increase the state's oversight and
involvement of how the city addresses the homeless
problem if they don't make progress on that.
Mendenhall responded by acknowledging their
frustration, but she emphasized the need for
a long term commitment and
partnerships to address what
is pretty much a complex issue of homelessness.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown defended his
department's efforts while recognizing more
needs to be done. This puts a spotlight on the
tensions between the state government and the
city when it comes to homelessness. State officials
say they want more aggressive enforcement of
the laws that are already in place, while the city says
they need help and a partnership to come up
with more comprehensive long term
solutions. And then you couple that with the reluctance
of other cities around Salt Lake City to address
homelessness. A couple of weeks ago, there was that story
of a church in Fruit Heights that,
wanted to open its doors as an emergency
warming shelter for unhoused
people. And the community pushed back against that and they
had to withdraw. They're still looking for
some place as an emergency warming
shelter when the temperature drops for people who
have nowhere else to go to warm
up, and they're still fighting over that. So you can see why the state
is getting involved here. But if other cities are unwilling
to shoulder their share of the load when it
comes to homelessness, it's going to be very hard
to come up with a solution.
In last week's show, we talked about how
lawmakers are taking aim at Utah's universal
vote by mail system. There was a legislative
audit that showed 1400 people who
were deceased east were still on Utah's voter
rolls. Seven hundred of them were still classified
as active, and two allegedly
dead people voted in the 2023 election.
And because of that, it seems like the legislature
is getting ready to really come after the
state's universal vote by mail system. Governor
Spencer Cox said that he would not support an
effort to do away with universal vote by
mail, and that makes sense because he helped put it in place
when he was the lieutenant governor. But he said he would
support legis to improve the process. There are a number
of bills that have already been proposed
to make changes, some large, some small.
One would make it so you would have to opt into the
system instead of getting a ballot
mailed to you automatically. Another one would
limit the people who automatically get a ballot to those
who have cast a ballot in either the last two or last four
elections. So it sounds like Cox is open
to making some changes, but not doing away
with the system entirely. And I'm sure
that's good news to a lot of Utahns because the
state's universal vote by mail seems to be quite
popular. People like the convenience. They like not, having to
go to the polls on election day, take time off work. They
can just fill out the ballot at the kitchen table.
The legal challenge to Utah's private school
vouchers program, known as the Utah Fits
All Scholarship Program, had its day in court
this week. The Utah Education association,
state's largest teachers union, filed
suit against the program, which
allows parents to take money that's supposed
to go to public schools and use it to pay for private school
tuition or homeschooling or any number
of costs, with very little oversight on where
that money is going. The lawsuit
filed by the UEA challenges
the constitutionality of the program. They claim
that Utah's constitution has a
guarantee for funding for
public school. The state constitution says that
income tax revenues can only be used to pay for public
education, higher education, and some
social services. The UEA's lawsuit
says that you cannot take money that's supposed
to go to public education and
let parents use it for private education.
Lawmakers passed this in 2023. They initially
funded it with $42.5 million,
and then they added an additional 40 million last
year. The program gives eligible students
$8,000, and parents can use it
for private school tuition, homeschooling, any number of
expenses. That $8,000 is
almost double what the state spends
on each student in public
education. It's called the wpu, the Weighted
Pupil Unit, and that is the amount per
student spends, which is just a little bit over
$4,000. This program gives parents
$8,000 per kid. The arguments
center around two key points
in 2020, voters approved amendment G
to the state constitution, which opened up
what income tax money can be used for. It was
only public and higher education, but Amendment
G added that the money could be used
to, quote, support children and to support
individuals with a, ah, disability. The state is
arguing that Amendment G's
language allows for this scholarship
program to exist because it says that you
can use income tax money to support children.
That's now in the Constitution. And they're saying that this
private school voucher program supports
children, so it's allowed. But the
UEA says that it was meant for social
services and not private school
vouchers. Now the judge, Laura Scott, asked several
questions to both sides about whether the state's
interpretation of Amendment G could lead to the
creation of a parallel or a shadow
education system that takes public money and
funnels it to private schools. A lot of the questioning revolved
around whether Amendment G allowed for the creation of
that judge said that she will probably issue
a ruling on the this sometime in January.
