Situational Analysis | March 3, 2022

Can you believe it's Thursday already? It feels like spring but of course snow is in the forecast for the Wasatch Front. 

Today is National Anthem Day to commemorate the day that the US chose the Star Spangled Banner as its anthem. I've been thinking about the fight at Fort McHenry this week, and how powerful it must have been for Francis Scott Key to see that our flag was still there. Ukrainians must feel the same way this week: their flag, their country still stands. 

Be in the Know

1. Some of the more touching stories from the war on Ukraine are the Russian soldier, just boys, who have been captured and then allowed to video call their moms. They cry. I cry. What other war has the country being invaded treated their occupiers (Russia's cannon fodder) like the kids they are?   

2. The UN General Assembly voted 141 to 5 to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, demanding Russia end its brutal invasion. The 5 who voted against are Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. (35 countries abstained, including China, Cuba, India, Iran and Iraq.) Meanwhile in the US, the House passed a resolution supporting the people of Ukraine and calling for an immediate ceasefire, 426 to 3. The three who voted no are Reps. Gosar, Rosendale and Massie. 

3. The International Criminal Court prosecutor opened an immediate criminal investigation of possible war crimes in Ukraine. The investigation will be fast-tracked after requests from 39 member countries, an unprecedented move for the court. Meanwhile, Putin says the war is "going according to plan" and told French President Emmanuel Macron that his goals will be achieved "no matter what."   

4. The Utah legislature is in its final two days. Expect hundreds more bills to be passed before midnight tomorrow.

FROM OUR SPONSOR

The legislative session is ending. What does that mean for you?

Join the Kem C. Gardner Institute, the Deseret News and Utah Policy for a legislative wrap-up on Tuesday, March 8th at 8:30 am. Legislative leadership will be discussing the session and how the laws passed this year will impact Utahns. Sign up here to join us for this free event. 

2022 Legislative Session

43 days done, 2 days to go

General

• More on the throw-down in committee on Tuesday from KUTV reporter Daniel Woodruff who was in the room where it happened. Three people were removed, 1 in handcuffs. Senator Dan McCay warned the bill sponsor, Rep. Walt Brooks: "Do not test the mettle of the chair." The man who was removed in handcuffs has been cited with disrupting a public meeting, a Class B misdemeanor.

Today

Floor Time

• House - 8:00 - 12:00 pm, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, 5:00 pm - as needed
• Senate - 8:00 - 11:50 am, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, 5:00 pm - as needed

Tomorrow

Floor Time

• House - 8:00 - 12:00 pm, 2:00 - 5:50 pm, 7:00 pm - midnight
• Senate - 8:00 - 11:50 am, 2:00 -5:50 pm, 7:00 pm - midnight 

Education

• Utah to scrap body measurements from transgender sports bill (KUTV)
• Slashed funding to all-day kindergarten proposal is a blow to education advocates (KUER)

Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

• Utah researchers have linked hundreds of rapes to dating sites. A lawmaker is trying to make these apps safer. Rep. Angela Romero’s bill would require apps to post safety notifications for users of the dating apps’ platforms. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Senate passes bill that stiffens penalty for second DUI offense in Utah (KUTV)

Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

• Enough water to fill a reservoir? Utah Senate approves 'significant' conservation bill (KUTV)
• $40 million Great Salt Lake bill passes unanimously, heads to governor's desk (KUTV)

Utah Headlines

General

• Utah Sen. Mitt Romney called the heckling of President Joe Biden by two Republican congresswomen during his State of the Union speech "repulsive and repugnant." (KSL)
• Romney warns that no one knows where ‘megalomaniac dictator’ Putin’s invasion will stop (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Local Utah pie shop sells pastries to earn money for Ukraine (KSL TV)
• St. George IRONMAN bans Russian athletes from championship (ABC4)
• Editorial Board: Biden hit the right notes on Ukraine; but he lost an opportunity to say more to unite us (Deseret News)
• Gene Weingarten: The art of slowing down (Deseret News)
• Utah's January seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate is estimated at 2.2%, with approximately 37,4000 Utahn's unemployed (Workforce Services)
• How to talk to your kids about Russia’s attack on Ukraine (Deseret News)

