February 2, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of Special Session:
The fallout from the audit of former Attorney General Sean Reyes.
Lawmakers back down in their battle with public sector labor unions.
A trio of conspiracy-driven bills make their way through the legislature.
Gerrymandering lawsuit inches closer to resolution but still leaves many questions.
This week, I dive deep into the shocking findings of the audit on Sean Reyes, revealing his questionable conduct during his tenure. We'll discuss the implications of lawmakers' recent decisions regarding union rights and the bizarre conspiracy theories fueling new legislation. Plus, I’ll update you on the latest developments in the ongoing gerrymandering lawsuit.
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating and review to help others discover the show. Sign up for my newsletter at Utah Political Watch for free, and consider becoming a paying subscriber to support my work in covering Utah politics.
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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.
This is special session for the week ending Friday, January
(00:22):
31, 2025. I'm Bryan Schott,
managing editor of Utah Political Watch and
this week on the show we've got a bunch of news from
Utah' Hill.
Where was Sean Reyes during his time as
Attorney General of the state? Not in his office.
Lawmakers blink first in their stare down
with public sector labor unions, more
(00:43):
proposed laws in the legislature
prompted by conspiracy theories. And I'll
give you one guess which party is pushing these
proposals. And Utah is a little bit
closer to a resolution in the case
over gerrymandering, but not much. We'll get
to all that in just a second. But a little bit of
housekeeping. If you have not already subscribed to
(01:05):
this show, please do or, uh, suggest it to a
friend. Help new people find the program. You can
subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Also, if you
take the time to leave a rating and review that
just helps more people find the show. You can sign up for
my newsletter for free. It's absolutely
free at Utah PoliticalWatch News.
You'll get all of my journalism sent to your
(01:28):
email inbox. However, if you
want to support my work covering Utah
politics, make more journalism possible,
more podcasts like this possible, you can become a
paying subscriber for as little as $5 a month and
you'll have my eternal gratitude. You can also find that at
Utah Political Watch News.
Okay, all that's out of the way. Let's get to this
(01:50):
week's news breakdown.
Talk about a Friday night news dump. On
Friday there was a legislative audit
released. Actually a pair of legislative audits
surrounding the tenure of former Utah
Attorn General Sean Reyes. And there's a lot
of stuff in there we already knew. But it was still quite
(02:12):
shocking to read these reports from legislative
auditors. One they concluded is that
Reyes conducted state business from a private
barber shop known as Max Place. Spent a lot
of time at this private barber shop in Salt Lake
City conducting business. He also deliberately
withheld information from state auditors. And it
(02:32):
just painted this picture of an absent leader
who prioritized his private interest over
public duty duties. One of the things they said in the report
was, quote, the information we received showed that the
AG appeared to spend a significant amount of
time at this private location during business hours
in the work week. It also appears that
(02:53):
Attorney General office related business was being
conducted at the barber shop. They also
spoke to a number of his division
leaders in the office. And he really
did not appear to be involved in the day to day
operations of the Attorney General's office, even though
he was supposed to to be in charge of the whole thing.
(03:13):
Most of the division directors there said that they had
little contact with Reyes during his time as
Attorney General. In fact he did not start
attending a monthly meeting for division
directors until legislative leaders launched
the audit in November of 2023. They had uh, this
chart that was really striking that
(03:33):
basically showed that Reyes did not attend those meetings. But
the moment that this audit was launched he made sure to get
his butt there. So you know you can put two to two
together on that. They also spent a significant amount of
time talking about Reyes's involvement
with nonprofit organizations. And
that created a conflict of interest because
(03:53):
the Attorney General not only here in Utah but in other
states, their job is to
oversee nonprofit organizations. They
take a significant role. We all know about his involvement
with Operation Underground Railroad and Tim Ballard.
That is clearly a conflict of interest because
Reyes is supposed to be in charge of regulating, in
(04:13):
charge of enforcing regulations on,
on nonprofit organizations. But the
auditors concluded that he appeared to leverage his position as
Attorney General to help and promote
and fundraise for our. You
will remember that Operation Underground
Railroad came under fire in 2023 after
there were some bombshell sexual
(04:35):
harassment or sex sexual misconduct
allegations against Ballard. And that uh, all
he also allegedly misled donors. And
that controversy also came and enveloped
because of his longtime association friendship with
Ballard. And that raised questions about his
judgment because he had such close ties to
Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.
(04:58):
Now to be fair, auditors said they didn't find any evidence
that Reyes used state resources to assist
our. But he also held back
information about his meetings with the group and his
participation in events on
behalf of our. Um, another thing they flagged,
and this has been reported before, that Operation Underground
(05:18):
railroad donated about
$950,000 to the attorney
General's office. That money was distributed to the Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Force ICAC
and it made its way down to local law
enforcement. The problem with that is
Reyes. The Attorney General's office in Reyes painted
this money as a federal grant when it wasn't. It was
(05:40):
funded by these donations that came from Operation
Underground Railroad. Now Reyes also
took the very unusual step of creating his
own non profit organization that's
called Liberate All Value all uh, or lava.
And the audit says that it appears that
Reyes leveraged his official position as Attorney
General to solicit donations for this
(06:02):
organization and Then he would then take that
money and distribute it to other nonprofits.
And then you've got another conflict of interest because of that.
Back to Reyes's schedule and withholding
information from auditors. A lot of the information that
Reyes withheld from auditors was because
of attorney client privilege. They claimed attorney client
privilege, or they claimed claim that it would hamper
(06:24):
ongoing investigations. Auditors were able to get some of
this information from other sources. And it's clear
that's that there was really no
attorney client privilege involved at all. It was really
weird that they did that. There was one
example where in his calendar, uh,
they had a calendar entry for Reyes speaking
(06:45):
at the Utah Sheriff's Association Conference,
but a lot of part of it was redacted. So it was a calendar
entry for the event, the Utah Sheriff's Association
Conference, but there's some redactions. They got an
unredacted version. And what he had redacted
is that he didn't attend that event. It
appeared that he was trying to make it look like
he was doing more than he actually was. So you
(07:07):
saw this calendar entry for Utah Sheriff's association,
but he didn't go, um. And that's just one example of the
things that Reyes held back in this audit. So what can the
state do? Well, not a lot to Reyes. The audit did
not talk about any criminal activity on behalf of Reyes, but
it was certainly unethical, and he was certainly doing things
outside of what an attorney general shouldn't do. And he
(07:28):
wasn't actually doing his job as attorney general.
