Special Session with Bryan Schott

>> Speaker A: Come one, come all to a beautiful

show. It's gonna be awesome. Um, and some

other stuff,

some other musical stuff.

>> Bryan Schott: This is special session for the week ending Friday,

January 17, 2025. I'm your host,

Bryan Schott, managing editor of Utah

Political Watch. On this week's program,

the Supreme Court Turn Utah's land

grab Lawsuit Salt Lake City unveils a plan

to tackle homelessness. What's behind a proposal to break

up Salt Lake County? Is it government efficiency?

Or could it be politics? Representative

Burgess Owens wants to let Donald Trump grab

them by the canal and get out your

conspiracy theory bingo cards. It's

chemtrail time on Utah's Capitol

Hill. This week's interview is former Democratic

Representative Bryan King, who announced this week he's

running to become the new chair of the Utah Democratic

Party. Right now, Utahns aren't buying what Democrats

are selling. What's it going to take for that to change?

We'll hear King's plan for revitalizing the

Utah Democratic Party. If you haven't yet, you can sign

up for my newsletter for free at Utah

PoliticalWatch News. Or if you want to support my

work covering Utah politics, you can become a paying subscriber

for as little as $5 a month. If you do that well,

you'll have my gratitude and you'll make more podcasts

like this possible. Now that all that's out of the way,

let's get to this week's

But But but we're

sovereign. You could almost hear

that cry coming from

the legislature and the governor this week when

on Monday morning, the Supreme Court of

the United States denied or declined

to take up Utah's case, trying to

seize control of about 18 and a half million

acres of federal land in the

state. They were trying to wrestle vast

stretches of public wildern from federal

control last, uh, year. In August, the

state went directly to the Supreme Court asking

the justices to take up their claim that

it's unconstitutional for the federal government to maintain

ownership of these lands without

designating what it should be used for. Right now,

the Bureau of Land Management manages that

land. Utah argued that it's better

to let the state manage these lands inside

its borders instead of that control coming

from Washington, D.C. critics were

saying, well, this is just a land grab by the state

and they want to sell off the lands for development

instead of keeping them available for everyone. But on

Monday, Utah's motion or request that

the Supreme Court take up this case was

declined without comment. The ruling says

nothing about the merits of Utah's case.

Utah can go to a lower court and try to

send this through the process. What the state was trying to do

is they were trying to jump the line. They were

trying to avoid the

long litigation process where they would have had to go to federal

court and make arguments and then appeal on up the

chain. They were trying to go directly to the Supreme Court

because there was clearly a calculation

that this Supreme Court, this conservative Supreme Court with

a 6:3 conservative majority, would be much more

open to their arguments. We'd

much more open to their case. Not at

all. That's not what happened. So now Utah, if

they want to pursue this, and they're probably going to pursue this now, they have to

go through the longer process of the courts.

That could take years. The state was

trying to invoke what they call

original jurisdiction. And that's where states

are able to ask the court to take up a

matter as a first instance. For instance, if

you would have states arguing about

a border or a body of water or a

river, who has control over that? States can go

directly to the Supreme Court and say, hey, you

need to arbitrate this. That's not what was happening here. At least the

supreme court did not buy that argument saying that this would

be original, ah, jurisdiction case.

And so now the state has to go through

the whole process. The state

spent about a million dollars so far

on a public relations campaign. I'm

sure you've seen the ads where they were

trying to convince people that their case

should be heard or the justices should decide in

their favor. They've spent hundreds of thousand dollars, almost a million dollars on

this so far. They've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on outside

lawyers as well. The legisl $5 million

towards this a couple of years ago. And they

were, uh, targeting these ads not only here

in the state, but they were putting them on podcasts. They were

micro targeting people in Washington D.C. there's

some really great reporting, um, on this over at Utah

News Dispatch. You should check them out. Some

really good reporting by Kyle Dunphy over there. He got

ahold of the receipts and they break it down in great detail.