She has up to 60 days, but she said it wouldn't take that long.
So that decision could be coming down right around the
time that the 2025
legislative session gets underway. And that could
be fascinating because lawmakers are already
extremely angry at the UEA
because they came out against Amendment A this year, which
would have opened up that constitutional earmark
even more, allowing income tax revenues
to be used for pretty much anything in the budget,
not just, just those specific things that are
already spelled out. The UEA opposed
that measure and then they went
to court to get it thrown off the ballot. So lawmakers are
already very angry about that and they're upset
about this lawsuit over the private school vouchers
program. And if a judge rules in favor of the
uea, that's going to make lawmakers extra angry.
There are already expectations that they are going to be
punishing UEA when the session gets
underway. And this will just add more fuel
to that fire.
The Wall Street Journal had an incredible story this
week about how models with long
hair and beards are in high demand in
Utah because people want models
who look like Jesus. People in the state are hiring
Jesus look alikes for family portraits, wedding
announcements, engagement photos. In
the story, they interview Bob Sagers. He tells
the story about how when he was walking around
a music festival in Salt Lake City,
someone came up to him and asked for his phone number and said, hey,
has anyone ever told you that you look like Jesus?
And that's when he began his side hustle as
a stand in for Jesus in these photos, he
says that since he was recruited about four years ago, he.
He's posed as Jesus nearly a dozen
times. And you may be asking, what's the going rate
for a Jesus stand in? Well, apparently it's between
100 and $200 an hour. Some of the
models in the story said that it's kind of a tough
job because the people who hire them not
only want them to look like Jesus, but they want them
to embody Jesus. One
person said that he was hired as
a Jesus stand in, and the person who hired them wanted them
to be quoted, quote, the most Christlike
person you can be. Or people will be able
to tell through the photos that it's not real.
The story ends with this. There's a model who
is posing for photos in the salt flats
when a woman who was not part of the group comes up
to him and asks if he could walk with her
for a moment while holding her hand. And he
replied to her and said, you know, I'm not the
real Jesus. And she told him that
she had been looking for a sign from God when she
was driving by and saw
Jesus taking photos with people and
figured that was it.
Joining me now on the show is Jackson Lewis. At
19 years old, he's believed to be the youngest elected official in
Utah history. He was just elected to the Canyon
School board, and I'm really excited to chat with him today. Jackson, thank
you so much for taking the time. Time.
>> Speaker B: Thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here.
>> Bryan Schott: I'm really curious. What, what prompted you to run? You were a high
school senior last, last year. What prompted
you to, to throw your hat in the ring?
>> Speaker B: So, I mean, it's a story I've told quite a bit. You know,
it's the story of, It was. I was in my.
UConn Week, Utah College and Career ready,
awareness ready week, and we, were
in my English classroom, and I just heard my teacher,
as well as some members of the. The
college and career readiness staff just cracking jokes about
the state legislature, about how they're kind of feeling
overwhelmed with the, the mandates and all that,
and how the board, like, you know, they just need some more
help from Canyons, right? From the district themselves. So I
looked up who my board member was. I looked up the rules for running. It
was 2022. The election wasn't until 2024, and I was
17. Anyway, so I kind of put it
aside for a while. And then earlier this year, not
this year. Last year, 2023. I got a job working up at
the state legislature for the Office of
Legislative Research and General Counsel.
And it kind of all just kind
of fell into the right place at the right time. So I
filed to run at the beginning of this year because I
wanted to rep. I mean I've lived in Midvale my whole life. I
love this, this city in this town. Right.
It's, it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't
represent, I would, I wouldn't willingly choose to represent any other
place. Right. I love Midvale. you know,
but yeah, no, it was just
if things fell into the right place at the right time and if. I've always
been passionate about education and politics. Right.
I mean I was a product of public education. I graduated
from Hillcrest in 2023.
So it's always been public education. So I
was just happy to, to happy things fell in the right place and I
was able to serve.
>> Bryan Schott: Obviously you had some things that you wanted to do.
And this is one thing I like to ask candidates. I'm like, what do you want to do if
you get into office? I mean there are people who run
for office. They have policy agendas, they have
things they want to accomplish. What is it that you want to
accomplish on the local level once you take office in
January?
