February 16, 2025 • 35 mins
In this week's episode of Special Session:
- Unions busted
- More money and more limits for Utah's school voucher program
- Pride flags? No way. Nazi flags? A-okay!
- Burgess Owens - country music expert.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Bryan Schott (00:00):
Come one, come all to a beautiful
show. It's gonna be awesome. And some
other stuff,
some other musical stuff.
Welcome back to special session. I'm your host, Bryan
(00:22):
Schott, publisher and managing editor of
Utah Political Watch. On this week's
show, unions busted
more money and more limits for
Utah's school voucher program. The
Utah Bar association has some
concerns about a few bills,
pride flags, no Nazi
(00:44):
flags. A. Okay. And
Burgess Owens, country music
expert. If you want to keep up with what's
happening in Utah politics, take a minute and
sign up for my newsletter at Utah Political
Watch News News. It's free, but if you
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(01:06):
Dispatch, an evening newsletter that wraps
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only newsletters. Plus you'll be supporting independent
political journalism in Utah. Now that that's
out of the way, let's get to this week's news.
(01:29):
Governor Spencer Cox late Friday
signed HB 267 which strips public
employees in the state of their collective bargaining rights.
He signed that bill into law. So as it stands right
now, the unions, specifically the Utah
Education association, can no longer bargain on behalf
of its members. They didn't bargain on behalf of every teacher.
It was up to individual school districts as to whether they could
(01:52):
collectively bargain or not. But now there is a ban
statewide on that. Utah joins a handful of other states
that do not allow public employees to
collectively bargain. So what happens going
forward? Well, the bill did not pass with a veto
proof majority in both the House and the Senate. And not
only is that a, uh, not only does that mean that it was open
for a veto, but there is a possibility
(02:14):
that there could be a referendum where union
members and they've been talking about this getting together, gathering
enough signatures to put the bill on the
2026 ballot up for a public vote.
If, uh, a law does not pass with 2
3rd in either the house or the Senate,
you can launch a referendum. This has happened a couple of times in
(02:34):
the past. Back in 2007, the legislature passed
a public school vouchers program and
that one the Utah Education association
organized and got enough signatures to put it on the
ballot where it was defeated. Lawmakers
didn't try again to pass a voucher program
until they passed the Utah Fits all scholarship,
which is a voucher program a couple of years ago. And
(02:57):
we'll get to that in a second. And back in
2019 the legislature
passed a sweeping overhaul of the
tax system and they were going to add sales taxes to a
number of services. Right now you don't pay sales tax
on some services. They were going to add all services
into that. And that drew a lot of opposition from the
public. So opponents organized and
(03:19):
got a lot of help from the Harmon's grocery
chain who allowed them to collect signatures in the entrance to
the stores. And they were able to get enough signatures that
it would have gone to the ballot. But
lawmakers, the next time they met, repealed the law
before that chance because they didn't want to suffer defeat at
the ballot box. So there is a possibility of a referendum.
(03:39):
It's really hard to get one of those on the ballot.
Organizers will have just 40 days
from the day that the legislature ends
to collect more than 140,000
signatures statewide. And they also have to hit certain
signature requirements in a number of
Utah's counties. I think it's 15 of 29 counties.
They have to reach signature thresholds in order
(04:01):
to put it on the ballot. If they're able to do that, then
the goes on hold until the public can weigh
in at the ballot box. That's an extremely difficult
thing to do. But union, uh, members have, uh, been
talking about trying to put this up to a public
vote. Now, lawmakers will not admit
this, but this bill was a, was
(04:22):
retribution for some actions taken
by the Utah Education association last year.
First of all, they came out against Amendment
A, which would have changed the way that public
education is funded in the state right now. Income
taxes can only fund public education, higher
education and some social services. And
Amendment A would have opened up that constitutional
(04:44):
earmark to other parts of the budget. The UEA
opposed that, which angered lawmakers.
Eventually that amendment was put on hold because lawmakers
didn't notice it properly, as per the
constitution. They didn't publish it in a newspaper. And then
the teachers union also filed a lawsuit
challenging the vouchers program. The Utah fits
all scholarship, saying it's unconstitutional, saying it
(05:07):
takes public school money and gives
it to private schools. And lawmakers have never.
Their argument is that lawmakers have never fully
funded education as it is. Utah's in the bottom
three consistently for per
pupil spending. Among all of the states that are
behind states like Idaho and
Mississippi. Some people been talking about the unions going on strike,
(05:30):
and that's a possibility, but it would be extremely
rare. Teachers have only gone on strike twice in Utah,
and that was for a total of three days. Back in
1964, the Utah Education
association went on strike. It uh, was
statewide. It was one of the first statewide teacher strikes in
the United States. And that was part of a year long
dispute over school funding. Teachers were
(05:52):
leaving the state in droves because of low
salaries. Half of the teaching positions in the state
were being filled by people with little or no
qualifications. And school buildings were
in disrepair. Um, there were stories around the time
of one school building where the roof collapsed in while
the students were in class. And so at that time,
educators were refusing to sign contracts
(06:15):
for the next year. And the National Education
association came out and sanctioned
Utah's public education system. And that was
to keep teachers from moving here to take
jobs because the education system
was such a mess, at least from the way
that the teachers saw it during this crisis. The Utah
Education association, they voted to call for a
(06:37):
two day public school recess. They didn't call it for a
strike. They didn't call it a strike, but they called it a rece
because then governor George Clyde
refused to call for a special legislative session
to appropriate an additional $6 million for school
funding. Um, the Utah State Board of Education
was against the teacher walkout. But they did
(06:57):
walk out for two days. And that brought lawmakers
and the governor to the table.
And they made enough progress
that the teachers union a few months
later voted to resume contract
negotiations. The second time that there was a strike, a
statewide strike in the state, uh, was September of 1989,
and teachers walked out for one day. About
(07:20):
20,000 of the state's teachers walked out of school for
one day. And they were protesting the
legislature using a $38 million
budget surplus to pay for tax cuts rather than
putting the money towards education. What does that sound like?
M. That sounds familiar. You know, they say history
doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Um,
the one day walkout shut down most of the school districts in the
(07:43):
state. It affected more 450,000 students
in 800 schools. Norm Banger, who was governor at the
time, really angered the teachers union
because before the walkout he was quoted as saying that
when he gets upset, quote, I take two aspirin and
go to work. And that's what teachers should do. And there were
protests after that where teachers shook aspirin
(08:03):
bottles, uh, to mock Bangerter. The
background of that 1989 teacher strike is very
interesting. In 1987, Bangerter
successfully pushed lawmakers to
raise taxes by uh, 100,000 dol
$166 million to better fund
public education. And that prompted a
big backlash, though a number of anti
(08:24):
tax measures made it onto the ballot as
citizens initiatives. All of them lost by
a large margin in 1988. But Banger
came really close to losing his
reelection bid. It was a three way race between
him, Democrat Ted Wilson and independent Merrill
Cook. And Bangor got just over 40% of the vote. So it was really
(08:45):
close to not winning another term.