Education

• Weber School District announces first woman to serve as superintendent (Fox13)

Energy

• Utah advocates push for US energy independence through renewable energy (ABC4)

COVID Corner

• 461 new cases, 19 deaths

National Headlines

General

• How the White House ‘prebunked’ Putin’s lies. Calling out disinformation before it appears is a strategy that can work in campaigns and elections, too (Deseret News)
• Ukraine War Plunges Auto Makers Into New Supply-Chain Crisis (Wall Street Journal)
• Jobless claims fall by 18K (The Hill)
• Autherine Lucy Foster, first Black student at University of Alabama, dies at 92 (Politico)

Politics

• Nearly 8 in 10 State of the Union watchers approved of Biden's remarks: poll (The Hill)
• The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol said former President Donald Trump may have engaged in criminal conduct in his bid to overturn his election defeat. (KSL)
• The Jan. 6 committee asked Trump lawyer John Eastman about his communications with Sen. Mike Lee. Eastman took the Fifth (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Thune on glide path to reelection a year after Trump's primary threats (The Hill)
• White House asks Congress to approve additional $10B in Ukraine-related aid (The Hill)
• This one is a doozy: U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Texas is ending his reelection campaign after admitting he had an affair. The GOP lawmaker reportedly had been in a relationship with the widow of an American-born recruiter for the Islamic State group. (AP)

Ukraine

• Russia takes Kherson government building in siege of Ukraine’s port cities (Washington Post)
• Russian businessman puts $1 million bounty on Putin's head. He's calling for military officers to arrest him as a war criminal (Fox13)
• Germany seizes Russian oligarch's $600 million luxury mega-yacht (Fox13)
• Sen. Manchin says he's planning to introduce legislation with Sen. Murkowski that would prohibit the U.S. and domestic companies from importing Russian crude oil and petroleum. (NBC News)
• Ukrainian athletes join military after Russian invasion
• Most of the world lines up against Moscow, attacks intensify (AP)
• Russian World Bank adviser quits in protest at invasion of Ukraine (Financial Times)
• Watch: Ukrainian civilians blocked a road to prevent Russian troops from reaching a nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, southern Ukraine (TIME)
• Huge anti-war protest in St. Peterburg, Russia (Kyiv Post)
• U.S. soldiers are deploying to Europe amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, some with barely a week's notice. That's caused a mad scramble to ensure bills will be paid, and children and pets will be taken care of. (AP)
• The basement of the maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, transformed into a bomb shelter and nursery as Russian forces escalated their attacks on urban areas. A similar scene unfolded in Kharkiv, where a maternity ward was moved into a bomb shelter. (AP)
• Chinese officials told Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to senior Biden administration officials and a European official. (New York Times)
• Head of the Kherson Regional State Administration Gennady Laguta:
  “Eyewitnesses report that they (Russian forces) installed mines in the city center — near the building of the Skifia shopping mall". (Kyiv Post)
• More than 50,000 Ukrainian citizens living abroad have returned to Ukraine through checkpoints in the Lviv region to join the war effort (New York Times)
• Mariupol is under siege. The entire city is without power, water or communication networks and continuous shelling. (BBC)

News Releases

Romney leads colleagues in pressing White House for accounting of trillions in COVID-19 spending

After President Biden reiterated in his State of the Union address his plans to ask Congress for additional COVID-19 funding, U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) today led 35 of his Republican colleagues in a letter to the President requesting an accounting of how the federal government has allocated trillions in taxpayer funds to combat the pandemic. Specific answers to these questions are vital before Congress considers additional COVID-19 funding requests from the White House. (Read More)

Utah Internet Speed Test seeks data to improve statewide internet speeds

The Utah Broadband Center, powered by the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, has launched a statewide internet speed test campaign for Utahns to report their internet speed at home, work, or wherever they connect.