But the state was putting a lot of money behind this

effort, thinking they could influence the supreme Court to take up

this case. And now that. So that's

money that, you know, you have to wonder what the

return on investment

is in this. If Utah decides

to pursue this through the regular court

process, one of the hurdles they're going to have to go through

is that the

legislation admitting Utah

as a state, the legislation passed by

Congress and the state's constitution

makes it clear that Utah has

no legal claim on

those lands inside its border owned by the

federal government. So the state is going to have to

somehow argue that these

two pieces of legislation which explicitly say

that Utah has no claim to these

lands, that that should be ignored. You would

think that that plain language would be enough to

dissuade the state. So Utah is clearly going to have

to cross that hurdle. But

again, we've seen courts and the

Supreme Court ignore precedent. We've

seen them ignore the plain language of

laws or statutes to reach a

foregone conclusion. And this is an argument that Utah is going to have

to make. If they go back through the regular court

process, which is probably

what's going to happen. It's going to take just a lot longer

than Utah thought it was going to be because

they thought that they were going to be able to skip the line. And

the Supreme Court said no.

Salt Lake City Mayor Aaron Mendenhall unveiled

a comprehensive public safety

plan earlier this week to address the

growing homelessness crisis and public

safety concerns in Utah's capital. The

mayor's offering city property for a

temporary 1000 bed homeless shelter

campus while the state comes up with a permanent

SOL Uh, this is supposed to

help address a critical shortage

of space to house homeless people that

sometimes reaches 1600 beds. The

city's also pledging to invest $5 million

into affordable housing for the

fiscal year. The plan emphasize increased

law enforcement presence, particularly in downtown

areas along the Jordan River Trail and in the

Ballpark neighborhood. There's also a new community

impact division that's going to be launched that's part of this

plan along specialized team targeting

gang activity and drug trafficking.

Overall, crime in Salt Lake City has dropped by about

5% in 2024, but

homelessness has become a rather acute problem.

It's risen dramatically. It's up 9%

since 2022 and almost 40%

since 2019. State leaders,

Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President Stuart

Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz

responded positively to this proposal. This came out of some

criticism that they had warned

Salt Lake City to fix the problem or face

state intervention. Although they did look at the

proposal positively, they have said that

the execution is going to be the

crucial portion of this, and so they're going to be paying attention to

that. The plan will face its first test,

uh, once the legislature gavels into

session next week because the

implementation timelines go over

several years and there's some things that happen

immediately and there's some long term parts of the plan,

uh, some long term reforms, and we'll

see how much money the legislature decides to put towards the

problem once they get underway next week.

But this is at least, this is the start

of something. Uh, lawmakers have

specifically complained about

how Salt Lake City is managing its

homeless problem, addressing the homeless

solution, and Mayor

Mendenhall submitted this plan to them

this week. So it looks like it's a good start. But again,

the proof is going to be in the pudding and it's all going

to come down to the execution.

Nothing says smaller government like creating

more government. A Republican

legislator is floating an idea

to possibly split up Salt Lake county when it

hits 1 million people. State representative Jordan

Tusher has proposed legislation

that would allow residents in a

county to file a petition and put it on the

ballot to split up counties with

a population of over 1 million people.

Right now, that, uh, would only affect Salt

Lake county, although Utah county could

qualify sometime in the future if, uh, the

state continues to grow like it's expected to. Now

Tusher is saying that his proposal

is not about political divisions. He

just wants to make government more efficient and

more accountable. You know, because Salt Lake county

has a multi billion dollar budget

and would a smaller county

do a better job serving its residents?

Who knows? But you cannot ignore the fact that

Salt Lake county, which would again be the only county

affected by this bill, is

a Democratic stronghold. If you

look at what happened in the 2024

election, a majority of the county wide

races in Salt Lake county

were won by Democrats. It's been

forever since the county mayor has been

a republic. It was Nancy Workman who was

the last Republican mayor of the

county. It's, uh, a very difficult place

for Republicans to win, even though they

do fairly well in legislative races. But you can't

ignore the effect of gerrymandering on that.