What happened was after that,
lawmakers went on a tax cutting spree and they started cutting
taxes and then they got this extra money and instead of putting it towards
education like the teachers wanted, they paid for a
tax cut. There was almost one other strike.
Uh, in 1990 teachers came very close
(09:05):
to a statewide strike, but they backed off after
lawmakers at the last minute approved
some increases for education funding
which included a thousand dollar pay raise for teachers and a
4% increase in per pupil funding.
So it' happened in Utah. It's very rare for teachers to go
on strike, but it's happened here in the
state. Recent, um, teacher strikes have been
(09:28):
pretty effective. There was a study of
nearly 800 teacher strikes between
2007 and 2023. And all of
those shows that they led to some significant gains
for educators. That's where we're at. So
teachers and police officers, firefighters,
other public employees no longer have the ability to
(09:48):
collectively bargain for contracts and
benef because Governor Spencer Cox signed
HB 267. Not sure what the path
forward is, but history shows that it's very
hard to get a referendum on the ballot. And teacher
strikes did send a message, but it's only happened
twice.
(10:09):
Speaking of, uh, the school vouchers program,
or excuse me, the Utah fits all scholarship
program, Representative Candace Perucci, who
was the sponsor of the original bill two years ago
when lawmakers passed it, she is looking to
now put some curbs or at least some
guardrails around the program after it's
been in effect for one year. What this program does
(10:32):
is it gives parents who want to take their kids
out of public school. It gives them
$8,000 per year, uh, that they
can put towards private school tuition, homeschooling
expenses, um, even some activities
like ski passes. Yeah, you can buy ski
passes currently under the Utah fits all
scholarship. That $8,000 that parents are given under the program,
(10:54):
that's almost twice as much as Utah spends
per pupil with the weighted pupil unit. That's
when you hear wpu. That means the per
pupil spending, that's almost twice as much as
Utah spends on kids who are in public school.
So uh, this was established in 2023. They
initially, uh, funded it at like $42
million. Last year they doubled that amount. Even though the
(11:17):
program hadn't been in effect yet, hadn't even started yet,
they doubled that to 82 million do. And, uh,
Perucci was asking for another
$80 million this year to
double the funding again. But last week,
the Public Education Appropriations subcommittee only
recommended $40 million of new funding. So
if that passes the funding, the total funding for the program would be
(11:40):
$122 million. But anyway, back to
Perrucci's bill,
HB455. Uh, and what this
does is it's sort of putting more guardrails
around the program. Right now it
is administer outside organization called the
alliance for Choice in Education. Ace. What
Peruzzi's bill does is it transfers oversight of
(12:01):
the program to a newly created position called
financial administrator. It's going to be part of the State Board
of Education's department of Operations, but it's going
to now be housed within the State Board of Education
rather than an autonomous organization.
Perrucci also wants to put some revisions on what
this money can be used on. Right
(12:21):
now, as I said, you can buy ski
passes. You can't buy a SE season pass. You can't buy a pass for
the whole season, but you can do like day passes.
And, uh, they were also allowing what are called
chaperone expenses. So if a parent wanted to
take their child skiing, they could buy the
child ski pass using these public
education funds and then pay for their own because they
(12:44):
were the chaperone. What Perrueci is trying to do is
she's changing that. No longer could you buy ski
passes or lift tickets or tickets
for entertainment events. And you cannot use
this money to pay for chaperone expenses. So if a parent wants
to go, they're on their own. Um, they're also going to put some limits on
how much of that money can go towards something.
(13:04):
Under, uh, Perucci's bill, only 20%
of the total scholarship amount could be put
towards extracurricular activities. And then there's another
category called physical education experiences. That means
like fitness centers, golf clubs, gymnastics, rock
climbing, you can only use another
20% of the funds for
that. And you can see all the things that are
(13:27):
currently permitted under the program. If you
go to the Utah Fits all scholarship program, I linked it in my
story at UtahPoliticalWatch News.
So with 20% of the scholarship money being
able to go towards extracurricular activities and another
20% towards physical education
experiences, that's $3,200 a year out
(13:47):
of the 8,000, uh, that
families get per child if they're approved for
the program that can go to those things. So that's
a lot of money, a lot of your tax money that's supposed to
go to public education. In fact, that 3002 is
just about $1,000 less
than what the state spends on
each student in public school. And that money
(14:10):
right now can go, uh, or at least under
Perruecci's bill, that money could go towards physical
education and, uh,
extracurricular activities. In the first year
of the program, about 27,000
people applied, but only about a third got
scholarships. And a significant number of those
(14:30):
went to people who are homeschooling their kids. So
your tax dollars at work, money that's supposed to go to public
education, going to homeschool students who don't want anything
to do with public education, but they're
happy to take your tax dollars
to support that. And there was a great story. Uh, Channel
two looked into it and they found that a number of the people who
(14:50):
applied didn't get the full $8,000. Anyway.
Uh, they only got a portion of that money.
Bottom line, they're asking for more money for this program that could boost
the funding up to $122
million per year.
40
million boost goes through. But they want to
dial back on what that money can be used
(15:11):
for because, you know, it's not a good look when they're taking
taxpayer money and paying for ski passes.
So I told you earlier about how the Republicans are mad at
the Utah Education association because of the
Amendment A and the lawsuit against the vouchers
(15:32):
program. Well, they're also mad at, at judges who had the
gall to rule against them in the
Amendment A case, the Amendment D case, the
gerrymandering case, which a judge
could rule on anytime. Judge also expected to
rule anytime on the suit against the, uh,
private school vouchers program. So there have been a
(15:52):
number of bills up on the Hill that take
specific aim at the judiciary. So earlier
this week, the Utah Bar association sent out letters to
their members asking them to contact
lawmakers about several pieces of
legislation that they say could be
unconstitutional because, quote, they undermine the
fundamental principle of the separation of powers. This
(16:13):
letter listed five bills. It was
SB203 and SB204. Both
of those are from Senator Brady Brammer.
