Latest news with #JordanTeuscher
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Signature gathering effort against HB267 is in full swing across the state
In the past few weeks signature gatherers have been everywhere — in parks, outside grocery stores and even knocking on doors — working to get as many signatures as possible for a referendum against a law dealing with public labor unions. A group of public labor unions has come together to form the Protect Utah Workers coalition in an effort to get a referendum on the ballot to repeal the law which bans public sector collective bargaining. HB267, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, was passed through the state Legislature this year and was one of the first bills signed by Gov. Spencer Cox. It was also one of the most controversial bills of the session with hundreds of public employees regularly coming to the Capitol in opposition to the bill. 'Well, obviously, we're going to fight for our existence and our right to represent public employees in the state of Utah,' said Britt Miller, the president of Teamsters Local 222. As soon as the legislative session ended, the coalition filed the application for a referendum against the law which will go into effect in May. The group then began a statewide signature gathering effort comprising of both volunteers and paid signature gatherers. Protect Utah Workers includes 19 public labor unions such as the Utah Education Association, Teamsters Local 222, Utah State Fraternal Order of Police, Professional Firefighters of Utah and Utah Public Employees Association. 'Referendums are part of the process. I encourage voters to thoroughly research the issue at hand to make informed decisions,' said Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, in a statement to the Deseret News. Protect Utah Workers kicked off their signature gathering effort on March 15, and since then have consistently had signature gatherers collecting signatures all across the state. The group has held specific signature gathering events where registered voters can come and sign. Signature gatherers have also been out in public places, such as grocery stores and parks, everyday asking for signatures. Some gatherers have also been going through neighborhoods knocking on doors. One recent signature gathering event was hosted by firefighters with the Salt Lake City Local 81 union on March 26 at Publik Coffee. Harrison Long, one of these firefighters who was gathering signatures, said that they were doing it because 'we believe that firefighters should have a voice in firefighting.' During the event at Publik Coffee, one signer, Alexa Jeffrey, shared that she was signing because she is a strong believer in workers' rights. Signature gatherers have also been at major events such as Utah Hockey Club and Utah Jazz games, as well as Salt Lake City's St. Patrick's Day parade. Miller said that they have worked to coordinate 'to make sure that we've got somebody going to everything and not having everybody go to one thing.' The group's deadline to submit signatures is April 16. After the signatures are submitted, opponents to the referendum will have 45 days to try and convince those who signed to remove their signatures. By the end of the process, the coalition will need to have 140,748 valid signatures, in order for the referendum to get on the ballot. The number of signatures collected has to represent 8% of active voters statewide, as well as 8% of registered voters in 15 of Utah's 29 Senate districts. Not only can signatures be removed but all the signatures need to be certified. There are a number of reasons why signatures may not get certified: Signers may not be registered to vote, they may have written their address wrong, filled out the form incorrectly or their handwriting may be illegible. For this reason the coalition is shooting to gather a lot more signatures than necessary, with a goal of 200,000. Two weeks into the signature gathering effort, Protect Utah Workers said it has collected 130,000 signatures. 'If there's one group that's going to be able to land those numbers, it's going to be the unions, because, like I said, we're everywhere,' Miller said. 'There are public employees in every city, county, state office, and we are everywhere.' 'The Utah Legislature took away the rights of public workers—teachers, firefighters, nurses, and police—to collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions. The HB267 referendum challenges the unfair law and allows voters to decide what's best for Utah,' reads a statement on the Protect Utah Workers website. Though HB267 does multiple other things, the opposition against it focuses primarily on the collective bargaining ban. People see the law as an attack on public employees and say that it takes away the voice of public workers. Collective bargaining is when an employer and a union come together to negotiate a contract for employees. 'We just want a say in our own professions, that's it. We're not asking for anything more there,' Long said. He added that 90% of Salt Lake City firefighters are members of the union. Not all public unions across the state represent a majority of employees and many unions in Utah do not engage in collective bargaining. Miller said that the legislature ignored their constituents by passing this bill so now they are going directly to the public to give them a direct voice in the matter. This is not the first time that public labor unions in Utah have come together. Miller shared that for about five years, a group of labor unions in Utah has met together to discuss bills such as HB267 that might hurt the unions and union members. While the opposition against HB267 has been very outspoken, there are many people in the state who support the law. Cole Kelley, who has been a teacher in Utah for 28 years and is a member of the Utah State Board of Education, said that he struggles with the fact that only the union's voices are being heard in the negotiating process, even if the union doesn't represent all the teachers in the district. Founder and president of Utah Parents United, Corinne Johnson said HB267 fixes many issues she's seen because it restores the teachers' and parents' voices as the strongest voices in education. 