Bill would crack down on ‘creative' vandalization of political signs
A Utah House committee gave the thumbs up to a bill that would criminalize attaching objects to political signs in yards or public spaces, after the sponsor's campaign signs were vandalized last year.
"One of the things we saw this last election cycle is the use of ... some creative ways to deface political signs that we haven't seen necessarily in the past," Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, told the House Government Operations Committee Friday afternoon.
It's already a class B misdemeanor to remove, alter, deface or otherwise vandalize a sign, but HB292 would make it a crime to attach items to a political sign that change or obstruct the message being promoted. The bill does allow candidates, their campaigns or the person who places a political sign to modify the message — as seen when supporters of Phil Lyman's gubernatorial campaign added "write in" to his campaign signs across the state.
It also makes it a class A misdemeanor to affix signs on utility poles, light poles, electric utility boxes and road signs, something Teuscher said is already prohibited by most city ordinances, but it's included in the bill to make it more visible for political campaigns.
"A lot of candidates that are running for office aren't going into the municipal code to read that," he said.
The proposal is a personal one for Teuscher, who recently had "vote out" signs attached to some of his own campaign signs in his district — something Rep. Matt MacPherson, R-West Valley City, playfully alluded to.
"I can't imagine why you would run a bill like this," he told Teuscher.
An original version of the bill would have also prohibited signs being placed directly in front of another sign to obscure the message, but Teuscher said that was removed because it could have raised concerns about violating freedom of expression. The latest version simply prohibits objects from being physically affixed to an existing sign.
"The remedy for that is for the original campaign to take their sign that's behind and put it in front of the other sign," Teuscher said.
Jennifer Garner, a former Republican state House candidate from Davis County, opposed the proposal, saying it should be left to the cities to legislate.
"I was a candidate, and I had signs stolen, and I just chalked it up to the cost of doing business," she said during the public comment period. "It's legislating criminal activity and increasing consequences for that. ... Maybe some education would be the better part of this instead of bringing down the hammer."
The bill passed unanimously and now heads to the House floor for consideration.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
35 minutes ago
- The Hill
Johnson brushes off Musk campaign spending threats: ‘It doesn't concern me'
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in an interview Friday brushed off Elon Musk's campaign spending threats in light of the tech billionaire's public fallout with President Trump, suggesting he isn't worried. The spat between Trump and Musk began with the latter's criticism of the president's legislative agenda making its way through Congress. Johnson said he built a closer relationship with the then-special government employee and that the tech mogul has been led astray regarding the 'big beautiful' spending package. 'Look, it doesn't concern me. We're going to win either way because we're going to win on our policies we're delivering for hardworking Americans and fulfilling those promises,' Johnson told Fox News's 'Jesse Watters Primetime.' 'But look, I like Elon and respect him. I mean, we became friends in all this process,' he continued. 'I've been texting with him even this week … in trying to make sure that he has accurate information about the bill. I think he has been misled about it.' Musk, who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to assist in Trump's win in the 2024 presidential election, was the biggest donor during the White House race. Amid his recent spat with Trump, which broke out in public as the two traded insults and threats, Musk argued that without his political expenditures, Trump would have lost to former Vice President Harris, Republicans would lose the majority in the House and the GOP would have failed to flip the majority in the Senate. Trump then threatened to have all federal contracts associated with the billionaire's companies to be cut off. As the fight between the two intensified, the tech executive floated the idea of forming a third party and accused the president of being named in the late Jeffrey Epstein's files. Trump has denied close ties to the disgraced financier. Musk's opposition to the GOP megabill — which he called a 'disgusting abomination' — is largely tied to deficit spending. The billionaire argued the legislation would balloon the national debt and fails to slash enough spending. The package faces an uphill battle in the Senate. While Musk, who recently left his position as the top adviser to Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), seemed open to repairing ties on Friday, the president appeared to be OK with moving on. Johnson in the interview Friday defended the spending bill and commended Trump for his handling of the squabble. 'We're going to make good on this… I like the president's attitude. You know, he is moving on. He has to,' he told the host. 'He's laser-focused on delivering for the people. And House and Senate Republicans are as well. So, we've got our hand at the wheel.' 'We're going to get this done just like we told the people,' the Speaker continued. 'And if you are a hardworking American that is struggling to take care of your family, you are going to love this legislation.' The Louisiana Republican added, 'I'm telling you, all boats are going to rise and everybody's going to be in a much better mood before we go into that midterm election in 2026.'
