Situational Analysis | January 17, 2022

Welcome to Monday. Tomorrow, the Utah legislative session begins.

Be in the Know

1. It's Martin Luther King Day today, with local events happening around the state including a march in Ogden with the NAACP. The King Center will host a commemorative service beginning at 8 am MST that will stream on their website and social media channels. Also, all national parks are offering free admission in his honor.
   
   
2. An underwater volcano near Tonga has erupted for the third time in four days, potentially threatening the ability of surveillance flights to assess the damage to the Pacific island nation following Saturday's massive eruption and tsunami. If you have not yet seen satellite video of the eruption, take a few seconds and watch. It's incredible. 

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Utah Legislature

Tomorrow

• The Utah legislature kicks off the 2022 session at 10:00 am. You can watch the opening ceremonies at le.utah.gov 
• State of the Judiciary is at 2:15, then floor time for the remainder of the day. Committee meetings will begin on Wednesday.

General

• A first-of-its-kind proposed bill will reach Utah's Senate floor this week. The bill would add miscarriage and stillbirth to the state's bereavement time. (KSL)
• Record COVID surge, legislative preview (Hinckley Report)
• Senate leadership on the legislative session (ABC4)
• What to expect from the upcoming legislative session (ABC4)
• 2022 Utah Legislative Preview with Special Guests: Rep. Brian King and Rep. Karen Peterson (Political as Heck)

Utah Headlines

General

• Period poverty: Utah’s young women are facing a major issue (ABC4)
• How one pocket of Utah is confronting the word ‘Dixie’ and all of its associations (Washington Post)
• Justice and faith leaders call for voting rights, kick-off commemorations for MLK Day (KUTV)

Politics

• Jared Walczak and Rusty Cannon: Utah shouldn’t allow its neighbors to outcompete it on tax cuts (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Dan Bammes: 5 things Utah lawmakers have done well through the years (Deseret News)
• Politics is actually a lot more moderate than social media makes it seem. Those on the furthest ends of the political spectrum are the most likely to post about political or social issues, according to Pew Research Center (Deseret News)
• Majority of Vineyard officeholders now women (Daily Herald)
• Can an independent candidate win a major elected office in Utah? (Fox13)

COVID Corner

• 11,128 new cases reported Friday, 8 new deaths
• Weight of the omicron surge shifts Utah’s COVID testing strategy (KUER)
• Intermountain Healthcare restricts patient visitation after Utah’s record-breaking week of COVID-19 cases (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Salt Lake County School District unanimously voted to move its schools to online learning this week. (KSL)
• COVID-19 patients show more signs of brain damage than people with Alzheimer’s disease (ABC4)
• Child hospitalizations reach record high amid omicron surge (The Hill)

Environment

• Midvale’s young new mayor is green in more ways than one. At 27, Marcus Stevenson ranks among Utah’s youngest mayors, but he brings a breadth of experience on environmental causes. (Salt Lake Tribune)

National Headlines

General

• Celebrated Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee dies at 102 (NPR)
• "His secret to longevity _ be nice to people." Family and friends gathered at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans to remember Lawrence Brooks, who was the oldest surviving World War II veteran until his death on Jan. 5 at age 112. (AP)
• What you need to know about the Tonga volcano and the Pacific’s ‘Ring of Fire’ (Washington Post)
• For Oath Keepers and founder, Jan. 6 was weeks in the making (AP)
• ‘Some people just don’t like us:’ In a Texas synagogue, 11 hours of terror (Washington Post)
• FBI storms Texas synagogue to release hostages, gunman dead (Reuters)
• A federal judge ordered Martin Shkreli to return $64.6 million in profits he and his company reaped from inflating the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim and barred him from participating in the pharmaceutical industry. (AP)
• Multiple sclerosis and commonly found Epstein-Barr virus likely to be linked, major study says (Washington Post)

Politics

• Family of Martin Luther King Jr. to lead Washington march for voting rights (Reuters)
• Romney: I never got a call from White House to discuss voting rights (The Hill)
• ‘Guilty, your honor’: Man who dressed as Captain Moroni for Jan. 6 Capitol breach makes plea deal (Deseret News)
• No Black woman has ever been elected governor, and there are no Black women serving in the U.S. Senate after Kamala Harris vacated her seat to become vice president. That could change this year. (NBC News)
• We found the one subset of conservative Americans who are most likely to spread fake news (Politico)

News Releases

WGU announces its inaugural Utah Advisory Board

Western Governors University (WGU) has created a formal Utah Advisory Board comprised of seasoned and exceptional community leaders. It will focus on empowering adult learners to complete degrees and fill workforce needs.