>> Speaker B: So a big thing I've talked about throughout my campaign
is that protecting student
pedestrians. I, know there's going to be there's
going to be conversations to be that are going to be had
with moving, the safe walking routes.
And I've had, I've had, I've told stories
of horse, I've ah, told horror stories
of students. I've watched walk home from
Union. As I'm driving on 9th and 7th east, walking home from
Union and they almost get hit by cars right next to Hillcrest.
Right, right. And they're on the safe walking route. Right.
Those walking routes need to be moved onto pedestrian
roads away from arterial roads that have 40, 50
mile an hour speed limit. And that's something that
I'm very much looking forward to working with the other board members to
achieving because student safety is an absolute
priority, as well as solving chronic absence
fighting, chronic absenteeism. I've had
quite a few meetings already, as I'm
preparing to take office. We've talked about
kind of what the district wants, what the data looks
like on absenteeism, what the, what other districts
are looking at, what we can be looking at. I mean with our new
ebay, Facility. We are looking at a whole.
We're just. We're so excited about the ebay facility and what it
can do for our students. Right. And we really do think it can help
us get kids excited for school again, which is a big part of
what I think, we need to be doing to
get kids excited and back into school again.
That's the big root of chronic absenteeism, at least
for the way I experience chronic absenteeism,
the way people around me experience chronic absenteeism in high
school. yeah, just those kinds of
things as, Well, as just adding my. My young person
perspective to this, to the board. As I mentioned, we have this
ebay facility, bunch of those decisions coming up. Right, Right.
And having
a perspective of someone who went through
the school system post Covid, and
even a little bit pre Covid. Right. Having that perspective on
the board making decisions that will be impacting education for
the next 20, 30, 40 years, I think.
I think that's. That's something I'm really excited to
provide.
>> Bryan Schott: I know you're going to be biased with this answer, but
it seems to me that your
perspective, as someone who was recently in the public school
system, you, have a very recent
experience, that. That is a voice
that I guess has been absent
from a lot of these discussions because you
can talk about it from the perspective
of a student who knows what life was like
as recently as a couple of years years ago. I mean,
it's been decades since I've been in public school, and
my experience, is not analogous to anything that
happens today. So, I mean, talk about
how you plan to bring that
perspective, to these discussions
and the fact. And how valuable it is to you being
someone who was elected to be there. So your voice
has to be a part of this discussion rather than people
wringing their hands saying, what do the young PA people
want?
>> Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's totally true. I mean, there is
a. I know there's a big discussion happening right
now, just nationwide about how to engage
young people in terms of politics and obviously in terms of
education. Right. So,
I, myself as a young person. Right.
I. When bringing a perspective
to a school board,
I know all of these. The other board members, right. They are
PTA moms, they're teachers, they're
everyone that make. That typically makes up a school board.
Right. And that's great. That's.
I'm so incredibly grateful that I have
such an amazing support system on this board
already. but, yeah, do you know what I've
watched conversations had on the board
throughout my campaign, even I've watched conversations
happen at the legislative level that it
is just extremely abundantly clear
that young folks were left out of the
conversation. in terms of like
let's. A big, a big issue that the state of
Utah is facing right now is housing. Right.
And obviously that's not something that the school board has
an impact, direct impact on. Right.
But the conversations we're having at
the district, we're having issues with declining enrollment.
And that's not just a canyons issue, it's a statewide issue. Our
population is aging. We need younger folks in our
schools. Right. So part of that conversation,
and I'm not sure it's a conversation being had on the Hill because
it's full of developers and older folks,
is we need more access to
broader types of housing. Types of middle.
The United States just doesn't have middle housing. We have
low density and high density and it's, you know,
we have that's a big conversation that's being had in
urbanist grows. Right. But that's a conversation, you
know, that a young person, that a perspective that a
young person can bring to a
group of people in power. Right.
another issue specifically related to
education is pardon me, smartphones in
class. I was a kid
that had a smartphone in class from seventh grade
and up. I got my first phone in seventh grade. This
is a very complicated, you know, subject.