There are no Democrats in the legislature outside

of Salt Lake county. And given all of that,

you cannot ignore that Salt Lake county

being a Democratic stronghold. It's one of only three

counties in the state where Kamala Harris

carried the county, you, you can't

ignore the fact that it would be

right now the only county impacted

by this piece of legislation. So look at

it through that lens. Even though Representative

Tusher says this is about government efficiency, this

is about becoming more responsive to the needs of

the people. Well, sure, but an added

benefit would be that it would break up the

political power of Salt Lake county, however

small that might.

After some hemming and hawing, Senator John

Curtis said this week that he would

vote to confirm Pete Hegseth,

as the Secretary of Defense. Uh,

earlier this week, he was asked before he had

made up his mind, and it was during a live event with

Politico in which he said that he's

trying to get more information about

Hegseth and former Representative

Tulsi Gabbard, whom Donald Trump has

nominated as Director of

National Intelligence. The day after he

said that he was looking for more information, Curtis came out

with a statement saying that he

would vote to confirm

Hegseth. In that statement, Curtis

made reference, at least

obliquely, to some of the

allegations of heavy

drinking, sexual assault,

misogyny, and other controversies that have

swirled around Heg. Seth, he said,

quote, while there are actions from his past that give me

pause, I, uh, carefully weighed these concerns against

his qualifications, leadership style, and commitment

to bolstering the world's most respected military.

I'm confident Mr. Hegseth shares my

vision of ensuring our armed services are prepared to

meet the evolving challenges of the 21st

century. Now, I know a lot of people, uh,

especially on the left, are

disappointed with Curtis's comments. And

I said the same thing about former Senator

Mitt Romney that I've said about Senator

Curtis. He is a moderate Republican,

and you cannot be surprised when he

votes like a Republican, says things like

a Republican. It only sets you up for disappointment

when you try to map your beliefs

onto Republicans just because they seem

like a moderate. When Mitt Romney voted

to remove Donald Trump from office in

his first and second impeachment

trials, that was a very brave

vote that Romney took, but it didn't signal

that he was headed to the barricades, that he was

leading the resistance. Romney is a

traditional Republican, always has been a traditional

Republican, and he voted with Trump

the majority of the time. Curtis is going to

do the same thing. Curtis is much more

moderate than Senator Mike Lee is.

Mike Lee is more of an ideologue, and Curtis

is a moderate, and that's going to help Curtis be

able to get things done in Congress. Lee,

for his bombast, really cannot accomplish

anything in Congress other than

complaining. So, again, do not

be surprised when Curtis, who

is a Republican, acts like a Republican. If you

do that, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

So really, it's not surprising that Curtis is

supporting Pete Hagseth because

he's a Republican senator. You can be

disappointed, you can be

shocked that he's supporting him, given

what we know about Hegseth was qualifications,

his background, those are all legitimate things.

But to think that he's ideologically

aligned with you just because he seems like a

moderate. Especially if you are a Democrat or

a liberal, you're just setting yourself up for

disappointment.

Sticking with Congress Utah

Representative Republican Representative Burgess

Owens has signed on to

a pair of bills that

further Donald Trump stated goals

of getting control of the Panama Canal

and Greenland. He has signed on as a co

sponsor of HR2.83, which is dubbed

the Panama Canal Repurchase act of

2025. And then he's also signed

on as a co sponsor of HR361,

which authorizes the President to

seek to enter in negotiations with the Kingdom of

Denmark to secure the acquisition of

Greenland. To paraphrase Donald Trump

and his strategy about this, when you're

a star, they let you do it. You can grab them by

the peninsula or the canal

or whatever. This is

sort of a perplexing thing that Trump has latched

onto. He sent Don Jr.

His son to Greenland,

and you can read a great story in the

Wall Street Journal about how that trip was

bizarre. And apparently there was a

picture of a bunch of people weari Make America Great again

hats in Greenland. And it's come out that

all Don Jr. And Charlie Kirk did is round up a

bunch of unhoused people in Greenland,

offered them a meal and made them put on the hat so they could take the picture

anyway. It's just a really bizarre thing.