'We're not saying get rid of unions,' Johnson said. 'They have their place, and teachers deserve to have a voice, and if they choose to join the UEA, absolutely, that is their right, and they can have right. They have a right to associate, and they have a right to that voice.' Johnson pointed out that multiple districts around the state only collective bargain if the union has 50% of the employees as members. People in favor of HB267 believe some of the unions have too much power and influence and are more worried about protecting themselves than actually looking out for public employees. Johnson's organization, Utah Parents United, has launched multiple campaigns against the referendum and in support of HB267. One of the organization's goals is to help people be more educated on the issue. 'We educate people to think twice before they before they sign the referendum,' Johnson said. 'Because there's polling data that shows that when parents understand this issue, the majority of parents do support what is in the legislation.' Along with the ban on collective bargaining, the law will provide an option of professional liability insurance for teachers to opt into, without having to go through a union or other organization. The liability insurance program would be offered through the Department of Risk Management, with five levels of policies teachers can choose from, ranging from $75 to $170 a year. Kelley said that when the insurance policy is through the union, then the union owns that policy and gets to decide when and if to file a claim. The law also puts safeguards on public resources by prohibiting employees from receiving paid leave for union activities. It also requires unions to pay to use spaces that other groups have to pay for. The bill also requires more transparency from public sector unions, requiring them to report their finances and membership numbers annually to the labor commission. 'This transparency is huge, the best disinfectant is sunlight, right?' Johnson said. Long said that his union is already operating a transparent way and that he hasn't heard any concerns around transparency issues with unions. 'This seems like a solution in search of a problem,' he said.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The first-of-its-kind case putting Utah's new religious freedom law to the test
One year ago, Utah lawmakers unanimously enacted new religious liberty protections, bucking the national trend toward skepticism that's led some legislators to put 'religious freedom' in scare quotes. SB150, called the Exercise of Religion Amendments, created a state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Act that gives Utahns more power to challenge government actions that interfere with their religious beliefs. 'In a world that's increasingly hostile to religion, these amendments are an important expression of Utah's long-established commitment to religious freedom,' said Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, the bill's house floor sponsor, in February 2024. SB150 was signed into law the next month. Eight months after that, in November, it was cited in a case that's testing the limits of that long-established commitment by asking whether religious freedom protections extend to a new faith group using psychedelic mushrooms in its ceremonies. The faith group, Singularism, claims government officials in Provo, Utah, and Utah County violated Utah's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, among other laws, when they seized the group's psilocybin and scriptures in November. The officials, on the other hand, say Singularism is motivated by a desire to sell illegal drugs, not to practice and promote a religious faith. In late February, almost exactly one year after Teuscher reflected on the value of robust religious freedom protections, a federal judge granted Singularism's request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that government officials in Utah cannot claim to support religious freedom if they prevent Singularism's practitioners from living according to their beliefs. 'For that guarantee of religious liberty to mean anything, the laws must protect unfamiliar religions equally with familiar ones, both in design and in practice,' wrote District Court Judge Jill N. Parrish. The ruling caught the attention of religious freedom experts nationwide, who say the first-of-its-kind Utah case raises familiar but still hotly debated questions about the purpose and scope of religious liberty laws. Singularism's founder, Bridger Lee Jensen, says he didn't set out to test the limits of Utah's religious freedom protections. He says his goal was to share his spiritual beliefs with others and enable them to deepen their faith through psilocybin tea ceremonies, just as he has. In late 2023, Jensen, who grew up in Provo and previously worked as a mental health therapist, opened Singularism's spiritual center, which is located in an office park near Utah Valley Hospital. He said he invited local officials to visit and learn more, but no one took him up on the offer. Jensen describes Singularism as a 'nondogmatic, spirituality-based religion' that doesn't have members in a traditional sense. Potential practitioners are screened before they take part in ceremonies. Insights shared by the people who take part, called 'voyagers,' are added to the group's scriptures. In November 2024, about a year after the