I would have hated
to have had my phone taken away from me during
class. there is
like to speak to this school shooting that happened in
Madison this last week. I
felt an enormous amount of comfort year over
year over year with the ability to be able
to access my parents through my phone.
and when we have goes both, both ways.
>> Bryan Schott: I mean I've talked to parents who said, you know, I need. Yes,
it's, it's, it's sort of a
larger 2 way anxiety. Children
feel comfort that they can access their parents at
any moment and parents feel comfort that they can access their
children any moment. There's an anxiety when you've had
that when it's when people are saying, well we need to stop
that because of this and this and this. This.
>> Speaker B: Right. I mean, yeah, if my parents were here to doing
this interview with me, right. They would say the exact same thing. We were so grateful
to have access to our kids while they were in class. Right.
And I would hate for
any large universal blanket
rule being handed out by the legislature that
would take away the teachers rights to choose
what's going on in their classroom, take away the parents rights to choose
what they're doing with their kids. Kids and takes away the students
rights to feel secure in
connection with other people. Right. So
ultimately, I mean when conversations like that come around
when you know, the governor's pushing for stuff, the legislature
is pushing for stuff, I think there's something really valuable to be
had, a voice in a
position of power that they can't really just
steamroll. Because I'm not just some leader of some special
interest group, right. I'm an elected official with a vote on
a board. Right. I think there's something to
be gained in the public discourse and just the decision making
process broadly and having a voice
that was, that's so
directly connected to students.
Right.
>> Bryan Schott: And you bring up a great point because when I've
covered legislative hearings, when I've covered legislative
meetings and a young person
testifies, they usually have some
connection to an activist group that wants
something. I think about the social media
bands, that they were passing. And there
was a young young lady who got up and
spoke rather eloquently about you know, the knee,
about, about the dangers of social media. But she
was the daughter of Corinne Johnson who was the head of
Utah Parents United, who had just also
spoken on that. So when you're hearing these younger
voices, they usually are part of a agenda.
Now I'm m sure everybody would have an agenda talking about it,
but you bring something else to the table as an
elected official and that's you know, as
I think about it, as someone who has been an observer of these you
know, it's hard to dismiss you
as, you know, as someone who's put up to it by your
parents or you know, or part of
an activist group because you, you, as you said, you
are an elected official and you have a vote and there's some weight behind
what you are saying now.
>> Speaker B: Right? And do you know what? That's absolutely so true.
Like yeah, that's actually absolutely right. I'm
not put here by my parents. I'm not put here by any other
organization. Right. I represent the constituents
of the my district. I represent the people of Midvale and Northern
Sandy on this board and that's the only people I represent.
So when I go and I'm advocating for a
policy or advocating against the policy change
or wherever I'm speaking, right. My
only interest is Midvale and Northern Sandy,
right. I'm not, I'm not pushing some agenda from some
national group or some whatever. Right.
I'm not. My interest is Canyons and my
interest is m. My special interest is
Canyons and my special interest is the people that I represent. Right.
So I think there is absolutely something to be gained with a young
person's voice that's.
There's clearly some clarity behind it and not some
corruption and you know, just special dealing
behind it, you know, I. Absolutely, yeah. That's something
that's I find very valuable and I hope,
because I've had conversations just to go on a little bit
of a tangent, right. I've had conversations with my friends,
with other young people who've reached out to me since I've won my
election. And one,
I've never heard so many young folks, talk
about running for office before. Like my friends who have never been
interested enough in politics before are like,
oh, I should snatch up a local city council seat. Like that would
be. I'm
inspired now. Right. Is what they've told me. And that
is something that is so unbelievably important. Utah is the
youngest state in the country on average. And it's something I've talked about
my campaign extensively. Young people in
Utah need to be involved in politics because
even if you're not interested in politics, politics is interested in
you. So it's time to get involved and run for
things and make sure your voice is heard. Right. It's. It's time
for that.
>> Bryan Schott: I say that all the time. If you're not interested in politics,
politics is going to take an interest in you. And I,
if you can tell, I am fascinated about this dynamic that's
going to happen with someone who obviously
has a much different perspective than everyone else
on the board.