Axios
36 minutes ago
- Axios
Republicans worry DOGE cuts will sink them in Virginia governor's race
Republicans are increasingly worried that budget cuts by Elon Musk 's DOGE could cost them dearly in November's vote for Virginia governor — an early electoral test of President Trump 's policies. Why it matters: Virginia has one of the highest percentages of federal employees in the country — more than 5% of the state's workforce by some estimates — and Republicans' internal polls are starting to show the damage from tens of thousands of federal layoffs. Zoom in: The University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center has projected that 32,000 jobs could be lost in the state this year, many of them federal positions. "Northern Virginia is filled with people who suffered the consequences of the DOGE cuts, and it's hard to see them being sympathetic to a Republican candidate who supports the DOGE cuts," said Whit Ayers, a veteran Republican pollster. "I suspect this will be an albatross around the neck of every Republican candidate this year," said Virginia Republican Bill Bolling, a former lieutenant governor. By the numbers: A private poll done for the campaign of a statewide Republican candidate suggested that just 39% of voters had a favorable view of DOGE. Nearly half of voters surveyed said they knew of someone impacted by the DOGE cuts, according to results shared with Axios. The poll showed Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears trailing former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) by single digits, outside the margin of error. Between the lines: DOGE could especially hurt Earle-Sears' campaign for governor in Northern Virginia and Norfolk, sections of the state where huge segments of the population are federal workers or have jobs tied to the government. Those areas played a role in Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's win in 2021, when he cut into Democratic margins and improved on the GOP's performance in 2017. (Virginia governors can't succeed themselves, so Youngkin isn't allowed to run again.) The D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia are home to upper- and middle-income voters, many of whom have ties to the government and are particularly likely to vote. Even non-federal workers in those areas could be impacted by DOGE, given the role federal funding plays in driving the local economy. Flashback: Republicans already are comparing DOGE's potential impact on Virginia's 2025 election to that of the GOP-led government shutdown of 2013, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of government workers being placed on unpaid leave. Democrats swept the state's highest offices that year — an outcome many GOP strategists blamed on the shutdown. "Washington, D.C., politics have long shaped the outcome of Virginia off-year elections," Virginia-based GOP strategist Jimmy Keady said in a text to Axios. "With over 230,000 Virginians working in or around the federal government, especially in Northern Virginia and Norfolk, any proposal that threatens those jobs — like DOGE — turns into a high-stakes issue," he added. The other side: Democrats are making DOGE a centerpiece of their election playbook. Virginia's Democratic Party has been running ads highlighting Earle-Sears' comments accusing the media of overhyping the impact of DOGE cuts. Other Democratic commercials are linking Republican state legislative candidates to Musk. Behind the scenes: Youngkin has taken steps to try to soften the blow to the state's federal workers, launching a " Virginia Has Jobs" initiative aimed at helping laid-off workers find new positions. Reality check: Republicans say Earle-Sears has an uphill climb, even without DOGE. In every election since 1977 besides one, the state has elected a governor from the opposition party to the sitting president. Top GOP officials — including some close to Trump — have criticized Earle-Sears and her campaign. Chris LaCivita, Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager and a longtime player in Virginia politics, has called her team " amateurs." What they're saying: Peyton Vogel, a spokesperson for Earle-Sears, rejected the notion that federal cutbacks could hurt the GOP candidate.