SB203 limits who would have standing
to bring a lawsuit. The letter says this changes
the long standing common law principles of standing. And I've talked
about this bill before. What it does is
it says that, uh, someone can only sue
(16:36):
on behalf of another person,
uh, if that person is also harmed
by whatever law the legislature passed. And
it also says that associations can only sue on behalf of their
members, uh, if that
association either has, uh,
a legal relationship with those people or if they
(16:57):
are also harmed. And s Bill 204
gives the government the ability to appeal a court
ruling that a law is unconstitutional
directly to the Utah Supreme Court. They don't have to go through the normal
appeals process process. If it's in the Utah District Court, they
won't have to go through the Utah Court of Appeals and then the Supreme
Court. This bill says the government can appeal
directly to the Utah Supreme Court
(17:19):
and that the law would remain in effect during that
appeal instead of putting it on hold. And this is
widely seen as a reaction to, uh,
court putting Utah's abortion trigger ban
law on hold. After the overturn of
Roe v. Wade. Planned Parenthood sued
on behalf of some of their clients to
(17:40):
challenge the constitutionality of that law, which is a near
total abortion ban. And so that law is on hold.
Well, SB204 flips that around.
Brammer, uh, has a couple of other bills that they are concerned about.
SB154 and
SJR4. Both of those give
legislative auditors the authority to
(18:00):
require someone to give them
information that right now would be subject to
attorney client privilege. So those two bills
from Brammer would require
someone to break attorney client privilege
and give information to legislative auditors.
Another bill, HB 451 from Representative
Jason Kyle, that raises the
(18:22):
percentage that a judge must get at the ballot box. When you
see those judicial retention elections, um,
right now it's 50% plus one for a judge to
stay in their job, he would raise that
threshold to 67%. The Bar
association says, quote, this increased percentage
vote would be the highest in the nation. Its extremely high
(18:43):
threshold would make it difficult to attract and retain
qualified judges. And it allows outside and
special interests to campaign against judges when they
only have to convince a third of the populace to vote
against a judge. So the Bar association is
concerned about those bills.
There's probably another bill that will get their
(19:03):
attention as well because House
Majority Leader Jefferson Moss, he opened
a bill file last week that could lead
to expanding the Utah Supreme
Court. Right now it's got five justices and he's
talking about adding more to it. Why? Well,
the Utah Supreme Court ruled that the
(19:23):
legislature overstepped its bounds when
they gutted the anti gerrymandering
proposition, Prop 4 after it was passed at the
ballot box in 2018.
So expanding the court, at least
the Republican legislature. Republican legislature
sees that as a way to get rid of activist
judges. And I'm guessing that that the impetus
(19:46):
behind this bill from Representative Moss,
and I'm sure that the, uh, Bar association might have
some thoughts on that one as well.
Republican Representative Trevor Lee says that
displaying a pride flag in a public
classroom or in a government building
(20:08):
is too divisive. It causes
divisive ideologies to make their
way into government, and it
pulls people apart. So his
HB77, which passed through a committee this
week, would only allow an approved list
of flags to be displayed in schools
and at government buildings. What flags are allowed?
(20:30):
Well, here's the list according to Representative Lee.
>> Speaker B (20:33):
Um, a couple clarifications with this as it
pertains to the K12. Um, there are
instances where in classrooms, you have curriculum that is
needed to use a flags, such as World War II, Civil
War War. You may have a Nazi flag, you may have a Confederate
flag. And so you are allowed to display those
flags for the purpose, uh, of those lesson
plans. So if it's part of the curriculum, then that is okay.
>> Bryan Schott (20:56):
So under Lee's bill, a rainbow pride
flag is too divisive, but a Nazi flag
would be just fine. Black Lives Matter. Way too
divisive. Confederate flag, just
fine. Now, it must be said that a Nazi flag or
a Confederate flag must be part of an approved
school curriculum. But you can't get around the fact
(21:17):
that under Lee's proposed legislation, a
Nazi flag would not be seen as
divisive, but a pride flag would. A Confederate
flag. Not controversial at all. Black
Lives Matter flag. Absolutely not
allowed. Lee has watered down his proposal
just a little bit. The original version would
have allowed a parent to actually go to court
(21:39):
if there was a pride flag
or some other politically themed flag that they
disapproved of in a classroom. That would
be if they informed the school district that the flag was
there. And the district didn't do anything to rectify
the situation. They passed an amendment in committee
this week that took that part of it out, but he did
(21:59):
expand it from classrooms to
cover all government buildings. I was really
struck by part of the debate
during the public testimony around this
bill. Lee was asked by Representative Carol Moss if
there were specific examples of this happening.
And. And Lee was 100% confident
that it was.
>> Speaker C (22:20):
Is this happening in schools? I mean,
my daughter teaches high school. I know a lot of teachers,
but I mean, is this a bill to
say in case any teacher
puts a, um, pride flag or
trans flag up, then this is. We're going
to make sure that it's illegal. But is
this happening? I don't even know. I don't even
(22:43):
hear about it. I don't know. Teachers putting these flags in
their rooms.
>> Speaker B (22:47):
Yeah, it's definitely happening.
>> Speaker C (22:49):
I mean, you've heard specific
examples.
>> Speaker B (22:52):
Mhm. Yeah, absolutely.
>> Speaker C (22:54):
Can I just say, are they in high school or
elementary?
>> Speaker B (22:57):
Most of the examples that I've had from parents that have come to me concerned
has been within the high school realm, but it even has gone all the way down
into elementary schools that we've seen and had problems with
it.
>> Bryan Schott (23:06):
I really wish Representative Moss would have followed up and asked
for specific examples because they just kind of let it go.
That Lee says, oh yeah, sure, it's happening, it's absolutely
happening. And that's where a lot of this debate comes around.
It's a lot of conjecture, it's
a lot of anecdotal evidence. My
brother's sisters, cousins, mailman
(23:27):
saw this happen, you know, that sort of thing. But that's used as
concrete evidence that this is an urgent
problem that needs to be addressed. Lawmakers tried
this last year. Former Representative Kara Berklin
had a bill in the early part of the session that
specifically banned pride flags. It mentioned it in the
legislation and that would just seem to be a bridge too far
(23:47):
for lawmakers. That bill didn't go anywhere. I there were some
significant constitutional concerns around it.
But then on the final night of the
2024 session, in the final hours of the
session, they tried it again. They tried to sneak
through a bill very similar to what Lee
has proposed here. I remember sitting in the Senate with just a
couple of hours to go before the end of the session
(24:10):
and one of Berkland's bills was on the board
up for final passage. Originally, Berkeland's
bill was supposed to provide some
guidelines as to how to deal with public school
employ who are the subject of a criminal
investigation. Her proposed legislation would
have suspended them without pay
until the investigation was over. But
(24:32):
she and Senator Dan McKay
conspired to strip that out of the bill.
They stripped all that out of the bill and then put in essentially
a pride flag ban. It was a list of approved
flags that could be shown in public
schools. This was something they were trying to sneak through with
just an hour or two to go before the end of the session. I
(24:52):
remember you. Utah Eagle Forum President Gail
Ruzika came into the Senate gallery,
which was my clue that something was up. And they
tried to resurrect this pride flag ban.