But I want to use that to ask this. How were you received
on, on the campaign trail? you know, when you went out door
knocking, when you went out trying to convince people to
vote for you. you've got a 19 year old, and part.
This is not meant as a per pejorative, but you've got
a 19 year old kid saying, hey, I'm running for Cannons
Canyon School board. And you know, my first reaction
would be where's the camera? You know, I mean, because I want to,
So I'm curious how you were received on,
on the trail.
>> Speaker B: So that is actually a great question because it's actually something that
I was obviously nervous about when I filed to run. Right.
>> Bryan Schott: And clearly, clearly you're not nervous about this.
>> Speaker B: Yeah. Right. so as soon as I started going, I actually
started in my neighborhood. I was, I love
my neighborhood, right. I, it's the reason I ran, right. I love
Midvale. So when I started going out, there was
conversations I would have with people that immediately I could
tell they're reared it out by a 19 year old
running for office, right? When I go up to people,
typically they're like, oh, what candidate are you, Are you campaigning
for? Like whatever, right? And then I tell them, oh, I'm running for
school board. And they. Almost every single time I
get a weird look and
I've gotten to the point it doesn't hurt my feelings, whatever, right? You know,
that's how it goes. And then, but
it's interesting almost every single time I
give them my, my campaign, my m.
What I had my campaign literature and we would
talk specifically about chronic absenteeism.
That's the, that's, that's something that I made a big connection with,
with a lot of voters on the campaign trail.
And as soon as I would mention that issue and talk
about my connection to it, and
how I want to address it, I could see the look on their
face, the concern, the, the almost
shut out of, oh, he's really young, he shouldn't be in politics.
I could see it melt off their face. And it happened dozens, hundreds
of times, even throughout the entire campaign
trail. And it's, that's something that, I mean,
it's a lesson that I'm going to be taking away from it
for the rest of my life. even if people look
at you and don't take you immediately
seriously, know what you're talking about, and then talk
about it and then they'll take you seriously. You need to
present yourself in a serious way and then folks will take
you seriously. Especially as a young person, I've spoken
to quite a few young candidates. I mean, I've been reached out to by young
candidates in Utah, that are planning on running for future
office and across the country. It genuinely, it's the weirdest feeling
feeling. But yeah,
that's the advice I give every time, is to humanize yourself and
to make yourself appear informed and well
spoken. And nine times out of 10, the concern about
you being young will melt away and you can watch it happen on their
faces.
>> Bryan Schott: That is a fascinating dynamic, but it makes
sense, you know, I mean, you hear people,
when you get the impression that someone is competent in a
subject, subject, or in many cases just pretending
they're competent in a subject, people will tend to Listen
to you. and that's. And that's a big advantage.
I read an op ed that you authored at the end of the last
legislative session where you took the legislature to
task for a number of issues. You talked about,
education funding. You talked about chronic
absenteeism in this, it was quite a well written op ed
in the Salt Lake Tribune Talk, a
little bit about, how you
envision engaging with lawmakers who are going to
be making a lot of the decisions that will be,
you know, coming down for you that will
impact how you do your job as an elected official. This is,
this could be a particularly rough legislative
session, for education. Republicans
on the Hill are very angry at the Utah Education
association over the, failure of Amendment
A, getting, it knocked off the ballot. The lawsuit
over the school vouchers program, which is in court
today, as we are recording this on a Thursday.
how do you plan on engaging
with lawmakers? Obviously, you know, most
of the lawmakers in Salt Lake county, or
the largest number, all of the Democrats in the legislature
from Salt Lake County. So you want to have a hard time getting in touch with them.
But how do you talk to Republicans who may be a little
bit more hostile, Hostile to education,
and then add on
top of that someone who's 19 years old,
and just elected to office. How do you plan on engaging
with them?
>> Speaker B: So do you know what? That is actually a spectacular question.
So, during my last couple weeks, I've been
attending meetings at the district onboarding. We
had a whole bunch of meetings just about canyons.
And it's not just. Just for myself and the other new
board member. Right. It's also for local,
elected officials, like citywide, state
legislators. Right. And I've had conversations with state
legislators. What, what we
need to remember as people
generally is that these folks on the legislature, in the
legislature are also people and can be reached in the same
way that other people can be. Like, I
worked for the legislature earlier this year. Right. I
know I have.
