Latest news with #R-Layton
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Utah ranks as the best state in the nation — again
Utah is the best state in the nation for the third year in a row, according to a best states ranking from U.S. News & World Report. The publication said Utah's ranking was due to a 'diverse and resilient economy, smart students, low crime and a fairly healthy population.' This year's rankings evaluated each of the 50 states on how they serve their residents in a range of categories, including health care, education, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, crime and corrections and natural environment, according to U.S. News & World Report. 'Utah's third straight No. 1 ranking is a reflection of the incredible people who make this state what it is,' said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, according to U.S. News & World Report. 'It's not just our economy or our beautiful outdoors — it's the hardworking, service-minded people who continue to make Utah the best place to live, work and raise a family. I'm grateful every day to stand with Utahns as we keep strengthening the state we love.' Utah was followed by New Hampshire in second place and Idaho in third. The bottom two ranked states were Alaska and Louisiana. How Utah ranked in each category The Best States rankings began in 2017 and this year was its seventh edition. It ranks the states by analyzing 71 metrics in eight categories. U.S. News & World Report also listed the rankings of each state in the individual categories such as education and economy. While Utah was the top ranked state overall, it placed fourth in education, 14th in health care and third in both infrastructure and economy. Utah has never placed outside of the top five in the economy category. The state did rank No. 1 in fiscal stability — a category 'that covers metrics like liquidity, credit rating and budget balancing, meaning a state's ratio of total revenues to total expenses,' per U.S. News & World Report. Utah's two lowest rankings were opportunity, 19th, and natural environment, 48th. The environment category is primarily based on pollution-related problems in each state. In the last category, crime and corrections, Utah ranked seventh. Why Utah is ranked the best state in the nation 'Being No. 1 isn't about crossing a finish line — it's about continuing to improve,' said Senate President J. Stuart Adams, R-Layton. 'This recognition is a powerful reminder that Utah's greatest strength lies in our commitment to tomorrow.' U.S. News & World Report shared a few reasons why Utah is the top state in the nation, citing politics, specifically the 'Utah Way,' which is summed up as, 'In a politically divisive era, people actually talk to each other and try to work through issues.' Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Millcreek, said that despite Utah being a primarily red state, Utah's state lawmakers across both parties 'tend to work really well together,' per U.S. News and World Report. Another reason was the religious influence in the state, which is the worldwide headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 'There's just so much that the government can't do, and you need that fabric,' Cox told the publication. 'It's why Utah is different. It's why Utah continues to do well and it's special.' Collaboration, both politically and overall, was one of the things consistently highlighted in U.S. News and World Report's analysis of the top state. 'Utah being named the best state in America is a reflection of the people who live here,' said House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper. 'Their work ethic, innovation and strong sense of community make this state exceptional. As Speaker, I see every day how Utahns step up — building strong families, successful businesses and resilient communities.'
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Utah's newest political party has a new chair
Utah's newest political party announced its first leader on Tuesday. Former Utah attorney general candidate Michelle Quist will chair the newly merged United Utah/Forward Party upon final approval from party members at their convention on Saturday. 'I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to serve Utah,' Quist said in a press release. 'The legacy two-party system has left behind the common sense majority of voters. That's why building a truly viable alternate option is so critical to both Utah and the Nation at large.' Quist ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2024 as the nominee for the United Utah Party and was also endorsed by the Forward Party. She secured just over 7% of the vote in the general election. Quist works as an attorney at Buchalter in Salt Lake City. Prior to pursuing elected office, Quist served as a Utah State Bar commissioner and as secretary of the Utah Republican Party from 2013-2015. As a candidate, Quist drew a contrast with the Republican Party under President Donald Trump, which she said had alienated many women and moderate voters. She also strays from the GOP platform in opposing abortion restrictions. The United Utah Party, which operates only in Utah, emerged in 2017 out of frustration with the state's Republican supermajority for allegedly moving to the right and for limiting access for candidates to get on the ballot. The party's platform 'is not ideological,' and does not include firm stances on most issues, but instead outlines principles of transparency, free market solutions and increasing voter access. Similarly, the Forward Party, formed in 2021 by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is not based on rigid policy goals. Instead, the organization focuses on election processes like ranked choice voting that the party says decreases partisanship and promotes problem solving. Last month, Utah Sen. Dan Thatcher became the first state lawmaker to leave the Republican Party to join the Forward Party, citing what he saw as a growing divide between what regular Utahns want and what elected representatives were doing in a polarized political environment. In response to Thatcher's announcement, which came on the final day of the 2025 legislative session, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said he supported Thatcher's decision. 