There just wasn't enough appetite for lawmakers to do this
at the last minute. They weren't going to take this
step because the bill hadn't been through a committee hearing.
(25:12):
They were trying to substitute it at the last
possible second before sending it back to the House. And they just
couldn't get enough votes in the Senate to make this happen.
So it's back again this year. So after passing out of committee,
that bill's heading to the full House for a vote where they
get to weigh in on whether they think pride flags
and Black Lives Matter are more divisive
(25:33):
than Nazi flags and Confederate
flags.
There's one bill that was introduced last week that I was very
interested in, and it comes from Representative ryan
Wilcox. It's HB474.
So normally what happens when the legislature
(25:53):
passes a law to regulate a business,
that's up to state agencies to implement
rules, uh, or to come up with a rule to
implement these new regulations. And
what Wilcox's bill does is it says if a state
agency implements a new rule or comes
up with a new rule because the legislature passed a
law, but that rule cannot
(26:16):
have a fiscal impact of more than $1
million on a single business
or a single person over a five year span. So
say there's a new pollution control measure that a state
agency wants implement. If a business, if one
business or one person can say, this is going to cost me more
than a million dollars over five years,
$200,000 a year to come into compliance with
(26:39):
this, well, then the state agency
cannot implement that rule. They have to go back to the
drawing board. But the bill also
allows individuals to
challenge professional licensing
regulations. So anyone can petition
the Utah Office of Professional Licensure
Review. This is a new agency that was
(27:00):
create. Governor Cox was elected for his
first term and their job is to go through and
look at all of the licensure requirements
for every profession that is subject to a
license and determine whether or not the
regulations for that business or that license
need to stay in place. Or if they could do something
(27:20):
less onerous, well, this would allow any person
to petition that body to repeal
or modify a licensing regulation.
So if you don't like a regulation for your license,
if you're required to get a license license to do business in the state for
your profession, say you are a nail technician
or say that you are a
(27:40):
life coach and you're required to get a license and you don't like
some of the regulations, well, you can petition the Office of
Professional Licensure Review and say this either
needs to be repealed or you need to do something
that isn't so hard to comply with. Once a
petition is submitted, the office has 90
days to either repeal the rule or justify
(28:01):
why it should stay in place, or they can modify
it to reduce the burden on people who have to get the
license. But if the petitioner doesn't like that
decision, say they come back and say the rule needs to stay in
place, or we're going to tweak it slightly, but we're not going to get rid of it.
Well, it creates a path for petitioners to go to court and then
challenge it if they disagree with the result. Um, a
(28:21):
little bit of background that is probably
helpful. This is very similar to some of the things
that Senator Mike Lee has been trying to do on the
federal level with trying to, uh, rein
in federal regulations, uh, which has been a longtime
complaint of his. And Wilkins Cox was in the
legislature and then left to go work in
Lee's office. And then when he came back, he got
(28:43):
reelected to the legislature. So there's a lot
of influence from Senator Mike Lee in this bill.
I'm going to need you to take a minute and listen to this clip from
Representative Burgess Owens. Last week he
was asked by some right
wing YouTube person about Beyonce
(29:05):
winning the Grammy for best country album for
her album Cowboy Carter. And Burgess
Owens, well, he was not a fan of that
decision because. Just listen.
So country music is so popular in
Utah. What was your take on Beyonce winning,
uh, best country album at the Grammys?
>> Burgess Owens (29:24):
Closest thing to DEI we're gonna see right now. That is that.
I mean, I'm not a country country's, um, um,
fan. But I can tell from the response from country
fans, they did not appreciate you put all
that hard work, you develop your fan base, you go out there, you
work to develop a reputation, and all of a sudden
somebody comes out of the blue because she's popping something else
and she gets the best. Nobody, uh, really expects
(29:46):
that. And unfortunately, because of that, Beyonce will not
be respected by that core group of people that she's now
singing to.
>> Bryan Schott (29:53):
So Owen thinks the only reason that Beyonce won this award is that
because she was popular because of the previous
music that she had created and she decided
to go into country music and because of that
popular elsewhere, she just waltzed in
and won this Grammy over other people who may be
more deserving or have spent their
(30:13):
entire life working on country music. And she just
waltzes in because of her popularity.
Burgess Owens, his claim to fame before he was
elected to Congress was that he played in the NFL in
the 70s and 80s. He won a Super bowl in
1981 with the Oakland Raiders
over the Philadelphia Eagles. And Burgess Owens
will not let you forget the fact that he won a
(30:36):
Super Bowl. I've seen this in public. He
aggressively urges people to
wear his super bowl ring. It goes with him
everywhere. And anybody that he takes a picture
with, uh, I've seen him shove this super bowl
ring onto their finger. Because he
was able to parlay his popularity in the NFL
as an NFL player into a seat in
(30:58):
Congress. Because if you look at what happened between the
NFL and Congress, it was pretty
unremarkable. He had a number of failed
businesses. He declared bankruptcy a number of times. He
started a charity. That investigation after
investigation shows it really didn't do anything.
It raised some money, but a lot of that money didn't go to what
it was supposed to. And then he came
(31:20):
to Utah, where he has really no ties to the state other
than the fact that he's a member of the LDS Church.
And then he got elected to Congress. So it's really
interesting that Owens would slam
Beyonce for winning an
award in something she had
not done before because of her popularity
in a another venue, another field.
(31:43):
It's really fascinating that he would
be upset about that, especially in light
of his career up to the time that he was elected
to Congress and the rest of the clip. I don't know.
He says that this sort of thing is the reason why
Donald Trump got elected, because he wanted
to restore fairness. And there's some DEI
(32:03):
thing, I don't know. Listen, you think it diminishes her
respect overall?
>> Burgess Owens (32:08):
I think it diminishes her. I think it's diminishes the
awards. Um, and I think you have a lot
more people, have a lot less people watching. As time
goes on, no one realizes fear. Fairness is
what our country is all about. That's why we're so excited about what President
Trump did with protecting women from men.
We do not like unfairness. We see that, we turn away,
(32:28):
we go another way. And, uh, I think
Beyonce and the Grammys, uh, whatever Grammys I think it was, they're going
to suffer long, uh, term because of that.
>> Bryan Schott (32:36):
At this point, I would like to raise a practical question.
Do you think that Beyonce even has the
slightest idea who Owens is?
There's a lot more that we could talk about, but we're going to have to
leave it there for this week. Thank you so much for
listening. If you have not subscribed to this
(32:58):
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(34:44):
talk to you again next week.
SA.
Come one, come all to a beautiful
show. It's gonna be awesome. And some
other stuff,
some other musical stuff.