So lawmakers can do things going forward to put more
guardrails around the office. They can do more
to require more transparency, to
require more ethical behavior from the attorney general
going forward, but there's not a lot that they can do retroactively.
So while this audit was alarming,
(07:49):
I m don't expect much to come of it.
I think one of the biggest questions I get asked all
the time as someone who reports on politics in the state, is
what's happening with the gerrymandering lawsuit? When are we
going to know what's happening? Well, I guess sooner rather than
later is the answer. Because on Friday there
was a court hearing finally
(08:12):
over the lawsuit challenging the state's
congressional maps from the League of Women Voters
and a coalition of other plaintiffs. Judge
Diana Gibson heard arguments for about
three hours on Friday afternoon in this case. This was
after the Utah Supreme Court ruled that
the state, uh, legislature overstepped its
(08:32):
bounds by gutting Proposition
4, which set up the independent Redistricting commission.
So that was then sent back down to a lower court, Judge
Gibson. And so she finally heard
arguments on that on Friday afternoon.
So the plaintiffs were asking the judge to
block portions of the law that gutted
(08:52):
Prop 4, which did establish an
independent redistricting commission, but it didn't give them
any authority. It just made them an advisory committee.
They drew maps. The legislature had
to consider those maps, but they weren't. They
weren't obligated to adopt them, which is
wildly different than what Prop 4 did. And they were
challenging that. So she heard arguments over that. And
(09:15):
what they were asking for is that she throw out the
current congressional maps and then make force
a redrawing of those maps that
followed the dictums of Proposition 4, which
said that you couldn't take into account
where incumbents live, you could not look at
any partisan political data. You had to keep communities
(09:36):
of interest together. You had to try to
keep cities and municipalities together.
And that's not what the legislature did at all. What they did is they
evenly. I mean, they split Salt Lake county into
four. It's almost as if they
were able to surgically divide
the four districts up to make them even more
(09:56):
Republican than they already
were. Don't get me wrong. If there are new
maps, you're not going to see a Democrat
district pop up. You're not going to see a swing district pop
up. It's. It's. That's not going to happen. There are not enough
Democrats in this state to make that happen. What you
will see is maybe one of the four
congressional seats that Utah has will be more
(10:18):
competitive. Instead of it being an
R+11 district, it might be
R+6 or R+7. And
in a wave year, you might see a Democrat
win those seats. So it'd be much more competitive, but it
wouldn't favor a Democrat. That's not how this would
work. So that's what the plaintiffs are asking
for. The lieutenant governor made a filing with the
(10:40):
court, uh, has requested that if there are new
maps, they have to be finalized by November 1st of
this year. That way she can put out the notice
for the election, and the people who are running will know which
districts they are running in. Meanwhile, the legislature,
they were arguing, or at least their request to the
judge, is they want the. The judge to decide
(11:00):
whether lawmakers IGN ignored the will of the
voters when they passed the law
that gutted the Prop 4 in the first
place. That was their ask of the judge. They were
asking for a summary judgment. So she heard arguments on both of
those after the hearing, she said she'd take it under advisement, which means that
she'll make a decision at some point in the future.
(11:20):
We don't know when it is. No matter what she decides, you
can be assured that there's going to be another appeal
up to the Utah Supreme Court, which whatever happens,
that may go back down to a lower court. So
we're a little closer to having a resolution resolution on
this, but we're not a bunch closer, if that makes
any sense. And remember now, you've got this
deadline of November 1st staring everybody in the face, and
(11:43):
that's nine months away as we start
February. So more waiting, but
we're a little closer to the finish, is the answer
there.
If you're ever wondering what power a union has,
just look at what happened late last week up on
Capitol Hill. Essentially, Utah lawmakers
(12:06):
blasted There's a bill, HB
267 from Representative Jordan Tusher
that has just been steamrolling its way through the
legislature, got through the House without a hitch. And what
his bill did was it took away the
rights of public employees to collectively
bargain. That would really only impact some public employees
in the state. There are some school districts that have
(12:28):
a collective bargaining agreement with the Utah Education
association, the Salt Lake City Police and the Salt Lake City Fire
Department. And so this bill would take that away. It would also take
away the ability for union members to pay their
union dues through payroll deduction.
Every time it came up for committee, it was packed. When it was in
the House committee, there were three overflow rooms plus the
committee hearing room. Same thing happened when it came up in a Senate committee.
(12:50):
It passed an initial vote in the Senate. When it came up
for a final vote in the Senate on Friday afternoon, all of
a sudden there's a pause on this rush to pass
this bill. And that's because lawmakers are backing
down. They have changed it. A version of the
bill they made public on Friday takes away
that that they can no collectively
(13:11):
bargain. The public employees can no longer collectively bargain. And
it replaces it with a provision that says if there
is a collective bargaining agreement, then every five years
the union members have to have a vote to
decide whether they want the union to continue
to bargain on their behalf. So it's a significant
watering down of this bill that was
(13:31):
seen as retaliation by
lawmakers against the Utah Education association
for or their opposition of Amendment A, which
would have changed the way that the constitutional
provision or the constitutional mechanism for
funding public schools in the state. Right now, income tax
Money can only go to fund public and
higher education and some social services, and they wanted
(13:54):
to expand that. Utah Education association opposed
that. And then they also filed suit against the private
school vouchers program, which takes, uh,
money that's supposed to go to public schools and allows
parents to pay for private education or
homeschooling expenses or whatever with very
little accountability. So they filed suit over that, and this
bill was seen as retaliation for that. Now,
(14:17):
lawmakers couldn't just go after the uea. They would be opening
themselves up to a lawsuit. They couldn't
say, well, we're just going to take away the ability of the teachers
unions. You can't do that. So that's why they
expanded it to, say, all public employees, which
would have encompassed the firefighters
and the police and the ability, if other public
(14:37):
unions wanted, to do some collective
bargaining down the line. So lawmakers have backed off that
because of this massive protest by union
members. They tried this last year. They had a bill
that would have taken away the payroll deduction for union
dues, and it would have required these unions to have
a, uh, recertification vote every, every
(14:58):
couple of years. But that one, there was massive
opposition by the unions, and lawmakers backed down,
and the bill never went anywhere. This one is getting closer to
passage, but it's been significantly watered down
because of union opposition. So it's,
it's fascina that lawmakers once again are
blinking. This is clearly to send a message in
(15:18):
retaliation for what the Utah
Education association did. They'll deny it. Representative
Jordan Tusher has denied that to me. He said it is not
retaliation against the uea. He wouldn't involve
UEA in discussions over the bill, but he said it
wasn't retaliation. But, you know, it's not
hard to do the math, and I'm not stupid. Lawmakers have backed down.