'I think it's healthy. We have different ideas,' Adams said. Neither the United Utah Party or the Forward Party appears to have ever nominated a candidate that has gone on to win a general election in Utah. The governing body of the merged United Utah Party-Forward Party will include members who previously served on the respective parties' executive committees.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Do Utahns support the flag ban? A new poll shows what they think
A majority of Utahns support a new state law banning the display of most flags by public school teachers and government entities, the latest Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found. The law, known as HB77, Flag Display Amendments, prohibits municipal or state buildings, as well as public school employees acting within their official duties, from placing a flag in a prominent location on government property unless the flag is one of a dozen exceptions. Permitted flags include unaltered official country, state, municipal, military, tribal and school flags. The restriction on all other flags does not apply to historic versions of these flags, depictions of flags — including lapel pins and signs — or flags temporarily displayed by an organization authorized to use public schools. HB77 drew plenty of debate during the 2025 legislative session, but Utah's new flag ban enjoys the approval of more than 6 in 10 registered voters in the state, according to a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll conducted by HarrisX. 'The Legislature was aligned with the overwhelming majority of Utahns on this particular bill,' said Jason Perry, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute, in a Deseret News interview. Of the 800 respondents surveyed, 62% said they approved, 28% said they disapproved and 9% said they didn't know when asked whether they supported or opposed a new law limiting the flags that can be publicly displayed in schools and on government property. A plurality of voters said their support for the law was enthusiastic: four in ten strongly approved of the legislation, a quarter somewhat approved and the remaining 30% was evenly divided among those who somewhat disapproved or strongly disapproved. The poll was administered online from April 9-12 with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. 'The results are clear,' House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, told the Deseret News in a statement. 'A strong majority of Utahns agree that symbols displayed in classrooms and government buildings should represent unity, respect for our nation and state, and a focus on education — not political or ideological distractions." Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, agreed with Schultz that the law was needed to establish 'a consistent standard' to ensure 'that public buildings remain welcoming to all Utahns.' 'This poll shows that the majority of Utahns support this approach and believe public institutions should remain dedicated to their core duties,' Adams said in a statement. The largest disparity in support for the new law came down to partisan affiliation. The survey found that 81% of self-identified Republicans support the law. Nearly 6 out of 10 Republicans indicated that they strongly support it. A slight majority, 51%, of independents also support it, while only 22% of Democratic support. Nearly 7 out of 10 Democrats said they oppose the law, with 46% signaling strong opposition. Support for the law was shared by men and women. The poll found 67% support among men and 58% support among women. Support increased with age: 57% of those 18-34 support the law compared to 72% of those 65 and older. 'It's a hard issue that really gets to the heart of perspectives on these social issues themselves,' Perry said. 'These issues sort of touch on a theme that we have seen for the past couple of sessions, that have had support from a majority of Utahns, but that is certainly not the case with Democrats in the state.' Proponents of HB77 who testified in legislative hearings, many of them parents of school-aged children, argued that a restriction on flags is a commonsense policy to ensure classrooms remain focused on teaching, not politics. Meanwhile, many of the bill's critics, who showed up by the thousands to protest its passage, framed it as a way to target the rainbow, or pride, flag that represents LGBTQ social movements, which they said helps some Utah residents feel included. 'What matters most are, especially in classrooms, the policies and practices and school rules that ensure that every child feels welcome,' Equality Utah policy director Marina Lowe told the Deseret News. 