Welcome back to special session. I'm your host, Bryan
(00:22):
Schott, publisher and managing editor of
Utah Political Watch. On this week's
show, unions busted
more money and more limits for
Utah's school voucher program. The
Utah Bar association has some
concerns about a few bills,
pride flags, no Nazi
(00:44):
flags. A. Okay. And
Burgess Owens, country music
expert. If you want to keep up with what's
happening in Utah politics, take a minute and
sign up for my newsletter at Utah Political
Watch News News. It's free, but if you
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morning news Roundup newsletter and the Daily
(01:06):
Dispatch, an evening newsletter that wraps
up the day on Utah's Capitol hill. For
just $5 a month, you can get those two subscriber
only newsletters. Plus you'll be supporting independent
political journalism in Utah. Now that that's
out of the way, let's get to this week's news.
(01:29):
Governor Spencer Cox late Friday
signed HB 267 which strips public
employees in the state of their collective bargaining rights.
He signed that bill into law. So as it stands right
now, the unions, specifically the Utah
Education association, can no longer bargain on behalf
of its members. They didn't bargain on behalf of every teacher.
It was up to individual school districts as to whether they could
(01:52):
collectively bargain or not. But now there is a ban
statewide on that. Utah joins a handful of other states
that do not allow public employees to
collectively bargain. So what happens going
forward? Well, the bill did not pass with a veto
proof majority in both the House and the Senate. And not
only is that a, uh, not only does that mean that it was open
for a veto, but there is a possibility
(02:14):
that there could be a referendum where union
members and they've been talking about this getting together, gathering
enough signatures to put the bill on the
2026 ballot up for a public vote.
If, uh, a law does not pass with 2
3rd in either the house or the Senate,
you can launch a referendum. This has happened a couple of times in
(02:34):
the past. Back in 2007, the legislature passed
a public school vouchers program and
that one the Utah Education association
organized and got enough signatures to put it on the
ballot where it was defeated. Lawmakers
didn't try again to pass a voucher program
until they passed the Utah Fits all scholarship,
which is a voucher program a couple of years ago. And
(02:57):
we'll get to that in a second. And back in
2019 the legislature
passed a sweeping overhaul of the
tax system and they were going to add sales taxes to a
number of services. Right now you don't pay sales tax
on some services. They were going to add all services
into that. And that drew a lot of opposition from the
public. So opponents organized and
(03:19):
got a lot of help from the Harmon's grocery
chain who allowed them to collect signatures in the entrance to
the stores. And they were able to get enough signatures that
it would have gone to the ballot. But
lawmakers, the next time they met, repealed the law
before that chance because they didn't want to suffer defeat at
the ballot box. So there is a possibility of a referendum.
(03:39):
It's really hard to get one of those on the ballot.
Organizers will have just 40 days
from the day that the legislature ends
to collect more than 140,000
signatures statewide. And they also have to hit certain
signature requirements in a number of
Utah's counties. I think it's 15 of 29 counties.
They have to reach signature thresholds in order
(04:01):
to put it on the ballot. If they're able to do that, then
the goes on hold until the public can weigh
in at the ballot box. That's an extremely difficult
thing to do. But union, uh, members have, uh, been
talking about trying to put this up to a public
vote. Now, lawmakers will not admit
this, but this bill was a, was
(04:22):
retribution for some actions taken
by the Utah Education association last year.
First of all, they came out against Amendment
A, which would have changed the way that public
education is funded in the state right now. Income
taxes can only fund public education, higher
education and some social services. And
Amendment A would have opened up that constitutional
(04:44):
earmark to other parts of the budget. The UEA
opposed that, which angered lawmakers.
Eventually that amendment was put on hold because lawmakers
didn't notice it properly, as per the
constitution. They didn't publish it in a newspaper. And then
the teachers union also filed a lawsuit
challenging the vouchers program. The Utah fits
all scholarship, saying it's unconstitutional, saying it
(05:07):
takes public school money and gives
it to private schools. And lawmakers have never.
Their argument is that lawmakers have never fully
funded education as it is. Utah's in the bottom
three consistently for per
pupil spending. Among all of the states that are
behind states like Idaho and
Mississippi. Some people been talking about the unions going on strike,
(05:30):
and that's a possibility, but it would be extremely
rare. Teachers have only gone on strike twice in Utah,
and that was for a total of three days. Back in
1964, the Utah Education
association went on strike. It uh, was
statewide. It was one of the first statewide teacher strikes in
the United States. And that was part of a year long
dispute over school funding. Teachers were
(05:52):
leaving the state in droves because of low
salaries. Half of the teaching positions in the state
were being filled by people with little or no
qualifications. And school buildings were
in disrepair. Um, there were stories around the time
of one school building where the roof collapsed in while
the students were in class. And so at that time,
educators were refusing to sign contracts
(06:15):
for the next year. And the National Education
association came out and sanctioned
Utah's public education system. And that was
to keep teachers from moving here to take
jobs because the education system
was such a mess, at least from the way
that the teachers saw it during this crisis. The Utah
Education association, they voted to call for a
(06:37):
two day public school recess. They didn't call it for a
strike. They didn't call it a strike, but they called it a rece
because then governor George Clyde
refused to call for a special legislative session
to appropriate an additional $6 million for school
funding. Um, the Utah State Board of Education
was against the teacher walkout. But they did
(06:57):
walk out for two days. And that brought lawmakers
and the governor to the table.
And they made enough progress
that the teachers union a few months
later voted to resume contract
negotiations. The second time that there was a strike, a
statewide strike in the state, uh, was September of 1989,
and teachers walked out for one day. About
(07:20):
20,000 of the state's teachers walked out of school for
one day. And they were protesting the
legislature using a $38 million
budget surplus to pay for tax cuts rather than
putting the money towards education. What does that sound like?
M. That sounds familiar. You know, they say history
doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Um,
the one day walkout shut down most of the school districts in the
(07:43):
state. It affected more 450,000 students
in 800 schools. Norm Banger, who was governor at the
time, really angered the teachers union
because before the walkout he was quoted as saying that
when he gets upset, quote, I take two aspirin and
go to work. And that's what teachers should do. And there were
protests after that where teachers shook aspirin
(08:03):
bottles, uh, to mock Bangerter. The
background of that 1989 teacher strike is very
interesting. In 1987, Bangerter
successfully pushed lawmakers to
raise taxes by uh, 100,000 dol
$166 million to better fund
public education. And that prompted a
big backlash, though a number of anti
(08:24):
tax measures made it onto the ballot as
citizens initiatives. All of them lost by
a large margin in 1988. But Banger
came really close to losing his
reelection bid. It was a three way race between
him, Democrat Ted Wilson and independent Merrill
Cook. And Bangor got just over 40% of the vote. So it was really
(08:45):
close to not winning another term.