And that just shows you the next time you
(15:41):
want a tangible, um,
example of the power of employees
unions, just take a look at this. And this wasn't even
with a strike. Uh, there wasn't even a threatened strike. If you look at
what happened in Oklahoma last year, I believe it was last year
when they were making some significant changes to schools
and the teachers in Oklahoma struck and they went to
(16:01):
the Capitol and, like, took over the state capitol.
Lawmakers, they, it took them about four days to back
down. Unions have quite a bit of
power and influence. Saw that this week,
and it wasn't even with a strike. So lawmakers appear
to have backed down. Foreign.
So this is becoming a regular segment on this
(16:23):
podcast unfortunately, it's time for
conspiracy theory bingo. On Utah's
Capitol Hill. There were a trio of bills this week
that appear to be motivated by, uh,
conspiracy theories or people who believe in conspiracy
theories. Let's talk about the biggest one of all. The
first one is from House Majority Whip
Carrie Ann liszenby and it's
(16:45):
HB3.32. What this bill does, it's,
it's an election bill and it ends Utah's
participation in the Electronic Voter Information
center, which is known as eric. That is a
multi state partnership where
they, it's sort of a clearinghouse for voter
registration information. Last year several
Republican states withdrew from ERIC because
(17:07):
of election related conspiracy theories
stemming from Donald Trump's falsehoods about the
2020 election. The Utah Republican Party, a number
of county parties in the state passed resolutions
last year calling on the state to withdra withdraw from eric. But
they have. So Liz and B's bill would take Utah out
of eric. That's the first thing it does. It would also
(17:28):
make it so that the state could not share Utah
voter information with another state
without legislative approval. That's the normal
stuff that Liz and B's bill does. It's not great.
That's at least normal sounding. One of the things that
you heard Republicans talk about a lot was cleaning the
voter rolls. Cleaning the voter rolls, which is what ERIC does. Eric's
(17:48):
help states make sure that a person is not voting in multiple states.
If you cast a ballot state ERIC is going to flag
that and you're not going to be able to cast a ballot in another state. So it's
there to prevent voter fraud. But so how, if
Utah pulls out of eric, how are they going to clean
their voter rolls? Well, here's where it
gets crazy. Lisanbee's bill authorizes
(18:08):
the Lieutenant governor to contract with
a third party company to help maintain
the state's voter registration database.
Sounds great, huh? Huh? Well, there is a very specific
requirement in the bill and it's extremely
curious. It says company must use,
quote, quantum technology.
(18:29):
Okay. People are talking about quantum technology and
AI. That's not what this is. That's not what this
is. This appears to be
written for one company and one
company only. And that is a gentleman by the name of
Jay Valentine. Jay Valentine
is pushing, he's been, he's approached number of
states pushing this technology he
(18:52):
calls fractal quantum technology
and he's pitching it as something
to fill in the void left by states that have withdrawn
from Eric. There's been reporting that he's Approached Texas and a
couple of other states trying to get them to sign on board. Well that
language quantum technology clears the
field. This is written for one specific person and
(19:13):
it's Jay Valentine. So who is Jay Valentine? Well
he is an election conspiracy theorist who
has worked closely with Sidney Powell. If you remember
her, she was one of Donald Trump's lawyers in the uh,
aftermath of the 2020 election. She was alleging
uh, this massive multinational conspiracy led
by uh, the dead Venezuelan dictator
(19:33):
Hugo Chavez and Henry Kissinger and
Bill Gates and a whole bunch of other people to steal the
election. That voting machines were flip flipping
votes. She's claimed without any evidence. And
you'll remember she is the person or Senator Mike Lee
is the person who introduced her to Donald Trump
in the first place. He doesn't like to remember that, but
(19:54):
that's where the Sidney Powell connection came from for
Donald Trump. So that's the first person that Jay Valentine has worked with.
The Texas Tribune has reported that
Valentine's quote unquote technology,
this quantum, this fractal quantum
technology was first funded By Mike
Lindell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell who has
(20:14):
also spread wild conspiracy theories
about completely non existent
election fraud. Valentine has made
a number of really outlandish claims about
the abilities of his quantum technology. One of them
he claims that it found over 1.4
million voters in Pennsylvania using
illegal addresses. He hasn't been able to back that up but that's
(20:37):
what he claims. So here's what Liz and B
wants to do. Now remember this is appears to be
written for one person. So Liz and B's bill would
give this contractor who is, who could
probably only be Jay Valentine or his company, it
would not only give him access to Utah's
voter roll, it also directs other
(20:57):
state agencies to cough up massive
amounts of personal information about you and
me. It directs the state tax commission
to hand over motor vehicle registration information
and property tax information. And then it
also says that the division of uh,
workforce services has to give him access
(21:18):
to Medicaid application records. And what
Valentine claims he can do is he's going to take all that information
and then he can find people
who are registered to vote at an
address that they don't live there anymore. And he's claiming that what's
happening is there are hundreds of these ballots going to
the, or thousands or millions of these ballots going to
these addresses, going to these non existent voters
(21:41):
at these addresses and then they are harvested by
Democratic leaning or left leaning non
governmental organizations who then
somehow cast ballots in the name of
These people who don't exist, these voters who don't
exist to help Democrats win elections. And that's
the person who carry in Lisanbee, the number three
(22:01):
Republican in the Utah House of
Representatives. This is the person she wants to
turn over access to Utah's voter
rolls, property tax information,
voter vehicle registration information and
Medicaid applications. That's what she wants
to do. That's what this bill does. And how do I know that
this is for him? Well, she has met with
(22:22):
Valentine. Uh, there is a group out there and I've talked about
them before. It is Utah Citizens for the Constitution
institution. It is a right wing group. It is led by
Jen Brown, who, spoiler
alert, has no academic credentials about
the Constitution, but she likes to portray herself as an
expert on the Constitution, but she has no
(22:43):
academic credentials on this. She's also, let's
just say that there's not a conspiracy theory about
election fraud that Jen Brown has not
found and liked. She's, she's latched
onto so many of these conspiracy theories and
in May of last year, she
brokered a meeting with
Valentine and House Speaker Mike Schultz
(23:05):
and Lizenby at the Utah State Capitol. She's
posted about this on social media. They have met with
this person again who says that he has
this quantum fractal technology
that can detect voter fraud before it
happens or whatever. And Lisenby,
Carrie Ann Lizenby wants to make it so
(23:25):
that he can get access to all this information
from Utahns. Also, don't sleep on this.