But Representative Burgess Owens is all in

on these efforts. Now, while it's easy to

dismiss this, Trump has repeatedly talked

about regaining U.S. control of the Panama Canal,

Greenland, possibly Canada. In a recent press

conference, he refused refused to rule out using

military force against Panama or

Greenland in pursuit of those goals.

When people say take Trump

literally but not seriously, or seriously but

not literally, I wouldn't be

surprised if this is actually more of an

effort than just something that Trump

is musing about. And you've got

Representative Burgess Owens fully in his

corner on both of these. Don't know about the

military action to take over

either Panama Canal or Greenland.

Owens office hasn't responded to me, which is pretty

typical. But at least he signaled that

he's on board with this. He's the only members

of Utah's congressional delegation who have signed on

to these so far.

I really should have started a pool about

which conspiracy theory was going to

sponsor legislation during the upcoming

2025 session. First, my money

was on vaccines because

Representative Trevor Lee has a bill about vaccines.

And the newest member of the legislature, Representative

Christian Chevrier, who is taking the

place of Brady Brammer in the House because Brammer

is moving up to the Senate to Take the place of

former Senator Kennedy, who's now in Congress.

Cheverer has been a longtime anti

vaccine advocate and from what I

understand, she's got some pretty kooky legislation

about vaccines coming. But I didn't

not see legislation about

chemtrails coming up. The conspiracy

theories about chemtrails have been around for a long

time. When jets are flying overhead, they

will sometimes leave trails

of water vapor from their engines.

And there has been a long standing conspiracy

theory that those plumes of water

vapor are actually toxic chemicals that

planes are secretly spraying into the sky for

any number of nefarious reasons. It could be

popular, it could be mood control,

whatever. Anyway, it has been a conspiracy theory for a long time.

Well, Senator Ronald Winterton of Roosevelt,

Republican, on Thursday introduced

SB126 and that

blocks, quote, the release of chemicals or

substances from an aircraft used in

weather geoengineering. Now, that bill does

not mention chemtrails, but Winterton told me, yeah,

I'm talking about chemtrails here. And again,

that is a conspiracy theory that water

vapor that's coming from these jet planes is actually

toxic chemicals or biological agents

being sprayed into the atmosphere. What he told me in a text

message is he said vapor trails are different from

chemtrails and that's what we're targeting. And

then he went on to say, on days you have blue skies,

especially away from the cities, it's very

evident what is going on. So he's talking

about airplanes that are flying overhead

and you see those trails of water

vapor. He thinks that those could be

chemicals being sprayed into the air. And he wants

to stop that. He wants to stop them from

geoengineering. And that is an

experimental process. It's mostly a

theory right now where scientists have

theorized that if you were to do things

like spray sulfur particles into the air

that could cool the planet by reflecting

sunlight, it's, uh, things to mitigate the effects of climate

change. Well, Winterton is like, uh, uh, absolutely not.

We do not want to do that at all. Because while you could

be saying that you're trying to impact the weather, we all

know what's happening. I'm paraphrasing here and I'm. He didn't exactly

say that. But you have to wonder what his thought process is

behind this when he's talking specifically

about chemtrails. Because this is a conspiracy

theory and it is shaping legislation

in Utah. Uh, his legislation makes it a third

degree felony to disperse these chemicals for,

quote, solar radiation management or

weather modification over Utah, but it does make,

uh, an exception for cloud seeding. Uh, and this is

weird because when you look at the LA wildfires,

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that

it's possible to use weather m manipulation to

make it rain. So which is it? Is it good or is it

bad to put these chemicals in the

air for weather control? Which

is not a thing anyway. This is a bill that's going to be

introduced during the 2025

session. And just so you understand, it's Genesis. Genesis

is a conspiracy theory that's been

around for decades.

This news item might be a little

bittersweet for some of you. I know it is for me because

it might be the last time, at least for a little while, that we have to

talk about former Representative Phil Lyman. On

Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up Lyman's

appeal that he hopes somehow would throw

Governor Spencer Cox out of office and force

a new election. And this

effectively ends Lyman's months

long campaign to

invalidate Governor Spencer Cox's

primary victory, uh, and force a new

election with him as the Republican nominee.