spiritual center opened, Provo Police obtained and served a search warrant, and confiscated the group's psilocybin and scriptures. Officials claimed the group was violating the Utah Controlled Substances Act. Citing religious freedom protections, Jensen challenged officials' actions in state court, arguing that Singularism has a right to a faith-based exemption to the controlled substances law. Officials rejected that claim, arguing that Singularism should not be seen as a religion and that the government has a compelling interest in preventing the group from distributing drugs. After government officials had the case moved to federal court, Judge Parrish issued a temporary restraining order requiring officials to return what they'd taken. But five days later, officials charged Jensen with possession of psilocybin with the intent to distribute, possession of THC and use or possession of drug paraphernalia. As Jensen fought for the criminal case to be put on hold, the federal religious freedom case moved forward. On Feb. 20, Parrish granted Singularism's request for a preliminary injunction, which allows the group to continue holding its ceremonies while the case plays out. Although Singularism is a new religious group and Utah's Religious Freedom Restoration Act is a new law, the current legal battle has much in common with two cases that remade the federal religious freedom landscape in the 1990s and early 2000s. The first, Employment Division v. Smith, centered on the religious use of peyote. The Native Americans who brought the case were fighting for a faith-based exemption from employment laws prohibiting drug use. In rejecting their religious freedom claims, the Supreme Court in 1990 weakened the legal protections offered by the First Amendment's free exercise clause, prompting Congress to pass the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act three years later. During a signing ceremony for the law in November 1993, President Bill Clinton said the country is stronger when people of all faiths and no faith are free to live according to their beliefs. 'Let us never believe that the freedom of religion imposes on any of us some responsibility to run from our convictions. Let us instead respect one another's faiths (and) fight to the death to preserve the right of every American to practice whatever convictions he or she has,' he said. The power of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act was on display in 2006 when the Supreme Court ruled for a little-known religious group in a case called Gonzales v. O Centro. The government had sought to prevent the group from using a controlled substance called hoasca in its religious ceremonies, arguing that the drug posed health risks and was susceptible to abuse. But the justices unanimously ruled in favor of O Centro, rejecting the government's claim that the Controlled Substances Act would fail if faith-based exemptions were available. The O Centro case showed you don't have to be a large, mainstream faith group to win a case under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or laws like it — and that's still true today, said Josh McDaniel, faculty director of Harvard Law School's Religious Freedom Clinic. In cases involving a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, judges typically consider four key questions: Are the religious claims sincere? Are religious practices or beliefs being substantially burdened by government interference? Does the government have a compelling interest driving the interference? Is there some other, less restrictive way for the government to satisfy its compelling interest? In general, rulings in these types of cases center on the final two questions. The court either accepts the government's explanation for its actions or determines that officials haven't done enough to accommodate the religious group or individual involved. But in cases involving the use of psilocybin, marijuana or other mind-altering substances, the judge or judges often spend more time than usual analyzing the sincerity of the faith group and may even base their ruling on that question, said McDaniel, who recently spoke at a symposium on religion and psychedelics. That's especially true when the faith group involved was only recently founded, he added. 'In some marijuana cases, courts have said this is not a legitimate religious practice, that it appears this is essentially a drug-distribution enterprise that's cloaked in religion,' he said. But in the Singularism case, Judge Parrish said the opposite, writing that she had no difficulty concluding that Singularism's leaders and 'voyagers' sincerely believe psilocybin tea ceremonies help them deepen their faith. 'From all the evidence in the record, the court is hard-pressed to find, as Defendants urge, that Singularism is essentially a drug-dealing business cloaked in a minister's robe,' Parrish wrote. Her decision is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, rulings in favor of a group making First Amendment or Religious Freedom Restoration Act claims about psilocybin use, according to Tanner Bean, an attorney at Fabian Vancott who represents Jensen and Singularism. Parrish's February ruling brought relief to Jensen and Singularism, but the legal battle likely won't be over anytime soon. The judge is still considering a variety of motions, including one that could send the case back to the state court system. The government may appeal the preliminary injunction or forthcoming orders. And Jensen is still facing criminal charges related to psilocybin possession. Jensen and others involved with Singularism are also worried about mounting legal bills, and they've launched a legal defense fundraiser in hopes of being able to withstand whatever legal moves come next. No matter how the case turns out, it will be a significant chapter in Utah's religious freedom history, as well as in the national debate over religious liberty in general and religion and psychedelics in particular. Although religious freedom cases involving Christian groups that oppose same-sex marriage or abortion often get more attention, it's cases brought by unfamiliar, non-mainstream groups that often challenge religious freedom advocates most, experts said.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UEA launches referendum signature campaign to repeal union law, efforts to block it underway