What happened was after that,
lawmakers went on a tax cutting spree and they started cutting
taxes and then they got this extra money and instead of putting it towards
education like the teachers wanted, they paid for a
tax cut. There was almost one other strike.
Uh, in 1990 teachers came very close
(09:05):
to a statewide strike, but they backed off after
lawmakers at the last minute approved
some increases for education funding
which included a thousand dollar pay raise for teachers and a
4% increase in per pupil funding.
So it' happened in Utah. It's very rare for teachers to go
on strike, but it's happened here in the
state. Recent, um, teacher strikes have been
(09:28):
pretty effective. There was a study of
nearly 800 teacher strikes between
2007 and 2023. And all of
those shows that they led to some significant gains
for educators. That's where we're at. So
teachers and police officers, firefighters,
other public employees no longer have the ability to
(09:48):
collectively bargain for contracts and
benef because Governor Spencer Cox signed
HB 267. Not sure what the path
forward is, but history shows that it's very
hard to get a referendum on the ballot. And teacher
strikes did send a message, but it's only happened
twice.
(10:09):
Speaking of, uh, the school vouchers program,
or excuse me, the Utah fits all scholarship
program, Representative Candace Perucci, who
was the sponsor of the original bill two years ago
when lawmakers passed it, she is looking to
now put some curbs or at least some
guardrails around the program after it's
been in effect for one year. What this program does
(10:32):
is it gives parents who want to take their kids
out of public school. It gives them
$8,000 per year, uh, that they
can put towards private school tuition, homeschooling
expenses, um, even some activities
like ski passes. Yeah, you can buy ski
passes currently under the Utah fits all
scholarship. That $8,000 that parents are given under the program,
(10:54):
that's almost twice as much as Utah spends
per pupil with the weighted pupil unit. That's
when you hear wpu. That means the per
pupil spending, that's almost twice as much as
Utah spends on kids who are in public school.
So uh, this was established in 2023. They
initially, uh, funded it at like $42
million. Last year they doubled that amount. Even though the
(11:17):
program hadn't been in effect yet, hadn't even started yet,
they doubled that to 82 million do. And, uh,
Perucci was asking for another
$80 million this year to
double the funding again. But last week,
the Public Education Appropriations subcommittee only
recommended $40 million of new funding. So
if that passes the funding, the total funding for the program would be
(11:40):
$122 million. But anyway, back to
Perrucci's bill,
HB455. Uh, and what this
does is it's sort of putting more guardrails
around the program. Right now it
is administer outside organization called the
alliance for Choice in Education. Ace. What
Peruzzi's bill does is it transfers oversight of
(12:01):
the program to a newly created position called
financial administrator. It's going to be part of the State Board
of Education's department of Operations, but it's going
to now be housed within the State Board of Education
rather than an autonomous organization.
Perrucci also wants to put some revisions on what
this money can be used on. Right
(12:21):
now, as I said, you can buy ski
passes. You can't buy a SE season pass. You can't buy a pass for
the whole season, but you can do like day passes.
And, uh, they were also allowing what are called
chaperone expenses. So if a parent wanted to
take their child skiing, they could buy the
child ski pass using these public
education funds and then pay for their own because they
(12:44):
were the chaperone. What Perrueci is trying to do is
she's changing that. No longer could you buy ski
passes or lift tickets or tickets
for entertainment events. And you cannot use
this money to pay for chaperone expenses. So if a parent wants
to go, they're on their own. Um, they're also going to put some limits on
how much of that money can go towards something.
(13:04):
Under, uh, Perucci's bill, only 20%
of the total scholarship amount could be put
towards extracurricular activities. And then there's another
category called physical education experiences. That means
like fitness centers, golf clubs, gymnastics, rock
climbing, you can only use another
20% of the funds for
that. And you can see all the things that are
(13:27):
currently permitted under the program. If you
go to the Utah Fits all scholarship program, I linked it in my
story at UtahPoliticalWatch News.
So with 20% of the scholarship money being
able to go towards extracurricular activities and another
20% towards physical education
experiences, that's $3,200 a year out
(13:47):
of the 8,000, uh, that
families get per child if they're approved for
the program that can go to those things. So that's
a lot of money, a lot of your tax money that's supposed to
go to public education. In fact, that 3002 is
just about $1,000 less
than what the state spends on
each student in public school. And that money
(14:10):
right now can go, uh, or at least under
Perruecci's bill, that money could go towards physical
education and, uh,
extracurricular activities. In the first year
of the program, about 27,000
people applied, but only about a third got
scholarships. And a significant number of those
(14:30):
went to people who are homeschooling their kids. So
your tax dollars at work, money that's supposed to go to public
education, going to homeschool students who don't want anything
to do with public education, but they're
happy to take your tax dollars
to support that. And there was a great story. Uh, Channel
two looked into it and they found that a number of the people who
(14:50):
applied didn't get the full $8,000. Anyway.
Uh, they only got a portion of that money.
Bottom line, they're asking for more money for this program that could boost
the funding up to $122
million per year.
40
million boost goes through. But they want to
dial back on what that money can be used
(15:11):
for because, you know, it's not a good look when they're taking
taxpayer money and paying for ski passes.
So I told you earlier about how the Republicans are mad at
the Utah Education association because of the
Amendment A and the lawsuit against the vouchers
(15:32):
program. Well, they're also mad at, at judges who had the
gall to rule against them in the
Amendment A case, the Amendment D case, the
gerrymandering case, which a judge
could rule on anytime. Judge also expected to
rule anytime on the suit against the, uh,
private school vouchers program. So there have been a
(15:52):
number of bills up on the Hill that take
specific aim at the judiciary. So earlier
this week, the Utah Bar association sent out letters to
their members asking them to contact
lawmakers about several pieces of
legislation that they say could be
unconstitutional because, quote, they undermine the
fundamental principle of the separation of powers. This
(16:13):
letter listed five bills. It was
SB203 and SB204. Both
of those are from Senator Brady Brammer.
SB203 limits who would have standing
to bring a lawsuit. The letter says this changes
the long standing common law principles of standing. And I've talked
about this bill before. What it does is
it says that, uh, someone can only sue
(16:36):
on behalf of another person,
uh, if that person is also harmed
by whatever law the legislature passed. And
it also says that associations can only sue on behalf of their
members, uh, if that
association either has, uh,
a legal relationship with those people or if they
(16:57):
are also harmed. And s Bill 204
gives the government the ability to appeal a court
ruling that a law is unconstitutional
directly to the Utah Supreme Court. They don't have to go through the normal
appeals process process. If it's in the Utah District Court, they
won't have to go through the Utah Court of Appeals and then the Supreme
Court. This bill says the government can appeal
directly to the Utah Supreme Court
(17:19):
and that the law would remain in effect during that
appeal instead of putting it on hold. And this is
widely seen as a reaction to, uh,
court putting Utah's abortion trigger ban
law on hold. After the overturn of
Roe v. Wade. Planned Parenthood sued
on behalf of some of their clients to
(17:40):
challenge the constitutionality of that law, which is a near
total abortion ban. And so that law is on hold.