The newly created, 10-member board will work directly with Ismar Vallecillos, WGU’s Northwest Regional Director, and Ben McAdams will serve as the first Board Chair. Members will provide advice and counsel on matters pertaining to WGU Utah, serve as advocates for the university and its programs, and assist in outreach to the greater community.

WGU is the nationally recognized, online university headquartered in Salt Lake City. Created in 1997 by former Utah governor Mike Leavitt and 18 other U.S. governors, WGU currently serves nearly 130,000 students living in all 50 states, U.S. territories and military bases abroad – including more than 8,000 in Utah. (Read More)

Sen. Romney: President Biden has had “52 Weeks of Bad Weeks”

U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) today joined NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd to discuss Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, voting rights, and the Biden Presidency.President Biden said he was going to try to unite the country. Obviously, as you pointed out in the last segment, his comments in Georgia did not suggest he’s trying to pull us back together again. He’s got to recognize that when he was elected, people were not looking for him to transform America. They were looking to get back to normal. To stop the crazy. And it seems like we’re continuing to see the kinds of policy and promotions that are not accepted by the American people. Look, James Carville just said that, you know, he’s had a bad week but not a bad year. No, no, as a matter of fact, he’s had a bad year. He’s had 52 weeks of bad weeks. (Read/Watch More)

Reps. Owens, Foxx demand Cardona hearing regarding his role in labelling concerned parents ‘domestic terrorists’

Rep. Burgess Owens (UT-04) and Education and Labor Ranking Member Dr. Virginia Foxx (NC-05) sent a letter to Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (VA-03) demanding a hearing with U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona regarding his role in supporting and encouraging efforts to label concerned parents as domestic terrorists.

The Members write in the letter: â€œAccording to emails obtained through federal information requests, we see that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona solicited the letter from NSBA that labeled parents as ‘domestic terrorists.’ Despite an immediate request from this Committee for a briefing on this matter, the Department of Education has been silent on this despicable action. Once again, the Department of Education is ignoring legitimate oversight requests and general requests for information and is instead hiding its agenda from the American people.” (Read More)

Number of the Day

Tweet of the Day

Upcoming

• Utah legislative session begins – Jan 18, 2022, 10:00 am
• State of the State address - Jan. 20, 2022, 6:30 pm. Watch here or here.
• State of the Union address - Mar 1, 7 pm MST
• Utah legislative session ends – Mar 4, 2022, midnight
• Fireside chat with Justice Clarence Thomas hosted by the Hatch Foundation - Mar 11, 2022, 7 pm

On This Day In History

From History.com

• 1706 - Benjamin Franklin is born. Some people think our obsession with morning routines is because of him.
• 1820 - Anne Brontë is born.
• 1893 - Americans led by Sanford Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani and establish a new provincial government with - surprise - Dole as president.
• 1910 - Edith Green is born. She became the 2nd woman from Oregon to be elected to the U.S. House when she won in 1954. She served 10 terms and was instrumental in passing numerous bills, including the Higher Education Facilities Act, the National Defense Education Act and the 1972 Equal Opportunity in Education Act, aka Title IX.
• 1922 - Betty White is born! 
• 1931 - James Earl Jones is born.
• 1950 - 11 men steal more than $2 million from the Brink’s Armored Car depot in Boston. Only a small part of the money was ever recovered.
• 1961 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns of the increasing power of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. 
• 1964 - Michelle Obama is born
• 1977 - Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah.
• 1994 - The Northridge quake rocks Los Angeles.
• 1997 - Ireland grants a divorce for the first time in the country’s history.
• 2004 - ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ is shown for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival.
• 2015 - Rebecca D. Lockhart, first female Speaker of the Utah House, dies.

Wise Words

"It's a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself up by his own bootstraps."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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