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The Utah Education Association is kicking off a statewide signature gathering campaign Saturday, spearheading the effort of a coalition of unions to get enough signatures to ask voters to repeal a recent law that bans public labor unions from collective bargaining. The group has a heavy lift ahead of them, they need nearly 141,000 signatures by April 16, and must get 8% of the registered voters in 15 of 29 Senate districts to place the question before voters in 2026. The efforts could also face pushback from groups looking to either counter the messaging or contact voters asking them to rescind their signatures. 'I've heard of groups (outside of the legislature) who are looking to educate voters on why it's good policy,' said Rep. Jordan Teuscher (R-South Jordan) who sponsored the legislation. PREVIOUS STORY: Utah public unions seek to repeal controversial law banning collective bargaining Americans For Prosperity Utah (AFP), a conservative think tank, tells ABC4 they are launching a campaign called 'Decline to Sign.' 'Yes, we will be working to encourage the public to decline to sign the referendum and educate them on why HB267 is good common sense policy,' Kevin Greene, AFP Utah's state director, told ABC4. The coalition trying to repeal the public union law is led by the UEA and called UEA volunteers plan to gather at their headquarters in Murray for a main kickoff event Saturday as well as at several locations from Logan to St. George. They say they already have 1,500 volunteers planning to help. According to state filings, the group will also get help from a signature gathering firm. They have hired Landslide Political, co-founded by Salt Lake City Council member Alejandro Puy. The group has received a lot of smaller donations, but its national organization, the National Education Association, gave the largest chunk — close to $500,000 toward the effort. 'This legislation is a direct attack on Utah's working families,' said Jerry Philpott, local 1004 president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) who is part of Protect Utah Workers. 'Politicians are counting on us to back down. We're here to show them that we're just getting started.' It's also possible that there could be an effort to get voters to rescind their signatures. According to state referendum laws, Protect Utah Workers has 40 days (from the end of the session) to collect the requisite signatures, which again, in this case, is nearly 141,000 in 15 of 29 Utah Senate districts by April 16. But voters also have 45 days from the day their name is posted to change their mind and remove, or rescind, their signature. 'A voter who signs a local referendum petition may have the voter's signature removed from the petition by … submitting to the county clerk a statement requesting that the voter's signature be removed no later than the earlier of 30 days on which the voter signed the statement requesting removal or 45 days on which the local clerk posts the voter's name,' the law reads. As names are turned in to county officials, they are also required by law to be posted on the Lt. Governor's website within 21 days of receiving them. That gives signature firms, presumably hired by those who want the law to stand, the ability to contact and push voters to change their minds. If enough do, the issue would be blocked from being on the 2026 ballot. It's not yet clear if the groups, or anyone else, will launch a recession campaign. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO — a big organizer of 42 different unions in Utah — is not on the list of organizations backing the referendum effort, despite a statement from UEA on Thursday saying that they were. Their absence is significant because of just how many labor groups they represent — including both public and private unions. They were also a big player in trying to stop the legislation. AFL-CIO President Jeff Worthington was adamant that his group was neutral on the referendum because not all of their unions are public unions. The bill at hand only impacts public sector labor unions like teachers or firefighters, not private ones like the ski patrol, for example. Around 24 hours later, after ABC4 flagged the issue for Worthington, UEA corrected the list saying that AFL-CIO was included 'in error.' 'His people have been on the calls, but apparently that was a mistake,' said UEA spokeswoman Hailey Higgins. It's unclear whether any of the other 14 groups UEA says are supporting the referendum take issue with their organizations being included. According to UEA, these are the groups in that coalition. Names with an * are also members of AFL-CIO: AFSCME Local 1001* Utah School Employees Association American Federation of Teachers* Teamsters Local 222* Utah Public Employees Association Salt Lake Valley Law Enforcement Association Communication Workers Association Local 7765* Utah Education Association International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers L354* Sheet Metal Workers L312* United Mine Workers* American Federation of Government Employees* International Union of Painter Allied Trades* United Mountain Workers* Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What really happened with the bill banning collective bargaining?
