Latest news with #Teuscher
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Utah's House to elect new leadership. Here's who's running
SALT LAKE CITY () — Utah's House majority will hold elections for a new House Majority Leader on Tuesday, June 3, and several hopefuls could usher in a completely new leadership team under House Speaker Mike Schultz (R-Hooper). The announcement that Rep. Jefferson Moss (R-Eagle Mountain) will be moving to the executive branch to head the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity (GOEO) leaves a vacancy for the House majority's number two leadership role, Majority Leader. Multiple sources with knowledge of internal communications with the caucus confirm to ABC4 that two members of the current leadership will be vying for it, Reps. Karianne Lisonbee (R-Syracuse) and Casey Snider (R-Logan). Under House rules, anyone currently serving in leadership and running for an open position must resign from their current leadership position. That means that Lisonbee's current position as Majority Whip and Snider's current position as Assistant Whip will also open up. Lt. Gov. Henderson gets more death threats over Primary signature gathering issues — How will they be handled? The following Republican representatives, listed in order alphabetically by last name, are running for the open positions: Karianne Lisonbee (R-Syracuse) Casey Snider (R-Logan) Jeff Burton (R-Spanish Fork) Candice Pierucci (R-Herriman) Jordan Teuscher (R-South Jordan) Ryan Wilcox (R-North Ogden) Bridger Bolinder (R-Grantsville) Cory Maloy (R-Lehi) Karen Petersen (R-Smithfield) Rex Shipp (R-Parowan) Gov. Cox signs executive order to establish new council focused on Utah's future and 'quality of life' Another possible shift, Rep. Teuscher is currently the powerful House Rules Chair, who helps decide which bills make it out of the rules committee to be heard by the larger body. If he wins the Whip position, he would likely have to give up that role due to the time constraints. However, it's at the Speaker's discretion who he appoints as Rules Chair. 'One of the primary responsibilities of the Whip is to serve as a liaison with the Senate and to help unify and strengthen our caucus,' said Teuscher. 'I believe I bring the right combination of experience, skills, temperament, and relationships to be effective in that role—and to ensure our caucus continues to drive the conversation on the most important issues facing our state and is successful in getting our policy objectives to the finish line.' Teuscher has ushered in some controversial legislation in the past, most recently the ban on collective bargaining, HB267, which currently faces a referendum that will be put before voters to decide whether or not to overturn it after labor groups While the current field of candidates is pretty settled, the source said, representatives do have until Monday morning to declare their intent to run. It's also possible that representatives not included in this list could be nominated by the body during the election for any of the open positions. Utah unveils new housing dashboard in effort to hit 'moonshot' goal of building 35,000 starter homes The vacancy by Rep. Moss is also adding another wrinkle to the elections. His seat has yet to be filled via a special election, decided by the Utah County Republican Party. That means that the House majority will have 60 members voting in the election, not 61, leaving the possibility for a tie. House majority elections require a simple majority vote, and it's unclear exactly what would happen in that case, however, the rules would suggest that voting would continue until there is a majority. Political insiders who spoke with ABC4 about the race say it is unusual for two members of the current leadership to be running against each other. Typically, those already in leadership positions tend to slide into a vacant and more prominent role. Those insiders also say there is pent-up demand to be in leadership, as evidenced by the number of people running. The House majority's elections are not public, but the new leadership team will be announced Tuesday evening after the vote. President Trump gives Elon Musk an Oval Office send-off Musk slams New York Times after report on alleged drug use GOP plan could raise credit requirements for Pell Grant recipients Musk appears in Oval Office with black eye Utah's House to elect new leadership. Here's who's running Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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
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
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Is Salt Lake County getting too big? One lawmaker wants to streamline the process to split it
One Utah lawmaker has introduced a bill that could pave the way for splitting Utah's largest county, but only if enough cities band together to set out on their own. Utah already has a process by which counties can break off from one another, but it requires the collection of signatures from at least a quarter of all registered voters in the county and has only been used twice since Utah became a state in 1896. The most recent county, Daggett County, was formed in 1918 because residents of the northern part of Uintah County were forced to travel up to 800 miles by rail around the Uintah Mountains to reach the county seat in Vernal. Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, admits the same dynamics aren't a factor in modern Salt Lake County, but said the sheer size of the county's population makes the conversation worth having. He's sponsoring HB533, which would allow neighboring cities with a combined population of at least 330,000 to vote to form their own county — but only if a majority of all voters in the county agree. After the cities pass resolutions to form a new county, the county council would be required to conduct a "feasibility study" to inform residents of the impacts of a split. Those provisions apply only to counties with at least 1 million residents. Salt Lake County is currently the only entity impacted, but the bill could apply to Utah County and others as they grow. "I've heard from constituents throughout the five years that I've been up around the Hill that had concerns about the size of the county. I've also heard from constituents that think it's just fine," Teuscher said. "So, ultimately this will give the voters the deciding factor of whether or not they think it's the right decision or not." Asked if he supports cities moving ahead with efforts to break from the county, Teuscher said it will be difficult to pull back on county services such as policing that are duplicated by counties and cities. He was behind the move to eliminate the county's Unified Police Department several years ago, which he said became less important and more costly as various cities expanded their own law enforcement agencies. Teuscher represents one of the more conservative areas in Salt Lake County, and GOP lawmakers have often feuded with the county's Democratic mayor and county attorney. But the lawmaker said his proposal isn't based on partisan differences in governance, noting that six of the nine members of the County Council are Republicans. "Honestly, I don't think a lot of the issues that the county deals with is based on a partisan nature," he said. "This really isn't being motivated on a partisan basis. It is more based off of just the sheer size of the county and the growth of that county budget." The county's budget for the next fiscal year is over $2 billion, which Teuscher argues makes it more difficult for residents to scrutinize how the county is spending tax revenue. If the county did split, he said, the relatively smaller counties would be more transparent and accessible to everyday voters. But Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson disagrees. A spokeswoman told that Wilson believes splitting the county would increase the tax burden on residents, and said the mayor opposes the bill. The Salt Lake County Council has not yet taken a position. Leaders of South Jordan, which Teuscher represents, have also not taken a position on his bill, saying the city "was not consulted on this bill and had no input in its creation." "Since the bill is early in its process, we are still learning about it and its scope," the city added. "We will continue to monitor this bill along with many others that are going through the Legislature right now." If his bill does pass, Teuscher said the earliest the question could be put to county voters would be in 2026, depending on the buy-in from different cities. HB533 was made public only last week, and Teuscher said it's unlikely the proposal makes it through both chambers of the Legislature before the session ends on March 7. 'My intent is not to try to come out with the late bill and rush it through the process,' he said. 'I think this needs some time and scrutiny to talk through and work through. So, my intent has always been to ... get the idea out there. I've got a proposal now that everyone can react to, rather than just an idea. ... We'll probably have several committees over the interim before this comes back next session.'
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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.