Speaker Mike Schultz has taken an aim at
mail in voting. He wants to. He,
he thinks that there are ways to improve mail in voting. It just so happens
to be the kind of thing that Jay Valentine has talked
about as well. And Schultz has met with Valentine
(23:45):
and now there's a specific bill out there that
seems to be written for the benefit of Jay
Valentine. So that's fun, isn't it? That's neat.
That's conspiracy theory bill number
one from this last week. The second
one that came up was
HB180 from Representative
Lisa Shepard. She is a freshman Republican.
(24:08):
And what this one does, apparently there is a
looming threat for Utah from the
World Health Organization or the United
nations or the World Economic Forum. They are
just licking their chops to take over the state
of Utah. So into the breach steps
Representative Lisa Shepard, who has a
(24:28):
bill that would make it so any dictate
from those organizations, any, uh,
declaration from those organizations not be valid here in
Utah that they have no authority, they have no
jurisdiction in the state. They already don't
have jurisdiction in the state. But, uh, she wants to make it extra clear
that they don't have any jurisdiction here. And this
(24:49):
is only accelerated when President Donald Trump,
when he first came into office, signed an executive order that the United
States would withdraw from the World Health Organization.
Another one of those organizations, the World
Economic Forum, they have become the target of
a lot of really wild conspiracy theories.
People believe that they're behind a plot
(25:09):
to deliberately crash the world economy in
order to establish an authoritarian world
government. During the hearing, Shepard admitted there
have been no such directives from the World
Health Organization or the WEF or the United
nations directed at Utah. But better safe
than sorry. Apparently, uh, during the hearing and there
(25:29):
was a lot of people talking about conspiracy theories. There were a lot of
people bringing up, um, these
international boogeymen who are just chomping at
the bit. Is it chomping or champing? Champing at the bit. I'll
say champing at the bit. To just, uh,
enslave the good people of Utah, or as Governor
Cox would call them, the free people of Utah.
But one really stuck out. And it is another
(25:51):
member of the legislature. It's freshman Representative
Christian Chevrier, who was elected to
replace Representative Brady Brammer, who
moved to the Utah Senate. Anyway, she is an
anti vaccine activist. Uh, she
started this group called Vaccine Freedom Utah. And she was
very active during COVID 19. She specifically
talked about the World Health Organization,
(26:14):
the United nations and the World Economic Forum.
Or during her testimony, she came, she specifically
showed up to give public testimony.
>> Speaker B (26:22):
The governing bodies of the World Health Organization, the United
nations and the World Economic Forum are not
elected by the citizens of Utah,
nor are these appointed officials ultimately
accountable to to us. The citizens of
Utah have no recourse or means of redress
for potential harm incurred by enacting policies
recommended by the WHO, the UN
(26:45):
or the WEF. The UN and the
WHO's stated goals within its One Health
Agenda include total biosurveillance
of humans and animals and digital passport programs
that masquerade as choice.
>> Bryan Schott (26:58):
And he heard her say total
biosurveillance, which is a really
scary sounding term. That conspiracy
emerged during the COVID 19 pandemic. It focuses
on governments and private companies allegedly
using technology to monitor and control
populations. There was an attempt to hold the bill. Representative
Andrew Stoddard, he was worried that there is a provision
(27:20):
in the bill that could inadvertently prevent
Utah officials from acting on any type
of recommendation from an international organization. Say
there's another pandemic bird flu.
Bird flu. Anyway, he tried to hold the bill so they could work on the
language. Um, the Republicans weren't having it and so they
advanced it on a party line vote. And then our
(27:40):
third conspiracy theory that
has morphed into legislation from this week.
Let me ask you a question. When it comes to dental
health, who are you going to listen to? On one side
you have medical professionals, you have dentists,
you even have the dean of the University of
Utah dental school. Okay, that's group,
group A. And on the other side
(28:03):
you have, huh, people claiming that fluoride
flow in water should be a
parents rights issue. It should be a parental choice
issue. Parents should decide what goes
into their children's bodies, not, not government
agencies. So which switch group are you going to listen to?
Um, okay, now that you've thought about that, which group do you
think that the Republicans on a House committee
(28:26):
listen to? If you said the medical professionals,
you are 100% wrong because that is not who
they were listening to. This is a bill from
Representative Stephanie Grishas to
remove fluoride from
Utah's water systems. Right now
you can't put fluoride into water systems unless
there is a public vote. And uh, Salt Lake
(28:49):
and I believe Davis county voted to
fluoridate their water. There's about 43% of the
population in Utah has fluoridated water. Well, this, and
that's because, because of a citizens initiative which was
passed back in 1976, allowed people to
vote on whether they wanted fluoride in the water. And that
narrowly passed, but that has been the law. Well, this would undo that and
(29:09):
say you can't put any fluoride in the water. But if
you do want fluoride, then a pharmacist can give you a
prescription for a fluoride supplement. This is just the latest
fight against water fluoridation. This is being
headed actually by the right wing group
Utah Parents Union United. Their president,
Corinne Johnson, who was a
candidate for lieutenant governor earlier this year. She
(29:32):
was Carson Jorgensen's running mate on his
gubernatorial ticket. And I think Utah dodged a
bullet on that one. Anyway, she's been pushing this to
get rid of fluoride in the water because it should be a
parental choice issue. Parents should have the.
Have the right to decide what goes into their
child's body. But apparently that does not.
Apparently that's not the case when it comes to
(29:54):
gender affirming care for children. I don't know where the line is.
I guess the line is where it's most politically
convenient or where it appeals to your base.
So anyway, that's the third conspiracy related
bill up on Capitol Hill from this last week. Your
government in action. Neat.
And that will do it for this week's show. I want to thank you
again for taking time out of your day to listen.
(30:16):
Reminder, if you feel so inclined,
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(30:36):
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(30:56):
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Schott. Thank you so much for listening. We will talk to
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Come one, come all to a beautiful
show. It's gonna be awesome. And some
other stuff,
some other musical stuff.
This is special session for the week ending Friday, January
(00:22):
31, 2025. I'm Bryan Schott,
managing editor of Utah Political Watch and
this week on the show we've got a bunch of news from
Utah' Hill.