Well, SB204 flips that around.
Brammer, uh, has a couple of other bills that they are concerned about.
SB154 and
SJR4. Both of those give
legislative auditors the authority to
(18:00):
require someone to give them
information that right now would be subject to
attorney client privilege. So those two bills
from Brammer would require
someone to break attorney client privilege
and give information to legislative auditors.
Another bill, HB 451 from Representative
Jason Kyle, that raises the
(18:22):
percentage that a judge must get at the ballot box. When you
see those judicial retention elections, um,
right now it's 50% plus one for a judge to
stay in their job, he would raise that
threshold to 67%. The Bar
association says, quote, this increased percentage
vote would be the highest in the nation. Its extremely high
(18:43):
threshold would make it difficult to attract and retain
qualified judges. And it allows outside and
special interests to campaign against judges when they
only have to convince a third of the populace to vote
against a judge. So the Bar association is
concerned about those bills.
There's probably another bill that will get their
(19:03):
attention as well because House
Majority Leader Jefferson Moss, he opened
a bill file last week that could lead
to expanding the Utah Supreme
Court. Right now it's got five justices and he's
talking about adding more to it. Why? Well,
the Utah Supreme Court ruled that the
(19:23):
legislature overstepped its bounds when
they gutted the anti gerrymandering
proposition, Prop 4 after it was passed at the
ballot box in 2018.
So expanding the court, at least
the Republican legislature. Republican legislature
sees that as a way to get rid of activist
judges. And I'm guessing that that the impetus
(19:46):
behind this bill from Representative Moss,
and I'm sure that the, uh, Bar association might have
some thoughts on that one as well.
Republican Representative Trevor Lee says that
displaying a pride flag in a public
classroom or in a government building
(20:08):
is too divisive. It causes
divisive ideologies to make their
way into government, and it
pulls people apart. So his
HB77, which passed through a committee this
week, would only allow an approved list
of flags to be displayed in schools
and at government buildings. What flags are allowed?
(20:30):
Well, here's the list according to Representative Lee.
>> Speaker B (20:33):
Um, a couple clarifications with this as it
pertains to the K12. Um, there are
instances where in classrooms, you have curriculum that is
needed to use a flags, such as World War II, Civil
War War. You may have a Nazi flag, you may have a Confederate
flag. And so you are allowed to display those
flags for the purpose, uh, of those lesson
plans. So if it's part of the curriculum, then that is okay.
>> Bryan Schott (20:56):
So under Lee's bill, a rainbow pride
flag is too divisive, but a Nazi flag
would be just fine. Black Lives Matter. Way too
divisive. Confederate flag, just
fine. Now, it must be said that a Nazi flag or
a Confederate flag must be part of an approved
school curriculum. But you can't get around the fact
(21:17):
that under Lee's proposed legislation, a
Nazi flag would not be seen as
divisive, but a pride flag would. A Confederate
flag. Not controversial at all. Black
Lives Matter flag. Absolutely not
allowed. Lee has watered down his proposal
just a little bit. The original version would
have allowed a parent to actually go to court
(21:39):
if there was a pride flag
or some other politically themed flag that they
disapproved of in a classroom. That would
be if they informed the school district that the flag was
there. And the district didn't do anything to rectify
the situation. They passed an amendment in committee
this week that took that part of it out, but he did
(21:59):
expand it from classrooms to
cover all government buildings. I was really
struck by part of the debate
during the public testimony around this
bill. Lee was asked by Representative Carol Moss if
there were specific examples of this happening.
And. And Lee was 100% confident
that it was.
>> Speaker C (22:20):
Is this happening in schools? I mean,
my daughter teaches high school. I know a lot of teachers,
but I mean, is this a bill to
say in case any teacher
puts a, um, pride flag or
trans flag up, then this is. We're going
to make sure that it's illegal. But is
this happening? I don't even know. I don't even
(22:43):
hear about it. I don't know. Teachers putting these flags in
their rooms.
>> Speaker B (22:47):
Yeah, it's definitely happening.
>> Speaker C (22:49):
I mean, you've heard specific
examples.
>> Speaker B (22:52):
Mhm. Yeah, absolutely.
>> Speaker C (22:54):
Can I just say, are they in high school or
elementary?
>> Speaker B (22:57):
Most of the examples that I've had from parents that have come to me concerned
has been within the high school realm, but it even has gone all the way down
into elementary schools that we've seen and had problems with
it.
>> Bryan Schott (23:06):
I really wish Representative Moss would have followed up and asked
for specific examples because they just kind of let it go.
That Lee says, oh yeah, sure, it's happening, it's absolutely
happening. And that's where a lot of this debate comes around.
It's a lot of conjecture, it's
a lot of anecdotal evidence. My
brother's sisters, cousins, mailman
(23:27):
saw this happen, you know, that sort of thing. But that's used as
concrete evidence that this is an urgent
problem that needs to be addressed. Lawmakers tried
this last year. Former Representative Kara Berklin
had a bill in the early part of the session that
specifically banned pride flags. It mentioned it in the
legislation and that would just seem to be a bridge too far
(23:47):
for lawmakers. That bill didn't go anywhere. I there were some
significant constitutional concerns around it.
But then on the final night of the
2024 session, in the final hours of the
session, they tried it again. They tried to sneak
through a bill very similar to what Lee
has proposed here. I remember sitting in the Senate with just a
couple of hours to go before the end of the session
(24:10):
and one of Berkland's bills was on the board
up for final passage. Originally, Berkeland's
bill was supposed to provide some
guidelines as to how to deal with public school
employ who are the subject of a criminal
investigation. Her proposed legislation would
have suspended them without pay
until the investigation was over. But
(24:32):
she and Senator Dan McKay
conspired to strip that out of the bill.
They stripped all that out of the bill and then put in essentially
a pride flag ban. It was a list of approved
flags that could be shown in public
schools. This was something they were trying to sneak through with
just an hour or two to go before the end of the session. I
(24:52):
remember you. Utah Eagle Forum President Gail
Ruzika came into the Senate gallery,
which was my clue that something was up. And they
tried to resurrect this pride flag ban.
There just wasn't enough appetite for lawmakers to do this
at the last minute. They weren't going to take this
step because the bill hadn't been through a committee hearing.
(25:12):
They were trying to substitute it at the last
possible second before sending it back to the House. And they just
couldn't get enough votes in the Senate to make this happen.
So it's back again this year. So after passing out of committee,
that bill's heading to the full House for a vote where they
get to weigh in on whether they think pride flags
and Black Lives Matter are more divisive
(25:33):
than Nazi flags and Confederate
flags.