'The reason the (pride) flag started getting hung in the first place was because there were particular populations that were feeling marginalized and unwelcome.' While the pride flag is not mentioned in the legislative text, the sponsor of HB77, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, has suggested in some social media posts that one intention behind his bill is to remove pride flags from classrooms and municipal buildings. Lee modeled his bill after a similar proposal that failed in the final hours of the 2024 session when it was brought to the floor using a procedural trick. The resurrected version received additional pushback during the 2025 session after Lee expanded its scope to include flags displayed by a state or local government entity in or on government property. Following this change, Equality Utah came out against the bill. Lowe said she wants to encourage lawmakers to reconsider portions of the bill that constrain the free speech of governments, which, she said, should be accountable to voters, not the Legislature. Corinne Johnson, president of Utah Parents United, praised the willingness of the Legislature to wade into a controversial topic because, she said, it benefits all residents to prohibit public employees from flying divisive flags. 'To parents, it makes complete sense to us,' Johnson said. 'In an effort to try and be inclusionary to one group, we have now created division in our school environments.' Supporters of the law are not opposing one group or another, according to Johnson. The goal behind the law is to return a sense of neutrality to the places that are meant to represent and educate all Utahns regardless of identity, she said. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox addressed HB77 in a March 27 letter that included explanations for six bills he vetoed this year. Cox did not veto HB77. Instead, he let it become law without his signature due to concerns that it sought a culture-war win instead of consensus. Promoting political neutrality in the classroom is an important goal, Cox said. But the new flag law fails to address the use of polarizing symbols in public schools because it only applies to flags and it extends too much control over municipal leaders who wish to reflect certain values to their voters, Cox said. Cox also took issue with the process that brought the bill to his desk which he said did not align with the state's previous efforts to balance LGBTQ inclusion with conservative values around religion and gender. '(A)s tired as Utahns are of politically divisive symbols, I think they are also tired of culture war bills that don't solve the problems they intend to fix,' Cox said. 'There are so many examples of the LGBTQ community and the conservative community coming together to find helpful and hopeful compromise. I hope we can retain this as our model and North Star.' The bill passed mostly along party lines with a veto-proof majority, meaning that if Cox had vetoed the bill, lawmakers likely could have overrode his decision. Utah appears to be the first state in the nation to enact such a ban. Idaho recently passed a proposal focusing just on schools and lawmakers in at least four other states are considering similar legislation.
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Utah lawmakers passed 582 bills this year. Here's what they didn't do
Utah lawmakers came close to matching last year's record of 591 bills passed during the recent legislative session, but nearly just as many proposals didn't make it across the finish line before time expired Friday night. Some high-profile bills to eliminate daylight saving time, allow 18-year-olds to openly carry loaded weapons in public and increase the number of businesses required to use the E-Verify system were voted down during the 45-day session. Many others simply ran out of time to pass both the Senate and House, even if they received votes of support from lawmakers. Here are some of the issues that were hung out to dry as the Legislature adjourned last week — which could serve as a way-too-early preview of the 2026 legislative session: Rep. Jordan Teuscher, a Republican from South Jordan, floated a proposal late in the session to make it easier for several municipalities to break off from Salt Lake County and form a new county. The bill would let cities with about a third of the total population of the state's largest county band together and propose a split. The question would then go to voters across the county. Teuscher said his bill, HB533, was proposed to start a conversation around splitting the state's largest county but was never meant to move forward this year. 'We'll probably have several committees over the interim before this comes back next session,' he told Counties have been split before, but the most recent change occurred over 100 years ago. Teuscher argued Salt Lake County is growing too big, and said splitting it could potentially bring constituents closer to their local government. HB533 would impact any county with more than 1 million residents, meaning it could also pave the way for a split of Utah County when its population reaches that threshold. Even if the bill passes next year, cities would be hard-pressed to put a proposal to split the county on the 2026 ballot, which would be the earliest possible option. Top House and Senate leaders rarely sponsor bills of their own, but when they do, they are generally seen as priorities that are all but guaranteed to pass. Not so for HB563, one of two bills introduced by House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and the only bill with Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, as the floor sponsor. The bill was meant to reverse a change made last year, when lawmakers empowered the speaker and president to write the ballot question language for proposed constitutional amendments instead of legislative attorneys. That policy quickly blew up in lawmakers' faces, when the state Supreme Court invalidated Amendment D in part because it said the question written by Schultz and Adams 'does not accurately reflect the substance of the amendment.' Speaking to reporters after winning reelection last