Where was Sean Reyes during his time as
Attorney General of the state? Not in his office.
Lawmakers blink first in their stare down
with public sector labor unions, more
(00:43):
proposed laws in the legislature
prompted by conspiracy theories. And I'll
give you one guess which party is pushing these
proposals. And Utah is a little bit
closer to a resolution in the case
over gerrymandering, but not much. We'll get
to all that in just a second. But a little bit of
housekeeping. If you have not already subscribed to
(01:05):
this show, please do or, uh, suggest it to a
friend. Help new people find the program. You can
subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Also, if you
take the time to leave a rating and review that
just helps more people find the show. You can sign up for
my newsletter for free. It's absolutely
free at Utah PoliticalWatch News.
You'll get all of my journalism sent to your
(01:28):
email inbox. However, if you
want to support my work covering Utah
politics, make more journalism possible,
more podcasts like this possible, you can become a
paying subscriber for as little as $5 a month and
you'll have my eternal gratitude. You can also find that at
Utah Political Watch News.
Okay, all that's out of the way. Let's get to this
(01:50):
week's news breakdown.
Talk about a Friday night news dump. On
Friday there was a legislative audit
released. Actually a pair of legislative audits
surrounding the tenure of former Utah
Attorn General Sean Reyes. And there's a lot
of stuff in there we already knew. But it was still quite
(02:12):
shocking to read these reports from legislative
auditors. One they concluded is that
Reyes conducted state business from a private
barber shop known as Max Place. Spent a lot
of time at this private barber shop in Salt Lake
City conducting business. He also deliberately
withheld information from state auditors. And it
(02:32):
just painted this picture of an absent leader
who prioritized his private interest over
public duty duties. One of the things they said in the report
was, quote, the information we received showed that the
AG appeared to spend a significant amount of
time at this private location during business hours
in the work week. It also appears that
(02:53):
Attorney General office related business was being
conducted at the barber shop. They also
spoke to a number of his division
leaders in the office. And he really
did not appear to be involved in the day to day
operations of the Attorney General's office, even though
he was supposed to to be in charge of the whole thing.
(03:13):
Most of the division directors there said that they had
little contact with Reyes during his time as
Attorney General. In fact he did not start
attending a monthly meeting for division
directors until legislative leaders launched
the audit in November of 2023. They had uh, this
chart that was really striking that
(03:33):
basically showed that Reyes did not attend those meetings. But
the moment that this audit was launched he made sure to get
his butt there. So you know you can put two to two
together on that. They also spent a significant amount of
time talking about Reyes's involvement
with nonprofit organizations. And
that created a conflict of interest because
(03:53):
the Attorney General not only here in Utah but in other
states, their job is to
oversee nonprofit organizations. They
take a significant role. We all know about his involvement
with Operation Underground Railroad and Tim Ballard.
That is clearly a conflict of interest because
Reyes is supposed to be in charge of regulating, in
(04:13):
charge of enforcing regulations on,
on nonprofit organizations. But the
auditors concluded that he appeared to leverage his position as
Attorney General to help and promote
and fundraise for our. You
will remember that Operation Underground
Railroad came under fire in 2023 after
there were some bombshell sexual
(04:35):
harassment or sex sexual misconduct
allegations against Ballard. And that uh, all
he also allegedly misled donors. And
that controversy also came and enveloped
because of his longtime association friendship with
Ballard. And that raised questions about his
judgment because he had such close ties to
Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.
(04:58):
Now to be fair, auditors said they didn't find any evidence
that Reyes used state resources to assist
our. But he also held back
information about his meetings with the group and his
participation in events on
behalf of our. Um, another thing they flagged,
and this has been reported before, that Operation Underground
(05:18):
railroad donated about
$950,000 to the attorney
General's office. That money was distributed to the Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Force ICAC
and it made its way down to local law
enforcement. The problem with that is
Reyes. The Attorney General's office in Reyes painted
this money as a federal grant when it wasn't. It was
(05:40):
funded by these donations that came from Operation
Underground Railroad. Now Reyes also
took the very unusual step of creating his
own non profit organization that's
called Liberate All Value all uh, or lava.
And the audit says that it appears that
Reyes leveraged his official position as Attorney
General to solicit donations for this
(06:02):
organization and Then he would then take that
money and distribute it to other nonprofits.
And then you've got another conflict of interest because of that.
Back to Reyes's schedule and withholding
information from auditors. A lot of the information that
Reyes withheld from auditors was because
of attorney client privilege. They claimed attorney client
privilege, or they claimed claim that it would hamper
(06:24):
ongoing investigations. Auditors were able to get some of
this information from other sources. And it's clear
that's that there was really no
attorney client privilege involved at all. It was really
weird that they did that. There was one
example where in his calendar, uh,
they had a calendar entry for Reyes speaking
(06:45):
at the Utah Sheriff's Association Conference,
but a lot of part of it was redacted. So it was a calendar
entry for the event, the Utah Sheriff's Association
Conference, but there's some redactions. They got an
unredacted version. And what he had redacted
is that he didn't attend that event. It
appeared that he was trying to make it look like
he was doing more than he actually was. So you
(07:07):
saw this calendar entry for Utah Sheriff's association,
but he didn't go, um. And that's just one example of the
things that Reyes held back in this audit. So what can the
state do? Well, not a lot to Reyes. The audit did
not talk about any criminal activity on behalf of Reyes, but
it was certainly unethical, and he was certainly doing things
outside of what an attorney general shouldn't do. And he
(07:28):
wasn't actually doing his job as attorney general.
So lawmakers can do things going forward to put more
guardrails around the office. They can do more
to require more transparency, to
require more ethical behavior from the attorney general
going forward, but there's not a lot that they can do retroactively.
So while this audit was alarming,
(07:49):
I m don't expect much to come of it.
I think one of the biggest questions I get asked all
the time as someone who reports on politics in the state, is
what's happening with the gerrymandering lawsuit? When are we
going to know what's happening? Well, I guess sooner rather than
later is the answer. Because on Friday there
was a court hearing finally
(08:12):
over the lawsuit challenging the state's
congressional maps from the League of Women Voters
and a coalition of other plaintiffs. Judge
Diana Gibson heard arguments for about
three hours on Friday afternoon in this case. This was
after the Utah Supreme Court ruled that
the state, uh, legislature overstepped its
(08:32):
bounds by gutting Proposition
4, which set up the independent Redistricting commission.