I know to a degree of quite a few of these people on
this hill. On the hill. yeah. It's not going to be an easy
task to get them to, you know, support public education. But do you
know what? I know there are a lot of people up there on the
hill that do support public education, even if they have an
R next to their name. Public education
is a priority for
a lot of folks. And in
terms of, engaging them
as a young person who just
came out of the education system and is now on the board
of Canyons, one of the bigger
districts in the state. Right. I would hope, I would
just hope that they would listen because I mean, I've had
conversations with other board members. Right. I mean
it's complicated. The relationship is complicated. I know
Canyons has a really good relationship with our legislators
and I'm extremely, extremely grateful for that.
yeah, I know that. I
know what we, I know kind of what we have going
on this year, what our, the Canyon's plan is with our
state legislators. And
I'm hoping for positive moves in the right
direction. Right. We have good
priorities, we have good alliances with our state
legislators. Know.
>> Bryan Schott: Yeah, that, that is a great
answer. you know, and I look forward to seeing how that plays
out.
Last thing I want to ask you, and this is just going back to a theme that we've talked
about throughout this, this interview. I've
noticed that Utahns just don't get involved in
the process. You are someone who got involved in the process and
it paid off for you. you know, a lot of people,
they, they, they have lives, they have things, they
other things are doing their jobs, they're busy, they
can't be bothered to get involved, to get
involved in politics at any level. policy,
decisions, discussions at any level. But the groups that do
engage, for the most part are
much fringier. You know, they are, they're
fringe here. there's not a lot of them, but they are loud and
they are organized and that gets them in the
door. And then what happens is they get what they
want and then they go a little bit further. You know, Utah parents,
you know, united, who started off as a
group that was pushing back against mask mandates in
schools that ended, they got some
influence through that. Then they pushed the, the
voucher program, the Utah fits all scholarship. And now
this session they're targeting fluoride in the water, which
is just keep pushing one, one step, one
step more. Even if it's not as running
for a candidate talk about. Because you're going to be an elected official
now, now hearing from
your constituents, hearing from the public on
an issue, and how that's going to shape
your decision making process.
and hopefully people will understand that if they
talk to their elected officials, it
goes a lot further than an email
or a letter or something. You got to get up there and talk to them
face to face if you can.
>> Speaker B: Right. So yeah, that one of the lessons I learned
working up at the legislature earlier this year is that I, because I was a
session secretary, I staffed committee meetings. I was there when
people would come in and testify. Right. So I
learned that when people show
up, if you're well spoken and you're not like combative
with the other, with the members of the committee, right.
Generally they will leave remembering what you
said. So, so as. And as a
as ah, someone who's going to be sitting up on a dais myself in
the next month, I
know that if people that show up
to meetings and say what they, what they are
feeling, they're going to be heard.
So please show up to the meetings. You don't have to run for
office, right? Not everyone has to run for office. If
we had 300 million Americans running for office, what's that getting
done? Right? Right. What you can do is
show up to your, show up to city council meetings, school board
meetings, legislative committee meetings
and share your opinion, share your
lived experience that
could be impacted by the decision they're
making there. Because do you know what? No
good decision can be made if the people
whose decision, if the people whose the decision is going
to be affecting if their opinions and their, their
insights are not taken into account. Otherwise the
decision is going to be bad because
obviously. Right. So please show
up to local government meeting. Show up to your city
planning meeting. Like another, another
dynamic. When cities are
discussing new housing projects that are going to bring down the
cost of living, a lot of times neighbors will show
up and oppose these new
development and the
planning commission will deny the, the
moving forward of the, the development. Right?
It's because nobody shows up and speaks in favor of
that thing. Right? So please show up and speak in
favor of what is good. Because if it's a room full of people
who are speaking in in favor of things that
aren't great, the, the board
and the people making the decisions are going to think that that's the only,
only the only opinion that's out there. So
please be present. Make sure that your perspective is
in front of people and that you're
seen. Because otherwise the decisions will ignore you and
steamroll you. Make sure you're seen. You don't even have to
run for office to do that.