Lyman is really having trouble getting over

that primary election loss

to Cox. In that filing, which

was an appeal of a decision

by the Utah Supreme Court, he argued that

the Republican Party's internal rule rules should

somehow override state election laws. He's

specifically targeting SB 54, that law

that created the dual track system in Utah

that allows candidates to get signatures to qualify

for the primary ballot rather than just going through the

caucus and convention system. He claims

that the law violates the First Amendment right of

political parties to choose political nominees. He won

at convention. He won more than 60% of the

vote at convention. And under Republican Party rules,

he is the nominee of the party. But

state rules, which have been

upheld by the Supreme Court

repeatedly say that there is another

path to the ballot. And when they got to the primary

election, Lyman was defeated by

Cox. Cox won by about 9 percentage

points. After that primary defeat, Lyman

launched a write in campaign. He got about

13% of the vote in November's

election. And you'll hear his supporters say things

like, well, he's got the most write in votes of any

candidate in history. Yeah, he also

finished third. He finished third behind Bryan King,

the Democratic nominee. He finished in third place.

So it doesn't matter how many votes you got or it's

the most successful write in campaign in history,

he didn't win. You really can't claim that a write in

campaign is successful unless you win. And he didn't

win. He only got about 13% of the vote. I went through the

campaign finance disclosure. The year end

reports were issued this week and Lyman spent more than $2

million on his primary and write in

efforts, which is a lot of money and not a lot

to show for it. So maybe this is

the end of Phil Lyman's efforts to become

the governor of Utah, at least until the

2028 election. Or maybe not. I listened in

on a podcast he did, and there's

apparently a nascent effort afoot among

his supporters to

ask the legislature to impeach

Governor Spencer Cox. Calling on

Republican legislators for

reasons apparently you and I both know

that that's not going anywhere. Apparently keep hope

alive for Phil Lyman and his supporters,

but that's probably gonna get harder and harder and

harder because he just keeps losing.

And right now on the show, we are joined

by a former representative, Bryan King, Democrat

of Salt Lake City. He announced on Wednesday that

he is going to be running for chair

of the Utah Democratic Party. Bryan, it's

nice to have you on, on board and nice to have a chance to chat with you.

>> Speaker A: Thanks. Thanks, Ron. Good to be with you.

>> Bryan Schott: Talk about why you want to be the head of the

Democratic Party in the state. That's kind of a

thankless job.

>> Speaker A: That's the phrase, that's the word that comes up a lot when

I talk to people about it. But, and you know, it's a difficult

job is what that word means when people say it.

And, and it is because you're, you're talking about

trying to juggle different interests within the party,

pressure from outside the party, all sorts of things. But

from my perspective, what we're looking at here

is great opportunity for growth

and great opportunity to move the party forward in

Utah. We've got changing demographics in

Utah. We're the youngest state, we're the fastest

growing state. Uh, several studies

have come out saying that Utah is one of the

states in the country that moved furthest to

the, in the blue direction compared to other states.

I mean, Washington, the state of Washington was up there and

we were like number two in terms of how we

moved. Uh, we resisted the red tide

of Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

So I think that, you know, we've got a lot of factions

within the majority party right now that I think make it

promising for us to gain ground as

Democrats. And look, it's

discouraging at times to be a Democrat, especially in parts of Utah

that are so overwhelming, overwhelmingly red outside Salt

Lake County. But there's no good option,

there's no good alternative to uh,

putting your, your spurs on and saddling up

and trying to make sure that you accomplish something

good for uh, Utahs that reflect Utah values.

So that's what we're doing.

>> Bryan Schott: I've always sort of

squinted, uh, when people say that

bring up the stat that Utah has shifted the most

blue. Um, I think that that's kind of a misleading stat

because you're looking at going from, from

the vote for Mitt Romney who was a

favorite son of the state for, for, for president,

to Donald Trump who did not get a

majority the first time he ran, uh, barely

got over 50% the second time he ran. I mean

he's not incredibly popular. So don't, don't

you think that that's a little bit of a misleading stat? Because

it seems to me like, you know, you're basing it on

one of these things is not like, like the other.