So that was then sent back down to a lower court, Judge
Gibson. And so she finally heard
arguments on that on Friday afternoon.
So the plaintiffs were asking the judge to
block portions of the law that gutted
(08:52):
Prop 4, which did establish an
independent redistricting commission, but it didn't give them
any authority. It just made them an advisory committee.
They drew maps. The legislature had
to consider those maps, but they weren't. They
weren't obligated to adopt them, which is
wildly different than what Prop 4 did. And they were
challenging that. So she heard arguments over that. And
(09:15):
what they were asking for is that she throw out the
current congressional maps and then make force
a redrawing of those maps that
followed the dictums of Proposition 4, which
said that you couldn't take into account
where incumbents live, you could not look at
any partisan political data. You had to keep communities
(09:36):
of interest together. You had to try to
keep cities and municipalities together.
And that's not what the legislature did at all. What they did is they
evenly. I mean, they split Salt Lake county into
four. It's almost as if they
were able to surgically divide
the four districts up to make them even more
(09:56):
Republican than they already
were. Don't get me wrong. If there are new
maps, you're not going to see a Democrat
district pop up. You're not going to see a swing district pop
up. It's. It's. That's not going to happen. There are not enough
Democrats in this state to make that happen. What you
will see is maybe one of the four
congressional seats that Utah has will be more
(10:18):
competitive. Instead of it being an
R+11 district, it might be
R+6 or R+7. And
in a wave year, you might see a Democrat
win those seats. So it'd be much more competitive, but it
wouldn't favor a Democrat. That's not how this would
work. So that's what the plaintiffs are asking
for. The lieutenant governor made a filing with the
(10:40):
court, uh, has requested that if there are new
maps, they have to be finalized by November 1st of
this year. That way she can put out the notice
for the election, and the people who are running will know which
districts they are running in. Meanwhile, the legislature,
they were arguing, or at least their request to the
judge, is they want the. The judge to decide
(11:00):
whether lawmakers IGN ignored the will of the
voters when they passed the law
that gutted the Prop 4 in the first
place. That was their ask of the judge. They were
asking for a summary judgment. So she heard arguments on both of
those after the hearing, she said she'd take it under advisement, which means that
she'll make a decision at some point in the future.
(11:20):
We don't know when it is. No matter what she decides, you
can be assured that there's going to be another appeal
up to the Utah Supreme Court, which whatever happens,
that may go back down to a lower court. So
we're a little closer to having a resolution resolution on
this, but we're not a bunch closer, if that makes
any sense. And remember now, you've got this
deadline of November 1st staring everybody in the face, and
(11:43):
that's nine months away as we start
February. So more waiting, but
we're a little closer to the finish, is the answer
there.
If you're ever wondering what power a union has,
just look at what happened late last week up on
Capitol Hill. Essentially, Utah lawmakers
(12:06):
blasted There's a bill, HB
267 from Representative Jordan Tusher
that has just been steamrolling its way through the
legislature, got through the House without a hitch. And what
his bill did was it took away the
rights of public employees to collectively
bargain. That would really only impact some public employees
in the state. There are some school districts that have
(12:28):
a collective bargaining agreement with the Utah Education
association, the Salt Lake City Police and the Salt Lake City Fire
Department. And so this bill would take that away. It would also take
away the ability for union members to pay their
union dues through payroll deduction.
Every time it came up for committee, it was packed. When it was in
the House committee, there were three overflow rooms plus the
committee hearing room. Same thing happened when it came up in a Senate committee.
(12:50):
It passed an initial vote in the Senate. When it came up
for a final vote in the Senate on Friday afternoon, all of
a sudden there's a pause on this rush to pass
this bill. And that's because lawmakers are backing
down. They have changed it. A version of the
bill they made public on Friday takes away
that that they can no collectively
(13:11):
bargain. The public employees can no longer collectively bargain. And
it replaces it with a provision that says if there
is a collective bargaining agreement, then every five years
the union members have to have a vote to
decide whether they want the union to continue
to bargain on their behalf. So it's a significant
watering down of this bill that was
(13:31):
seen as retaliation by
lawmakers against the Utah Education association
for or their opposition of Amendment A, which
would have changed the way that the constitutional
provision or the constitutional mechanism for
funding public schools in the state. Right now, income tax
Money can only go to fund public and
higher education and some social services, and they wanted
(13:54):
to expand that. Utah Education association opposed
that. And then they also filed suit against the private
school vouchers program, which takes, uh,
money that's supposed to go to public schools and allows
parents to pay for private education or
homeschooling expenses or whatever with very
little accountability. So they filed suit over that, and this
bill was seen as retaliation for that. Now,
(14:17):
lawmakers couldn't just go after the uea. They would be opening
themselves up to a lawsuit. They couldn't
say, well, we're just going to take away the ability of the teachers
unions. You can't do that. So that's why they
expanded it to, say, all public employees, which
would have encompassed the firefighters
and the police and the ability, if other public
(14:37):
unions wanted, to do some collective
bargaining down the line. So lawmakers have backed off that
because of this massive protest by union
members. They tried this last year. They had a bill
that would have taken away the payroll deduction for union
dues, and it would have required these unions to have
a, uh, recertification vote every, every
(14:58):
couple of years. But that one, there was massive
opposition by the unions, and lawmakers backed down,
and the bill never went anywhere. This one is getting closer to
passage, but it's been significantly watered down
because of union opposition. So it's,
it's fascina that lawmakers once again are
blinking. This is clearly to send a message in
(15:18):
retaliation for what the Utah
Education association did. They'll deny it. Representative
Jordan Tusher has denied that to me. He said it is not
retaliation against the uea. He wouldn't involve
UEA in discussions over the bill, but he said it
wasn't retaliation. But, you know, it's not
hard to do the math, and I'm not stupid. Lawmakers have backed down.
And that just shows you the next time you
(15:41):
want a tangible, um,
example of the power of employees
unions, just take a look at this. And this wasn't even
with a strike. Uh, there wasn't even a threatened strike. If you look at
what happened in Oklahoma last year, I believe it was last year
when they were making some significant changes to schools
and the teachers in Oklahoma struck and they went to
(16:01):
the Capitol and, like, took over the state capitol.
Lawmakers, they, it took them about four days to back
down. Unions have quite a bit of
power and influence. Saw that this week,
and it wasn't even with a strike. So lawmakers appear
to have backed down. Foreign.