>> Bryan Schott: He is Jackson Lewis. He is a newly elected member of
the Canyon school board. He is the youngest elected
official in Utah history as far as I can tell. And I've
looked, Jackson, this has been, been an absolute
delight. Thank you so much for your time.
>> Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
>> Bryan Schott: It's no secret that the Utah Legislature has
become increasingly hostile to the media in
recent years. A couple of years ago, they banned
reporters and cameras from the House and Senate chambers. You had
to stay up in the gallery. You couldn't be in the hallway.
they put restrictions on where we could stand and
sit during committee hearings, which is just an
attempt to control the narrative of what happens
in the legislature and by banning us
from some of those areas. It also insulates and
protects lawmakers from
facing questions from journalists outside of
approved settings or tightly controlled
settings. And this week, it went one step further as the
legislature refused to give me a credential
to cover the 2025
legislative session. I've covered the legislature
for 25 years. My first year on the Hill was
1999. I've been there every single year.
I've been given a credential every year since they
started the program. But this year they
said they were not going to give me a credential. And I'm going
to explain what they said and why. It feels
like this was targeted
specifically at me, and it's possibly
retribution for me writing critical
stories about the current leadership up on the
Hill. The process for getting a press badge is usually
a formality. Applicants have to pass a
background check by the Highway Patrol, and
then you have someone in the Utah House or Senate sign off on the
application. I trekked up to Capitol Hill on Tuesday
to go through the process. That was the first day they were
issuing press badges. I easily passed
the background check. It showed there were no open warrants. I
had no criminal activity. So I took that form
to Alexa Musselman, who is the
communications director for the House.
Usually it's a five second process where
they take the form, they initial it and send you on your
way. But she told me that because
Utah Political Watch was a new organization,
giving me a press credential was going to require a little
more scrutiny. She told me that they had to look my
application over for a bit and she had to touch
base with other people. Now, that's
very unusual. I've never heard of that happening before.
Usually if you're with a legitimate media outlet, they
just sign your form and that's that.
But I expected this to happen, and I'll explain why in a
second. I asked her if they applied the same
level of scrutiny to Utah News
Dispatch, which is an outlet that just started
publishing at the end of 2023. 3. they
do some great work. I really enjoy reading their stuff. They've got
Some good reporters over there. Now, Utah News
Dispatch only started publishing in
late November of 2023. That was about a M month
before the 2024 session. And they got,
by my count, at least four credentials issued to
them. I asked if there was the same hesitancy to issue
them a press credential, and Muscleman just said,
we did have some conversations with them and that was it.
I asked her how long it was going to take to talk it over. She said
about an hour. So I told her that I would wait because I got the
feeling that they wanted me to go away and then they were going to
tell me later. And after about 90 minutes of sitting
outside the office, I finally get an email
that said, we're not going to give you a media credential.
The reason given was Utah Capital Media
credentials are currently not issued to blogs,
independent or other freelance
journalists. I can't say I was surprised that
this happened because I noticed
that the policy for approving these
credentials, the policy surrounding credentials, was
quietly revised late last
month. And that revision came after
I had reached out about
adding Utah Political Watch to their press
release distribution list and the process
for applying for a 2025 press bill
badge. I sent that email on November 5th,
and when I downloaded the revised
policy surrounding media credentials, the
metadata said that the document was created on November
24. I have asked them for a copy of
the previous policy. They have not
responded. I asked them to define
blog or independent media. They've also
ignored those emails, which is pretty
typical. I have to tell you, I've never heard
of an organization that actually does
journalism being denied a press credential
before. And I have a sneaky suspicion that this
denial is retribution for
some critical stories I've written in the past and one that I wrote last
week that I told you about. A recent story I
wrote, was about some complaints filed
over Senate President Stewart Adams campaign
spending discussion disclosures. And when I published
that, Andrea Peterson, who is
the deputy chief of staff in the
Utah Senate, she went ballistic. She
started texting me, demanding changes to the
story, attacking my journalistic
ethics. One text from her said, quote, as someone
who claims to be a journalist, it's disappointing to
see such a lack of professionalism. Your
story is not only misleading, it's factually
inaccurate. There was a factual inaccuracy,
but it wasn't my story, it was Peterson's text.