A bill banning public sector collective bargaining was one of the most controversial bills of the 2025 session, but the bill sponsor, Rep. Jordan Teuscher shared that this bill has been a work in progress for years. HB267 was signed by Gov. Spencer Cox on Feb. 14, and last week Teuscher, R-South Jordan, had an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal which described what his negotiations with public labor unions, specifically the Utah Education Association, looked like. After the op-ed ran, Teuscher offered context and background on HB267 and his thoughts on public labor unions to the Deseret News. In the op-ed, Teuscher specifically called out certain actions of the Utah Education Association, one of the biggest advocates against HB267. He said the union went back on promises made and was difficult to work with. In response to what Teuscher wrote, the UEA told the Deseret News they disagreed with Teuscher's characterizations of the negotiations, adding they didn't make the promises he said they did. Teuscher said the path to introducing HB267 started after he worked with the UEA and other unions while running a bill on curriculum transparency in schools. During that time he said he recognized issues with the public labor unions that he wanted to address. 'As I dived into it, learned more about how collective bargaining worked and how you have some districts that have 25% of members of the union that get to speak for 100% of everyone, and they have this monopoly in collective bargaining, I thought, 'this is wrong,'' Teuscher said. During the 2023 session, he introduced HB241, which focused on the financial side of public labor unions. Teuscher said he introduced that bill late in the session to gauge reactions and to see how he could move forward with similar legislation in the future. Teuscher returned in 2024 with HB285, which addressed collective bargaining as well as payroll deductions. 'It had the recertification provision in it that said, in order to collective bargain, you have to have at least 50% of the members of the employee class be members of the union,' Teuscher said. Many unions were against the bill. Teuscher said he had the votes to pass the bill a year ago but after feedback from stakeholders and conversations with leadership, he decided to pull the bill as a measure of good faith. Along with negotiations for pulling HB285, Teuscher said the UEA agreed to stay neutral on Amendment A — a constitutional amendment that would have expanded how the income tax could be used — and he believed collaboration would be better than confrontation. 'We were wrong. The moment the legislative session ended, the UEA reneged. Not only did it oppose the amendment, it also filed a lawsuit to remove it from the November ballot. The union exploited our good faith,' Teuscher wrote for The Wall Street Journal. In a statement to the Deseret News the UEA said they never agreed to be neutral on Amendment A. Over the interim, he worked on preparing a new bill focused on public labor unions and collective bargaining, which became HB267. Teuscher said he told the unions he would be putting together a new bill for 2025, but that it had nothing to do with Amendment A and what happened in 2024. He said one reason he chose to address public sector collective bargaining completely with HB267 is because he heard from teachers who said that even with unions who have a majority of employees as members, there were still people who weren't able to have their voices heard. He said he also decided during the interim that he didn't believe he could work well with the UEA. 'I've tried working with the UEA. ...It doesn't get me anywhere. They're not a good faith actor. We saw what they did at the end of the session. They made promises during the session on Amendment A and completely reneged on that promise,' Teuscher said. In the statement sent to the Deseret News the UEA responded to claims made by Teuscher in his Wall Street Journal piece. 