So this is becoming a regular segment on this
(16:23):
podcast unfortunately, it's time for
conspiracy theory bingo. On Utah's
Capitol Hill. There were a trio of bills this week
that appear to be motivated by, uh,
conspiracy theories or people who believe in conspiracy
theories. Let's talk about the biggest one of all. The
first one is from House Majority Whip
Carrie Ann liszenby and it's
(16:45):
HB3.32. What this bill does, it's,
it's an election bill and it ends Utah's
participation in the Electronic Voter Information
center, which is known as eric. That is a
multi state partnership where
they, it's sort of a clearinghouse for voter
registration information. Last year several
Republican states withdrew from ERIC because
(17:07):
of election related conspiracy theories
stemming from Donald Trump's falsehoods about the
2020 election. The Utah Republican Party, a number
of county parties in the state passed resolutions
last year calling on the state to withdra withdraw from eric. But
they have. So Liz and B's bill would take Utah out
of eric. That's the first thing it does. It would also
(17:28):
make it so that the state could not share Utah
voter information with another state
without legislative approval. That's the normal
stuff that Liz and B's bill does. It's not great.
That's at least normal sounding. One of the things that
you heard Republicans talk about a lot was cleaning the
voter rolls. Cleaning the voter rolls, which is what ERIC does. Eric's
(17:48):
help states make sure that a person is not voting in multiple states.
If you cast a ballot state ERIC is going to flag
that and you're not going to be able to cast a ballot in another state. So it's
there to prevent voter fraud. But so how, if
Utah pulls out of eric, how are they going to clean
their voter rolls? Well, here's where it
gets crazy. Lisanbee's bill authorizes
(18:08):
the Lieutenant governor to contract with
a third party company to help maintain
the state's voter registration database.
Sounds great, huh? Huh? Well, there is a very specific
requirement in the bill and it's extremely
curious. It says company must use,
quote, quantum technology.
(18:29):
Okay. People are talking about quantum technology and
AI. That's not what this is. That's not what this
is. This appears to be
written for one company and one
company only. And that is a gentleman by the name of
Jay Valentine. Jay Valentine
is pushing, he's been, he's approached number of
states pushing this technology he
(18:52):
calls fractal quantum technology
and he's pitching it as something
to fill in the void left by states that have withdrawn
from Eric. There's been reporting that he's Approached Texas and a
couple of other states trying to get them to sign on board. Well that
language quantum technology clears the
field. This is written for one specific person and
(19:13):
it's Jay Valentine. So who is Jay Valentine? Well
he is an election conspiracy theorist who
has worked closely with Sidney Powell. If you remember
her, she was one of Donald Trump's lawyers in the uh,
aftermath of the 2020 election. She was alleging
uh, this massive multinational conspiracy led
by uh, the dead Venezuelan dictator
(19:33):
Hugo Chavez and Henry Kissinger and
Bill Gates and a whole bunch of other people to steal the
election. That voting machines were flip flipping
votes. She's claimed without any evidence. And
you'll remember she is the person or Senator Mike Lee
is the person who introduced her to Donald Trump
in the first place. He doesn't like to remember that, but
(19:54):
that's where the Sidney Powell connection came from for
Donald Trump. So that's the first person that Jay Valentine has worked with.
The Texas Tribune has reported that
Valentine's quote unquote technology,
this quantum, this fractal quantum
technology was first funded By Mike
Lindell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell who has
(20:14):
also spread wild conspiracy theories
about completely non existent
election fraud. Valentine has made
a number of really outlandish claims about
the abilities of his quantum technology. One of them
he claims that it found over 1.4
million voters in Pennsylvania using
illegal addresses. He hasn't been able to back that up but that's
(20:37):
what he claims. So here's what Liz and B
wants to do. Now remember this is appears to be
written for one person. So Liz and B's bill would
give this contractor who is, who could
probably only be Jay Valentine or his company, it
would not only give him access to Utah's
voter roll, it also directs other
(20:57):
state agencies to cough up massive
amounts of personal information about you and
me. It directs the state tax commission
to hand over motor vehicle registration information
and property tax information. And then it
also says that the division of uh,
workforce services has to give him access
(21:18):
to Medicaid application records. And what
Valentine claims he can do is he's going to take all that information
and then he can find people
who are registered to vote at an
address that they don't live there anymore. And he's claiming that what's
happening is there are hundreds of these ballots going to
the, or thousands or millions of these ballots going to
these addresses, going to these non existent voters
(21:41):
at these addresses and then they are harvested by
Democratic leaning or left leaning non
governmental organizations who then
somehow cast ballots in the name of
These people who don't exist, these voters who don't
exist to help Democrats win elections. And that's
the person who carry in Lisanbee, the number three
(22:01):
Republican in the Utah House of
Representatives. This is the person she wants to
turn over access to Utah's voter
rolls, property tax information,
voter vehicle registration information and
Medicaid applications. That's what she wants
to do. That's what this bill does. And how do I know that
this is for him? Well, she has met with
(22:22):
Valentine. Uh, there is a group out there and I've talked about
them before. It is Utah Citizens for the Constitution
institution. It is a right wing group. It is led by
Jen Brown, who, spoiler
alert, has no academic credentials about
the Constitution, but she likes to portray herself as an
expert on the Constitution, but she has no
(22:43):
academic credentials on this. She's also, let's
just say that there's not a conspiracy theory about
election fraud that Jen Brown has not
found and liked. She's, she's latched
onto so many of these conspiracy theories and
in May of last year, she
brokered a meeting with
Valentine and House Speaker Mike Schultz
(23:05):
and Lizenby at the Utah State Capitol. She's
posted about this on social media. They have met with
this person again who says that he has
this quantum fractal technology
that can detect voter fraud before it
happens or whatever. And Lisenby,
Carrie Ann Lizenby wants to make it so
(23:25):
that he can get access to all this information
from Utahns. Also, don't sleep on this.
Speaker Mike Schultz has taken an aim at
mail in voting. He wants to. He,
he thinks that there are ways to improve mail in voting. It just so happens
to be the kind of thing that Jay Valentine has talked
about as well. And Schultz has met with Valentine
(23:45):
and now there's a specific bill out there that
seems to be written for the benefit of Jay
Valentine. So that's fun, isn't it? That's neat.
That's conspiracy theory bill number
one from this last week. The second
one that came up was
HB180 from Representative
Lisa Shepard. She is a freshman Republican.
