January 17, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of Special Session:
- SCOTUS says no to Utah's land grab lawsuit.
- What's behind a proposal to break up Salt Lake County?
- Rep. Burgess Owens wants to let Donald Trump grab them by the canal.
- It's chemtrail time on Utah's Capitol Hill.
My guest this week is former Rep. Brian King, who announced this week he's running to become the Utah Democratic Party chair. We'll discuss his plan for revitalizing Utah's minority party.
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and drop a rating and review so others can join the fun. Sign up for my newsletter at Utah Political Watch, and maybe even become a paying subscriber to keep the good stuff coming.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Speaker A (00:00):
Come one, come all to a beautiful
show. It's gonna be awesome. Um, and some
other stuff,
some other musical stuff.
>> Bryan Schott (00:19):
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?
(00:41):
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
(01:03):
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,
(01:25):
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
(01:48):
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
(02:11):
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
(02:31):
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
(02:51):
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
(03:12):
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
(03:32):
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
(03:55):
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
(04:15):
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
(04:38):
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
(04:59):
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
(05:22):
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
(05:43):
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
(06:06):
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
(06:28):
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
(06:50):
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
(07:11):
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
2026
fiscal year. The plan emphasize increased
law enforcement presence, particularly in downtown
(07:32):
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.
(07:55):
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
(08:17):
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
(08:40):
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
(09:01):
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.
(09:25):
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
(09:47):
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
(10:10):
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
(10:30):
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
(10:50):
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,
(11:13):
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
(11:33):
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.
(11:56):
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
(12:16):
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
(12:37):
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
(12:58):
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,
(13:18):
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
(13:41):
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
(14:01):
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
(14:23):
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.
(14:46):
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.
(15:06):
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
(15:26):
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
(15:49):
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
(16:12):
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
(16:34):
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
(16:55):
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
(17:17):
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.
(17:39):
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
(18:02):
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
(18:24):
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
(18:47):
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
(19:07):
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
(19:29):
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
(19:49):
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
(20:11):
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
(20:33):
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
(20:53):
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
(21:14):
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
(21:37):
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
(21:59):
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
(22:21):
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
(22:42):
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
(23:02):
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
(23:24):
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
(23:47):
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
(24:07):
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
(24:30):
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
(24:52):
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
(25:13):
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 (25:28):
Thanks. Thanks, Ron. Good to be with you.
>> Bryan Schott (25:30):
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 (25:37):
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
(25:58):
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.
(26:20):
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
(26:43):
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.
(27:03):
So that's what we're doing.
>> Bryan Schott (27:04):
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,
(27:24):
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 (27:44):
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
(28:04):
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
(28:25):
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
(28:45):
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
(29:06):
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
(29:26):
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
(29:46):
branch.
>> Bryan Schott (29:49):
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.
(30:09):
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
(30:31):
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
(30:52):
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 (31:06):
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
(31:28):
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
(31:50):
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
(32:11):
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
(32:34):
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
(32:56):
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.
(33:16):
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
(33:36):
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
(33:56):
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
(34:17):
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
(34:37):
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
(34:57):
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 (35:07):
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
(35:29):
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 (35:40):
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
(36:00):
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
(36:22):
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
(36:43):
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
(37:05):
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
(37:25):
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,
(37:46):
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 (37:58):
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
(38:20):
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
(38:41):
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 (39:01):
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
(39:23):
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
(39:43):
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
(40:05):
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
(40:25):
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
(40:45):
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,
(41:07):
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
(41:28):
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
(41:48):
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
(42:10):
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 (42:20):
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 (42:28):
Thanks, Bryan. Take care.
>> Bryan Schott (42:31):
M.
And that will do it for this week's show. Thank you so
much for being a listener. Once again, a reminder,
if you feel so inclined,
please leave a rating and review on the
show wherever you get your podcast that
helps more people find the program and
(42:52):
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Send me those suggestions and I'll do my best to make that
(43:12):
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(43:35):
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That's at Utah Political Watch News. I
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will allow me to continue committing acts of
journalism. Special Session with Bryan Schott
(43:55):
is written and produced by me, Bryan
Schott. Thank you so much for
listening. We'll talk to you next week.
Come one, come all to a beautiful
show. It's gonna be awesome. Um, and some
other stuff,
some other musical stuff.
>> Bryan Schott (00:19):
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?
(00:41):
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
(01:03):
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,
(01:25):
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
(01:48):
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
(02:11):
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
(02:31):
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
(02:51):
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
(03:12):
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
(03:32):
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
(03:55):
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
(04:15):
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
(04:38):
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
(04:59):
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
(05:22):
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
(05:43):
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
(06:06):
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
(06:28):
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
(06:50):
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
(07:11):
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
2026
fiscal year. The plan emphasize increased
law enforcement presence, particularly in downtown
(07:32):
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.
(07:55):
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
(08:17):
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
(08:40):
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
(09:01):
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.
(09:25):
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
(09:47):
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
(10:10):
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
(10:30):
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
(10:50):
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,
(11:13):
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
(11:33):
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.
(11:56):
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
(12:16):
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
(12:37):
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
(12:58):
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,
(13:18):
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
(13:41):
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
(14:01):
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
(14:23):
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.
(14:46):
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.
(15:06):
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
(15:26):
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
(15:49):
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
(16:12):
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
(16:34):
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
(16:55):
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
(17:17):
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.
(17:39):
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
(18:02):
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
(18:24):
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
(18:47):
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
(19:07):
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
(19:29):
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
(19:49):
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
(20:11):
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
(20:33):
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
(20:53):
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
(21:14):
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
(21:37):
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
(21:59):
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
(22:21):
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
(22:42):
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
(23:02):
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
(23:24):
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
(23:47):
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
(24:07):
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
(24:30):
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
(24:52):
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
(25:13):
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 (25:28):
Thanks. Thanks, Ron. Good to be with you.
>> Bryan Schott (25:30):
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 (25:37):
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
(25:58):
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.
(26:20):
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
(26:43):
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.
(27:03):
So that's what we're doing.
>> Bryan Schott (27:04):
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,
(27:24):
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 (27:44):
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
(28:04):
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
(28:25):
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
(28:45):
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
(29:06):
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
(29:26):
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
(29:46):
branch.
>> Bryan Schott (29:49):
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.
(30:09):
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
(30:31):
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
(30:52):
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 (31:06):
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
(31:28):
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
(31:50):
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
(32:11):
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
(32:34):
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
(32:56):
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.
(33:16):
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
(33:36):
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
(33:56):
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
(34:17):
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
(34:37):
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
(34:57):
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 (35:07):
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
(35:29):
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 (35:40):
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
(36:00):
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
(36:22):
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
(36:43):
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
(37:05):
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
(37:25):
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,
(37:46):
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 (37:58):
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
(38:20):
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
(38:41):
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 (39:01):
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
(39:23):
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
(39:43):
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
(40:05):
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
(40:25):
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
(40:45):
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,
(41:07):
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
(41:28):
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
(41:48):
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
(42:10):
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 (42:20):
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 (42:28):
Thanks, Bryan. Take care.
>> Bryan Schott (42:31):
M.
And that will do it for this week's show. Thank you so
much for being a listener. Once again, a reminder,
if you feel so inclined,
please leave a rating and review on the
show wherever you get your podcast that
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(42:52):
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(43:12):
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(43:55):
is written and produced by me, Bryan
Schott. Thank you so much for
listening. We'll talk to you next week.
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