'It was disheartening to see Rep. Jordan Teuscher use a national platform to misrepresent the Utah Education Association's (UEA) positions on Constitutional Amendment A and the 2025 labor bill. Utahns deserve honest discussions, not misleading claims that attempt to undermine those who serve our communities every day,' read the statement from the UEA. As the bill made its way through the Legislature, some referred to HB267 as Teuscher's 'revenge bill' against the UEA. But, Teuscher said, 'I've been working on this issue for a really long time, and trying to get the right policy in place. Just because they've been a bad actor isn't the reason that we're running this bill now.' When HB267 was first introduced at the start of the session there was immediate backlash. Hundreds of public employees opposed to the bill filled multiple overflow rooms. Other lawmakers said they had heard more about HB267 from their constituents than any other bill. Because of this reaction, Teuscher said he worked with the unions to try to come to a compromise. The original version of the bill completely banned collective bargaining, and after negotiations, Teuscher published a substitute to the bill that would allow collective bargaining if a majority of employees were members of the bargaining unit. 'You know, no one worked harder to try to get to that compromise. And I truly believe that. I mean, how many meetings, late night meetings we had with labor unions in this room trying to get to somewhere or phone calls or whatever,' Teuscher said. When the substitute was first decided on, Teuscher said he had eight major public labor unions in the state neutral on the bill, but then after the substitute was introduced some of the unions took back their support. He said he heard some of them reneged because their national parent organizations asked them to. The bill was sitting in the Senate while Teuscher and others were working towards a compromise. After the compromise did not work out, the Senate decided to go ahead and pass the original version of the bill to completely ban public sector collective bargaining. The UEA told the Deseret News that they believe they honored their commitment to be neutral on the changes made to HB267. In his interview with the Deseret News, Teuscher expressed concern that the Republican Party is becoming friendlier with public sector unions, referencing Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, working on legislation to expand unions' powers and the Teamsters speaking at the Republican Convention. This concern is what led him write the piece for The Wall Street Journal. 'I'm like, guys, this is not the direction that we should be going as a party, and so I felt like it was important to share that message nationally,' Teuscher said. HB267 will prohibit public sector collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is when an employer and a union come together to negotiate a contract for employees. The bill also provides professional liability insurance that teachers would be able to opt into. Teuscher also submitted a Request for Appropriations that would give the state government the option to pay for part of these insurance policies for teachers. Now that the bill has been signed it will go into effect on July 1, 2025. 'What it doesn't do is it doesn't affect the relationship between any employer or employee in the state that wants to identify with a union, join a union, pay union dues, participate in a union, do union activity,' Teuscher said.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Labor unions file referendum against public sector collective bargaining bill
The fight against Utah's public sector labor union bill isn't over. HB267, which bans public sector collective bargaining and was sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, was signed into law by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox last month. Collective bargaining occurs when an employer and a union come together to negotiate a contract for employees. HB267 applies only to public sector labor unions and does not affect the private sector. But on Wednesday, a coalition of labor partners — known as Protect Utah Workers — filed a referendum to overturn the controversial bill. The coalition represents a diverse alliance of police, nurses, teachers and public sector employees 'committed to restoring fairness and giving workers a stronger voice in Utah,' according to a release from the group. 'Public employees serve our communities every day, but Utah lawmakers have silenced their voices by taking away their right to negotiate for fair wages, safe workplaces and better working conditions,' Renee Pinkney, president of the Utah Education Association, said in a statement. 'This referendum allows Utah voters to right that wrong and ensure workers have a seat at the table.' The group is launching a statewide effort to gather 141,000 signatures opposing the bill in 30 days. The labor unions behind Protect Utah Workers include: AFT Utah Teamsters Local 222 AFSCME Local 1004 Utah Education Association CWA Local 7765 Utah School Employees' Association Utah Public Employees' Association Salt Lake Valley Law Enforcement Association This story may be updated.