>> Speaker A: Well, it depends on the stat that you look at. But this most

recent one that was um, done by Steve

Kacki and, and others shows

that Steve Koraki is the one who I think

is most, uh, you're most likely to see that

kind of concern that you just raised levied at. But there

are other stats that show compared to other states

in the country, we were uh, resisting

the red tide, the red wave to the greatest, to a greater extent

than just about any other state in this last election, election. And the

fact is we are the fastest growing and we are the

youngest state in the country and we uh, I think

have great opportunities to move in the right direction here. We're

not going to see the legislature turn over in 2026 and

be Democratic. This is incremental, this

is uh, movement that we have to see and that we

have to work to, to gain. Uh,

and as I said, there's really not a good alternative. You know,

we've got four years of Donald Trump coming coming up. And one of the

reasons I threw my hat in for this race is I couldn't

stand the idea of sitting on the sidelines and

not having an opportunity to raise concerns to

Utah to articulate why uh,

Donald Trump and the things that he's talking about and his

followers in Utah who are in leadership positions, whether

it's the President of the Senate or the speaker of the House

or the governor, why those are not reflecting

Utah values. And I think there are very good

arguments to be made, made as to why Utah is

better than the nonsense and the lies that are being

peddled by uh, some of the

far right extremists in the Republican Party these

days, including the President elect. So you

know, the stuff that happens at the national level filters

down to things in the state. I don't think there's any question

about that. And I just want to make sure that the state

Democratic Party in Utah has a strong

voice, uh, in contrast to the kinds

of things that we're going to be hearing over the next two and four years,

uh, from the national Republican Party. And that will filter down

inevitably, uh, as I say, to the leaders of the state

Republican Party in the legislature and in the executive

branch.

>> Bryan Schott: Clearly it's a long term,

you have to play the long game in order to

get Democrats to become more competitive in

the state. Right now Utahns are not

buying what you're selling and there are some factors,

I mean there's some gerrymandering involved in that. Um,

but if you look at the statewide elections in a row, I did the math.

Um, Republicans have won 54 statewide

elections in a row since Jan

Graham won attorney general in

1992. That's the last time Democrats won

a statewide race. Um,

they really haven't even come close in any of

those. So what is it going to take,

uh, in the short term and uh, in

order to you know, become more competitive

in these elections to get more Utahns at least even

open to voting for Dem Democrats. Uh,

that's a short term goal. And how do you get your

party to start focusing on the long game? Because

I often look at what happened in Florida. The Republican

Party there was an afterthought for a long time but

they embarked on a long term plan, plan

to make the Republican Party there more competitive. And

now the Republican Party in Florida is dom,

dom dominant and the Democratic Party is

almost non, non existent there.

>> Speaker A: Yeah, no, you, it's a real challenge. And one of

the things that Democrats are talking about on a federal level,

national level is the same kind of questions that you're

raising. Of course the national Democrats are

not, uh, have, don't have the same uh,

track record of being living in a super

majority conservative, uh, Republican environment

in the same way that we do in Utah. But I'll tell you there

are some things that we can and that we need to do.

Uh, because sitting on the sidelines and throwing our hands up

and just quitting and saying well there's nothing we can do, that's never a

good option. And I don't think it's a Utah

option that the people of the state want to see

or you know, they want to see a healthy two party system.

We don't have that in Utah. Right. Right now we have one party

control. We have a monopoly. And we've got to do a

better job of making sure that there's competition between these

two parties because competition and the

uh, the fact that competition will bring to the

fore and to the best ideas will arise

out of that competition to benefit Utahns. That's critically

important for people. You're not going to get that competition until

and unless you have really good Democrats standing up

and saying, hey, I have an idea idea. And it's better than the

ideas that the Republicans are peddling right now.