There's one bill that was introduced last week that I was very
interested in, and it comes from Representative ryan
Wilcox. It's HB474.
So normally what happens when the legislature
(25:53):
passes a law to regulate a business,
that's up to state agencies to implement
rules, uh, or to come up with a rule to
implement these new regulations. And
what Wilcox's bill does is it says if a state
agency implements a new rule or comes
up with a new rule because the legislature passed a
law, but that rule cannot
(26:16):
have a fiscal impact of more than $1
million on a single business
or a single person over a five year span. So
say there's a new pollution control measure that a state
agency wants implement. If a business, if one
business or one person can say, this is going to cost me more
than a million dollars over five years,
$200,000 a year to come into compliance with
(26:39):
this, well, then the state agency
cannot implement that rule. They have to go back to the
drawing board. But the bill also
allows individuals to
challenge professional licensing
regulations. So anyone can petition
the Utah Office of Professional Licensure
Review. This is a new agency that was
(27:00):
create. Governor Cox was elected for his
first term and their job is to go through and
look at all of the licensure requirements
for every profession that is subject to a
license and determine whether or not the
regulations for that business or that license
need to stay in place. Or if they could do something
(27:20):
less onerous, well, this would allow any person
to petition that body to repeal
or modify a licensing regulation.
So if you don't like a regulation for your license,
if you're required to get a license license to do business in the state for
your profession, say you are a nail technician
or say that you are a
(27:40):
life coach and you're required to get a license and you don't like
some of the regulations, well, you can petition the Office of
Professional Licensure Review and say this either
needs to be repealed or you need to do something
that isn't so hard to comply with. Once a
petition is submitted, the office has 90
days to either repeal the rule or justify
(28:01):
why it should stay in place, or they can modify
it to reduce the burden on people who have to get the
license. But if the petitioner doesn't like that
decision, say they come back and say the rule needs to stay in
place, or we're going to tweak it slightly, but we're not going to get rid of it.
Well, it creates a path for petitioners to go to court and then
challenge it if they disagree with the result. Um, a
(28:21):
little bit of background that is probably
helpful. This is very similar to some of the things
that Senator Mike Lee has been trying to do on the
federal level with trying to, uh, rein
in federal regulations, uh, which has been a longtime
complaint of his. And Wilkins Cox was in the
legislature and then left to go work in
Lee's office. And then when he came back, he got
(28:43):
reelected to the legislature. So there's a lot
of influence from Senator Mike Lee in this bill.
I'm going to need you to take a minute and listen to this clip from
Representative Burgess Owens. Last week he
was asked by some right
wing YouTube person about Beyonce
(29:05):
winning the Grammy for best country album for
her album Cowboy Carter. And Burgess
Owens, well, he was not a fan of that
decision because. Just listen.
So country music is so popular in
Utah. What was your take on Beyonce winning,
uh, best country album at the Grammys?
>> Burgess Owens (29:24):
Closest thing to DEI we're gonna see right now. That is that.
I mean, I'm not a country country's, um, um,
fan. But I can tell from the response from country
fans, they did not appreciate you put all
that hard work, you develop your fan base, you go out there, you
work to develop a reputation, and all of a sudden
somebody comes out of the blue because she's popping something else
and she gets the best. Nobody, uh, really expects
(29:46):
that. And unfortunately, because of that, Beyonce will not
be respected by that core group of people that she's now
singing to.
>> Bryan Schott (29:53):
So Owen thinks the only reason that Beyonce won this award is that
because she was popular because of the previous
music that she had created and she decided
to go into country music and because of that
popular elsewhere, she just waltzed in
and won this Grammy over other people who may be
more deserving or have spent their
(30:13):
entire life working on country music. And she just
waltzes in because of her popularity.
Burgess Owens, his claim to fame before he was
elected to Congress was that he played in the NFL in
the 70s and 80s. He won a Super bowl in
1981 with the Oakland Raiders
over the Philadelphia Eagles. And Burgess Owens
will not let you forget the fact that he won a
(30:36):
Super Bowl. I've seen this in public. He
aggressively urges people to
wear his super bowl ring. It goes with him
everywhere. And anybody that he takes a picture
with, uh, I've seen him shove this super bowl
ring onto their finger. Because he
was able to parlay his popularity in the NFL
as an NFL player into a seat in
(30:58):
Congress. Because if you look at what happened between the
NFL and Congress, it was pretty
unremarkable. He had a number of failed
businesses. He declared bankruptcy a number of times. He
started a charity. That investigation after
investigation shows it really didn't do anything.
It raised some money, but a lot of that money didn't go to what
it was supposed to. And then he came
(31:20):
to Utah, where he has really no ties to the state other
than the fact that he's a member of the LDS Church.
And then he got elected to Congress. So it's really
interesting that Owens would slam
Beyonce for winning an
award in something she had
not done before because of her popularity
in a another venue, another field.
(31:43):
It's really fascinating that he would
be upset about that, especially in light
of his career up to the time that he was elected
to Congress and the rest of the clip. I don't know.
He says that this sort of thing is the reason why
Donald Trump got elected, because he wanted
to restore fairness. And there's some DEI
(32:03):
thing, I don't know. Listen, you think it diminishes her
respect overall?
>> Burgess Owens (32:08):
I think it diminishes her. I think it's diminishes the
awards. Um, and I think you have a lot
more people, have a lot less people watching. As time
goes on, no one realizes fear. Fairness is
what our country is all about. That's why we're so excited about what President
Trump did with protecting women from men.
We do not like unfairness. We see that, we turn away,
(32:28):
we go another way. And, uh, I think
Beyonce and the Grammys, uh, whatever Grammys I think it was, they're going
to suffer long, uh, term because of that.
>> Bryan Schott (32:36):
At this point, I would like to raise a practical question.
Do you think that Beyonce even has the
slightest idea who Owens is?
There's a lot more that we could talk about, but we're going to have to
leave it there for this week. Thank you so much for
listening. If you have not subscribed to this
(32:58):
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If there's a topic you would like me to tackle, or
(33:18):
maybe a guest you'd like to hear from, reach out and let me
know. You can find my email on the website
Utah Political Watch Dot News, or you can find me
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(33:41):
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Because these podcasts my coverage of the
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(34:01):
and I really can't do it for free. So
if you feel like you can swing it for
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(34:22):
if you could take that extra step. I completely understand
that not everybody can afford a paid subscriber right
now, but if you can, I and
other readers and listeners would be extremely
grateful that you support independent journalism
here in Utah. Special Session with
Bryan Schott is written and produced by me,
Bryan Schott. Thank you so much for listening. We will
(34:44):
talk to you again next week.
SA.
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