San Francisco Chronicle
38 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump's big bill also seeks to undo the big bills of Biden and Obama
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chiseling away at President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Rolling back the green energy tax breaks from President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. At its core, the Republican 'big, beautiful bill' is more than just an extension of tax breaks approved during President Donald Trump's first term at the White House. The package is an attempt by Republicans to undo, little by little, the signature domestic achievements of the past two Democratic presidents. 'We're going to do what we said we were going to do,' Speaker Mike Johnson said after House passage last month. While the aim of the sprawling 1,000-page plus bill is to preserve an estimated $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that would otherwise expire at year's end if Congress fails to act — and add some new ones, including no taxes on tips — the spending cuts pointed at the Democratic-led programs are causing the most political turmoil. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that 10.9 million fewer people would have health insurance under the GOP bill, including 1.4 million immigrants in the U.S. without legal status who are in state-funded programs. At the same time, lawmakers are being hounded by businesses in states across the nation who rely on the green energy tax breaks for their projects. As the package moves from the House to the Senate, the simmering unrest over curbing the Obama and Biden policies shows just how politically difficult it can be to slash government programs once they become part of civic life. "When he asked me, what do you think the prospects are for passage in the Senate? I said, good — if we don't cut Medicaid," said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recounting his conversation last week with Trump. 'And he said, I'm 100% supportive of that.' Health care worries Not a single Republican in Congress voted for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in 2010, or Biden's inflation act in 2022. Both were approved using the same budget reconciliation process now being employed by Republicans to steamroll Trump's bill past the opposition. Even still, sizable coalitions of GOP lawmakers are forming to protect aspects of both of those programs as they ripple into the lives of millions of Americans. Hawley, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and others are wary of changes to Medicaid and other provisions in the bill that would result in fewer people being able to access health care programs. At the same time, crossover groupings of House and Senate Republicans have launched an aggressive campaign to preserve, at least for some time, the green energy tax breaks that business interests in their states are relying on to develop solar, wind and other types of energy production. Murkowski said one area she's "worried about' is the House bill's provision that any project not under construction within 60 days of the bill becoming law may no longer be eligible for those credits. 'These are some of the things we're working on,' she said. The concerns are running in sometimes opposite directions and complicating the work of GOP leaders who have almost no votes to spare in the House and Senate as they try to hoist the package over Democratic opposition and onto the president's desk by the Fourth of July. While some Republicans are working to preserve the programs from cuts, the budget hawks want steeper reductions to stem the nation's debt load. The CBO said the package would add $2.4 trillion to deficits over the decade. After a robust private meeting with Trump at the White House this week, Republican senators said they were working to keep the bill on track as they amend it for their own priorities. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the president 'made the pitch and the argument for why we need to get the bill done." The disconnect is reminiscent of Trump's first term, when Republicans promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, only to see their effort collapse in dramatic fashion when the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, voted thumbs down for the bill on the House floor. Battle over Medicaid In the 15 years since Obamacare became law, access to health care has grown substantially. Some 80 million people are now enrolled in Medicaid, and the Kaiser Family Foundation reports 41 states have opted to expand their coverage. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to all adults with incomes up to about $21,500 for an individual, or almost $29,000 for a two-person household. While Republicans no longer campaign on ending Obamacare, advocates warn that the changes proposed in the big bill will trim back at access to health care. The bill proposes new 80 hours of monthly work or community service requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, age 18 to 64, with some exceptions. It also imposes twice-a-year eligibility verification checks and other changes. Republicans argue that they want to right-size Medicaid to root out waste, fraud and abuse and ensure it's there for those who need it most, often citing women and children. 'Medicaid was built to be a temporary safety net for people who genuinely need it — young, pregnant women, single mothers, the disabled, the elderly,' Johnson told The Associated Press. 'But when when they expanded under Obamacare, it not only thwarted the purpose of the program, it started draining resources.' Initially, the House bill proposed starting the work requirements in January 2029, as Trump's term in the White House would be coming to a close. But conservatives from the House Freedom Caucus negotiated for a quicker start date, in December 2026, to start the spending reductions sooner. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said the changes are an Obamacare rollback by another name. 'It decimates our health care system, decimates our clean energy system,' Schumer of New York said in an interview with the AP. The green energy tax breaks involve not only those used by buyers of electric vehicles, like Elon Musk's Tesla line, but also the production and investment tax credits for developers of renewables and other energy sources. The House bill had initially proposed a phaseout of those credits over the next several years. But again the conservative Freedom Caucus engineered the faster wind-down — within 60 days of the bill's passage. 'Not a single Republican voted for the Green New Scam subsidies,' wrote Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, on social media. 'Not a single Republican should vote to keep them.'