So we're going to develop a 5 and a 10 and

a 15 year strategic plan to break

control of the Republican Party or

the Republican super majority that is in the legislature

and in the uh, other statewide offices. We're

going to run everywhere. We're going to have Democrats

running in every legislative district that we can. Of course

you're not going to be 100% successful on that

necessarily, but I think there's a lot of room for improvement. Improvement.

We're going to be

unapologetically progressive in our thinking,

in our stances, in our articulation of

values. Because one of the things that Utahns are

irritated about is today's Republican Party

simply does not reflect the values that

our fathers and grandfathers who were Republicans,

uh, stood for. They, they don't stand for

integrity. They don't stand for basing their

policy decision on facts and science. They don't

stand on a respect for individual rights and liberty and free

freedom. They, uh, don't trust families.

They don't value education. I mean, these are

things that Republicans in the past have always stood

for. And you know, we could disagree about the

details, but there's so much right now that Republicans

have walked away from that are basic core values,

not just of the Democrats, but of the Republicans

themselves. And I think, uh, Utahns are

beginning to recognize that. Um, so

there's a lot we can do that you've mentioned redistricting.

This is a critically important and promising thing because

I think what we're going to see is a, uh,

need to redistrict to come up with new congressional

maps by the legislature. That's still being played out in the

courts and in the legislature. But in 26, or at the

very latest in 28, we're going to see maps that

reflect, uh, the ability of Democrat, at

least one Democrat, maybe two, to get elected in the state of

Utah in a way that the gerrymandered maps in the past have not allowed.

Allowed for. We're working to see the same thing

happen with regard to state house and state senate

maps. So that has the

prospect of really breaking the hold that the

gerrymandered, uh, redistricted maps in the legislature

have right now in a way that allows uh, us to

move forward to break super majority control. So

it's the right time for uh,

a leader of the Democratic party to step up and

take advantage of these opportunities that exist

now. I, ah, personally don't think that Utah

is going to do particularly well over the next four years

with Donald Trump. I think that's just a function of his

poor policymaking. And I mean you look at who he's putting

in his cabinet and my goodness, well, those are

not quality individuals who are likely to lead us in the right direction

as a country. And I'm concerned about that for

Utah. Uh, and so, you know,

I want us to do well as a state and as a country. But

again this comes down to opportunities for growth and I

think we've got that right now.

>> Bryan Schott: What lessons from your

2024 gubernatorial run

can you put forward to helping the

party, helping the Democratic party become

more competitive? What things did you

learn during that run that

you can apply to this job and say these are some of the

things that we need to do in order

to, I, um, guess open hearts

and minds here in the state to at least listening to

your message. Because with a lot of voters. Right. It's

just a straight no, no go.

>> Speaker A: Yeah, no, thank you for the question. It's a great

one. We love traveling around the state,

uh, and visiting with people across Utah,

rural, suburban, urban areas,

Salt Lake county, every place from Washington county up to

Cache county, uh, from San Juan county

to Box Elder. I mean it was just a lot of fun and

listening to people. You recognize they're looking

for their elected officials, officials to do things that

will positively impact their day to day lives.

They're not interested in the culture wars, they're not

interested in DEI or in

transgender, uh, issues because they

recognize those are culture wedge issues that are

just designed to push hot buttons and

make people uh, angry or afraid or

uh, they're used to divide us. They looked

at us on the campaign and said, what are you going to do to

address, Help me address the problems in my day to day

life. Help uh, me afford to get

into a home. I mean affordable housing is a huge

issue. Um, so the bottom line

is I want to address as party chair the

kinds of things that Utahns are most concerned about and to make

sure that the candidates that we have running for office here in

Utah's Democrats are articulating that

message in a way that rec that helps people recognize.

Voting for Democrats is the way that's most likely likely

to result in uh,

achieving gains in the areas

of individuals lives in Utah that really matter to them, whether

it's helping save their, for their child to go to

college or getting into a home or you uh, know, just

affording the groceries on a daily and um, weekly

and monthly basis. So that's the kind of thing that I think

Utahns want to hear and I think we need to, in a

compare and contrast way. As Democrats say

the Republicans are anxious to divide,

to uh, push a bunch of uh, hot

button issues that are designed to play on people's

fears and anxieties and uh, insecurities

and uh, anger and, and that's not what

Utah needs. And so, you

know, my hope is that Utahns respond to that,

um, that they respond to respect for freedom

and they respond to respect for families

and uh, that we're going to be doing something

other than just, just talk about things that divide

us.