(24:08):
And what this one does, apparently there is a
looming threat for Utah from the
World Health Organization or the United
nations or the World Economic Forum. They are
just licking their chops to take over the state
of Utah. So into the breach steps
Representative Lisa Shepard, who has a
(24:28):
bill that would make it so any dictate
from those organizations, any, uh,
declaration from those organizations not be valid here in
Utah that they have no authority, they have no
jurisdiction in the state. They already don't
have jurisdiction in the state. But, uh, she wants to make it extra clear
that they don't have any jurisdiction here. And this
(24:49):
is only accelerated when President Donald Trump,
when he first came into office, signed an executive order that the United
States would withdraw from the World Health Organization.
Another one of those organizations, the World
Economic Forum, they have become the target of
a lot of really wild conspiracy theories.
People believe that they're behind a plot
(25:09):
to deliberately crash the world economy in
order to establish an authoritarian world
government. During the hearing, Shepard admitted there
have been no such directives from the World
Health Organization or the WEF or the United
nations directed at Utah. But better safe
than sorry. Apparently, uh, during the hearing and there
(25:29):
was a lot of people talking about conspiracy theories. There were a lot of
people bringing up, um, these
international boogeymen who are just chomping at
the bit. Is it chomping or champing? Champing at the bit. I'll
say champing at the bit. To just, uh,
enslave the good people of Utah, or as Governor
Cox would call them, the free people of Utah.
But one really stuck out. And it is another
(25:51):
member of the legislature. It's freshman Representative
Christian Chevrier, who was elected to
replace Representative Brady Brammer, who
moved to the Utah Senate. Anyway, she is an
anti vaccine activist. Uh, she
started this group called Vaccine Freedom Utah. And she was
very active during COVID 19. She specifically
talked about the World Health Organization,
(26:14):
the United nations and the World Economic Forum.
Or during her testimony, she came, she specifically
showed up to give public testimony.
>> Speaker B (26:22):
The governing bodies of the World Health Organization, the United
nations and the World Economic Forum are not
elected by the citizens of Utah,
nor are these appointed officials ultimately
accountable to to us. The citizens of
Utah have no recourse or means of redress
for potential harm incurred by enacting policies
recommended by the WHO, the UN
(26:45):
or the WEF. The UN and the
WHO's stated goals within its One Health
Agenda include total biosurveillance
of humans and animals and digital passport programs
that masquerade as choice.
>> Bryan Schott (26:58):
And he heard her say total
biosurveillance, which is a really
scary sounding term. That conspiracy
emerged during the COVID 19 pandemic. It focuses
on governments and private companies allegedly
using technology to monitor and control
populations. There was an attempt to hold the bill. Representative
Andrew Stoddard, he was worried that there is a provision
(27:20):
in the bill that could inadvertently prevent
Utah officials from acting on any type
of recommendation from an international organization. Say
there's another pandemic bird flu.
Bird flu. Anyway, he tried to hold the bill so they could work on the
language. Um, the Republicans weren't having it and so they
advanced it on a party line vote. And then our
(27:40):
third conspiracy theory that
has morphed into legislation from this week.
Let me ask you a question. When it comes to dental
health, who are you going to listen to? On one side
you have medical professionals, you have dentists,
you even have the dean of the University of
Utah dental school. Okay, that's group,
group A. And on the other side
(28:03):
you have, huh, people claiming that fluoride
flow in water should be a
parents rights issue. It should be a parental choice
issue. Parents should decide what goes
into their children's bodies, not, not government
agencies. So which switch group are you going to listen to?
Um, okay, now that you've thought about that, which group do you
think that the Republicans on a House committee
(28:26):
listen to? If you said the medical professionals,
you are 100% wrong because that is not who
they were listening to. This is a bill from
Representative Stephanie Grishas to
remove fluoride from
Utah's water systems. Right now
you can't put fluoride into water systems unless
there is a public vote. And uh, Salt Lake
(28:49):
and I believe Davis county voted to
fluoridate their water. There's about 43% of the
population in Utah has fluoridated water. Well, this, and
that's because, because of a citizens initiative which was
passed back in 1976, allowed people to
vote on whether they wanted fluoride in the water. And that
narrowly passed, but that has been the law. Well, this would undo that and
(29:09):
say you can't put any fluoride in the water. But if
you do want fluoride, then a pharmacist can give you a
prescription for a fluoride supplement. This is just the latest
fight against water fluoridation. This is being
headed actually by the right wing group
Utah Parents Union United. Their president,
Corinne Johnson, who was a
candidate for lieutenant governor earlier this year. She
(29:32):
was Carson Jorgensen's running mate on his
gubernatorial ticket. And I think Utah dodged a
bullet on that one. Anyway, she's been pushing this to
get rid of fluoride in the water because it should be a
parental choice issue. Parents should have the.
Have the right to decide what goes into their
child's body. But apparently that does not.
Apparently that's not the case when it comes to
(29:54):
gender affirming care for children. I don't know where the line is.
I guess the line is where it's most politically
convenient or where it appeals to your base.
So anyway, that's the third conspiracy related
bill up on Capitol Hill from this last week. Your
government in action. Neat.
And that will do it for this week's show. I want to thank you
again for taking time out of your day to listen.
(30:16):
Reminder, if you feel so inclined,
leave a rating and review of this podcast. Uh, wherever
you get podcast, Apple podcasts, wherever that
might be, uh, that helps their algorithms
suggest new the show to new listeners.
And I would really appreciate that. If there's a topic
that you'd like me to tackle or a guest that you'd like to
(30:36):
hear, you can reach out and let me know. My, uh,
email is on the website. That's Utah Political Watch
News. You can also find me on social media. I'm on Blue
sky threads, Facebook, Instagram.
I'm available on all of those platforms. Also,
take a moment. If you haven't yet, sign up for my newsletter for
free at Utah Political Watch
(30:56):
News and you can become a paying
subscriber. Because this kind of work, these podcasts, uh,
the stories that I write, they take time and
resources and I can't do it for free. If you
feel like you can, for as little as $5 a month, you
can help support this critical work of
holding our elected officials
accountable. And that's at my website, Utah Political
(31:19):
Watch News. I'd really appreciate it if you could take
that extra step. I completely understand that not everybody can
swing a subscription right now, but if you can, I
would really be quite thankful. Special Session with
Bryan Schott is written and produced by me, Bryan
Schott. Thank you so much for listening. We will talk to
you again next week.
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