fall, Schultz said he 'probably (has) a regret' in using the word 'strengthen' in the ballot question, and said 'we could have been a little more clear' on what it meant. He said last month lawmakers 'made a mistake' in changing who writes ballot questions last year and said HB563 would return the power to legislative attorneys. Adams appeared to agree, telling reporters the bill 'may be a better way to go.' HB563 passed the House with near-unanimous support and was introduced in the Senate at the start of the last week in session, where it never came up for a vote. Because lawmakers can only put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot in even years, the proposal could resurface next year ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Here are other proposals that failed to get a final vote before the session ended: HB292 aimed to crack down on the vandalizing of political signs by making it a class B misdemeanor to attach an object to a political sign that changes the message or obscures it from view. Teuscher, the bill's sponsor, had 'vote out' signs attached to his campaign signs during his reelection campaign last year. HB292 passed the House unanimously and got full support from a Senate committee but was never put up for discussion on the Senate floor. SB155 would have reduced the amount of time — from 20 years to 12 — a person must wait after being released from prison to ask to be removed from the state's Sex, Kidnap and Child Abuse Offender Registry. The proposal quickly turned controversial for sponsor Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, who told a Senate committee of the 'texts and the emails and the screaming phone calls that I've received' in response to the bill. While the senator was clear that many people on the registry committed 'reprehensible' crimes and deserve to remain registered, he said he heard from wives and mothers of constituents who remain on the list despite being rehabilitated after making 'a mistake' decades ago. Marlesse Jones, the head of the Victims Services Commission, opposed the bill in committee, saying: 'The commission cannot support a bill that lessens the time on the registry for someone who's been convicted of a sex offender offense.' SB155 passed the committee 5-3 in January but was never voted on by the full Senate. Finally, SJR8 would have made previous allegations of sex crimes admissible in sexual assault cases, whether those allegations resulted in charges and a conviction or not. Although defense attorneys argued the resolution would make it much easier for prosecutors to submit evidence that wasn't fully vetted by a court, the proposal passed the Senate and was recommended by a House committee with little opposition. The measure was added to the House's calendar after 10:30 p.m. on the last night of the session and was only a few bills away from consideration when time ran out.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State lawmaker leaves GOP for Forward Party on last day of session
Utah Sen. Dan Thatcher announced he was leaving the Republican Party on Friday, the last day of the legislative session, becoming the first state lawmaker to join the Forward Party. The former Republican from West Valley City has often voted against his party since entering office in 2011, particularly on issues related to individuals who identify as LGBTQ. This week he bucked his party on multiple votes concerning criminal enhancements and K-12 curriculum. Thatcher told reporters gathered at the state Capitol that he has grown more alienated from his party in recent years as he believes the GOP has become more alienated from the average Utahn. 'There is a growing disconnect between the public that we're supposed to represent and your representatives,' Thatcher said. Thatcher said the core reason for this divide is how candidates are selected. The Forward Party is a third-party organization with a platform that focuses on election processes like ranked choice voting that the party claims decrease partisanship and promote problem solving. Thatcher's announcement came shortly after he engaged in a standoff on the Senate floor with Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, who refused to recognize Thatcher for comment after Thatcher called out a fellow lawmaker by name. During Senate media availability on Friday, Adams wished Thatcher well and Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Draper, said this is a decision Thatcher had been considering for a while. 'I think it's healthy. We have different ideas,' Adams said. There is some precedent for Utah Republican senators flipping parties. In 2016, former state Sen. Mark Madsen joined the Libertarian Party. Adams and Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, both said their parties will not caucus with Thatcher, meaning they will not include him in private policy meetings. In a statement issued by the Forward Party, the party's founding co-chair, Andrew Yang, a former Democratic candidate for U.S. president and New York City mayor, said that American politics needs more independent thinkers. 'It takes courage to step forward and truly lead,' Yang said. 'Sen. Thatcher continues to demonstrate his morals through the leadership he's showing today, and we couldn't be more proud that he's joining Forward.' The Forward Party has been active in recent Utah elections, endorsing Michelle Quist for Utah Attorney General in 2024. However, the party has not had a member in the state Legislature until now. On Friday, Thatcher expressed disappointment for bills passed this session by his colleagues that would add security measures for vote by mail and that would amend the citizen ballot initiative process.