>> Bryan Schott: This might be an unfair question, um, but

I'm wondering if you think that

the 2022 Senate race

in which the party decided not to field a candidate,

uh, in order to let independent Evan

McMillan run as an independent, uh, run with, with.

Without a Democratic opponent, um, from the

outside it feels like that really opened up a

rift inside the party. Um,

and, and as I look at it, it

feels like that has not healed and there's still a

lot of anger about it because it was a bold

gambit and it didn't work. Um, and people acknowledge

that it might not work, but it didn't work.

Um, is that something that if you become party

chair, is that a wound you're going to have to help

heal? Or do you think the party has starting to

move past that? Uh, because

again, from the outside it feels like that's something

that really drove a wedge between a number

of members of the party, at

least internally.

>> Speaker A: No, again, great question and

sure at the time there was a lot

of discussion, um, about whether this was

a good move. It was a strategic move. I

think the willingness to move

into an uh, independent Realm

with Evan McMullen and set aside a

great candidate that we had in the, in the person of

Cale Westin, who was a hardcore, you know,

Democrat. He was a Democrats Democrat. And

it was divisive within the party that left a lot of

hard feelings. I think that we have moved

past it in the sense that we're still sorting

out and trying to decide the extent to which

there's benefit in, uh, candidates

running, uh, in a, in a race

as something other than a Democrat or

conversely, running as an unapologetic

Democrat. I'm in the latter four. I'm in the latter

category. I am an unapologetic Democrat, and I always have

been. And it's in part because I don't think

you can get very far in Utah or any other state running as an

independent without some sort of party

structure to support you and help you.

And as well as the fact that I think

I do truly believe in the values

of today's Democratic Party. Utah Democrats are not

the same as national Democrats. There are differences, to be sure.

Sure. Um, and I think that what we want

to do is talk about those differences so that Utahns feel

that, you know, they have a relationship, they

have some resonance with Utah Democrats where

some national Democratic issues may alienate them a little

bit. But to answer your question, from

my perspective as party chair, we're going to see

a movement m away from the idea that there's

something toxic, uh, about the Democratic

brand and that we can't run as Democrats and winning Utah.

I don't believe that. I think Democrats in

Utah have had some great candidates in the past.

We've got Jenny Wilson as our county mayor doing a

fantastic job. We've had Ben McAdams in

Congress doing a tremendous job. And as the county

mayor himself, um, you know, Salt Lake county

has always valued and understood,

uh, how important Democrats are and their

platform is we need to spread that message outside Salt Lake

County. Of course, it's true in Summit county too, and in Grand

County. So Salt, uh, Lake county isn't the only blue

county in the state. In fact, it's not the most blue county in the

state. But it is something we need to get the

message that Democrats really do have

values that are more aligned with the values of

Utah's outside, you know, across the entire state. We need

to do a better job of messaging that and helping people understand

that's true and why it's true. And quite

honestly, Bryan, I think we're going to have an

easier time than people think doing that because you have

such blatant examples of abuse of power by

the super majority leaders. Right now you've got the

Senate president and the speaker of the House straight out

lying to Utahns when it comes to what it

means to amend, uh, the state

constitution and the Supreme Court of the state

saying, yeah, you deceived people. Guys, the way

you wrote Amendment date was deceptive

and I want people to hear about that and to understand

you can't trust the super majority

because we know power corrupts and

absolute power corrupts absolutely. And we see that

in spades here in Utah.

>> Bryan Schott: Bryan King he is a former representative in the

Utah Legislature. He's running for chair of

the Utah Democratic Party. Thank you so much for your time.

>> Speaker A: Thanks, Bryan. Take care.

>> Bryan Schott: M.

And that will do it for this week's show. Thank you so

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