Because as I told you last week, I asked for
emails between President Adams and the
Lieutenant Governor's office over his
campaign finance filings because he Made a social
media post that was very insulting towards me, attacking my
integrity, attacking my journalism, claiming that
my story was misleading and claiming that he
was told that his filing was
a okay. And that, like the texts
I got from Peterson, just wasn't the
truth. And it's really
hard not to look at that reaction
to my story and some of the other
reactions I've gotten throughout the years. Criticism I've gotten throughout
the years from members of the
staff in both the House and the Senate and from
legislative leaders themselves. It's really
hard not to think that this denial of my press
credential was not
retaliation for that reporting
that I've done in the past. I have
appealed and I've posted the text of that appeal to my social
media channels. And if you want to go read it, you can head over
there. But in short, I basically
explained that I've been a working journalist
reporting on the legislation for 25 years.
I've been credentialed every year since they put this
into place. I, have a large
audience for my work. That does not
depend on who I work for, which seems
to be the criteria for denying my credential
because they said independent media is not
eligible, which means that the only people who are
eligible to get one of these work for
KSL or the Salt Lake Tribune or Deseret
News or whatever, whatever. And anybody else is
just out of luck. I pointed out that
the journalism I do is relevant. It's
impactful. For instance, you may remember that
on election night, I had an interview
with Senator elect John Curtis shortly after he was
declared the winner of the election. And
another example of how relevant
my journalism is is President
Adams reaction to my story that I
published last week. If he wasn't paying
attention to it, if he didn't think that my journalism made
an impact, he would have ignored it. But no, he
posted several paragraphs on his social
media channels attacking me over this
story. I'm not optimistic that my appeal is
going to be given a fair shake, that I'm going to get a fair
hearing, because the people who are in charge of the
appeal are the same people who denied my republic request in
the first place. And they work for
the legislature, and so they're
hardly unbiased in this. So I have.
I have no confidence that they're going to grant my
appeal. And if they don't, I'll have to
consider other options. This whole thing just highlights the
danger of allowing the Utah legislature
to decide who is a legitimate journalist and
who is not a legitimate journalist for Years
I've been advocating to form a Capitol Hill press
association to create a level
of insulation between the
legislature and reporters. I think
that it is wholly appropriate for
journalists as a group
to say, these are the journalists who should
be credentialed for the session.
These are the journalists who should be given press passes.
And if you object to any of them, then you need to tell us why.
You need to explain why.
>> Bryan Schott: They do that in other states. Colorado has a very
robust press association. I know they have one in
Wisconsin and Iowa, and I think we should have one
here, because these are public officials.
They work for the people.
And when they're trying
to decide who can and
cannot report on them,
it just. You have to wonder what
they've got to hide. It just leaves a really
bad taste in my mouth. Denying me a press
credential does not mean that I can't cover the legislature.
but it does put some restrictions on the things that I'm allowed to
do.
I will not be able to attend any press conferences. President
Adams has a daily media availability,
which most of the time is useless because
nobody says anything. But it's good to be in the
room, to be able to ask questions and get people on the record. I won't be able
to go to that. House Speaker Mike Schultz,
he has press availabilities from time to time.
I will be shut out of those and not able to
attend. if they have a press briefing on a
bill or an initiative, I won't be able to
go to those. And so then all of a sudden, I am relying on
other media to get information that I should be able to
get myself in person. I'm not able
to attend Governor Spencer Cox's televised press
conference that's up at kued. It's supposed
to be every month, but it may be every other month. I
won't be able to attend that or other media
availabilities that are up at the Capitol because I
won't have a press credential. It severely limits
my access to information and
my access to elected officials and
keeps me from asking them questions,
which you gotta think is kind of
the reason why they denied me a press credential.
And you have to come to the conclusion that they're
afraid of me. They're afraid of the questions that I ask,
they're afraid of the stories that I
write, and they want to punish me and keep me
out. It's really hard to come up with any
other conclusion than that. So
I never thought I would become the most feared journalist in Utah.
But I guess I am. And I'm
gonna do my damnedest to live up to that.
And that does it for this week. No show next
week because of Christmas. I hope you all have a safe and
happy holiday. Remember to rate and review
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