In partnership with GeoPartners, a geospatial engineering firm, data from the Utah Internet Speed Test campaign will be mapped and used to identify areas of low or no access to high-speed internet. The Utah Broadband Center will use this data to guide resources to projects that increase access to high-speed internet for all Utahns and augment the state’s knowledge of internet availability across Utah.

All Utahns are encouraged to go to speedtest.utah.gov to self-report their internet speed. Individuals can also identify areas with low or no service, or where access to the internet is unaffordable within this test and survey. (Read More)

Sen. Lee introduces bill granting Immediate SSDI Benefits for Terminally Ill

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced his Immediate Access for the Terminally Ill Act today.  The bill would allow terminally ill patients with certain diagnoses with limited life expectancies to choose to forego the current five-month waiting period and receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits immediately. (Read More)

Pioneer Park Coalition: HB440 removes accountability

The Pioneer Park Coalition strongly opposes the mandate to “flex” the occupancy limits within homeless resource centers, proposed within House Bill 440 (2nd substitute), currently being debated in the Utah State Legislature. 

Accountability in the form of public safety and outcomes for people experiencing homelessness are critical to any policies put forward by the legislature. House Bill 440 fails to address any of these measures and ignores the fact that we have added 699 additional shelter and recovery beds in Salt Lake County since 2016. To echo President Stuart Adams, “If you spend money without accountability, that doesn’t get the results you want.” As written, H.B. 440 will cost taxpayers over 10 million dollars and will only move the system in a negative direction, creating a more dire situation for the homeless and the communities impacted by ever-increasing demands from service providers. (Read More)

Government strategy firm Pathway Associates names Yocom & Kanshepolsky as partners

National nonprofit and government consulting firm Pathway Associates today announced two new partners. Government, nonprofit and business leader Holly Yocom has joined the firm as partner and nonprofit leadership executive Joelle Kanshepolsky has been promoted to partner. The new partnerships represent the firm’s commitment to deepening services to clients in the government, nonprofit and fundraising sectors.

“With so much change in the country’s economic and cultural landscape, we are seeing increasing need from our clients to further strengthen their operating strategy, build fundraising capacity, enhance their organizational structure, implement solid financial management and plan for the future. We are thrilled with what our new partners, Holly Yocom and Joelle Kanshepolsky, will add to those efforts.” said Amberlie Phillips, Managing Partner of Pathway Associates. “Additionally, we know it’s extra meaningful we are announcing an all-female partnership during Women’s History Month.” (Read More)

Number of the Day

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Upcoming

• Campaign filing period: Feb 28-March 4 (early this year!)
• Utah legislative session ends – Mar 4, 2022, midnight
• Legislative wrap-up with Kem C. Gardner Institute, Deseret News and Utah Policy – Mar 8, 2022, 8:30 am, Register here
• GOP caucus night – Mar 8, 2022
• United Utah Party caucus night – Mar 8, 2022
• Fireside chat with Justice Clarence Thomas hosted by the Hatch Foundation – Mar 11, 2022, 7 pm. Register here.
  
• Dem. caucus night – Mar 22
• Last day for a registered voter to change voter affiliation before the regular primary election.  - Mar 31
• Ballots are mailed - June 7
• Primary election day - June 28
• General election  - Nov 8

On This Day In History

• 1820 - Congress passes the Missouri Compromise, granting Missouri statehood as a slave state under the condition that slavery was to be forever prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36th parallel, which runs approximately along the southern border of Missouri.
• 1840 - Hin-mah-too-ya-lat-kekt, or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, is born. Later known as Chief Joseph, he became Chief of the Nez Perce in 1871 following the death of his father. 
• 1842 - The first US child labor law regulating working hours passes in Massachusetts.
• 1847 - The US Post Office Department is authorized to issue postage stamps.
• 1871 - Hiram R. Revels is elected to the US Senate by the Mississippi legislature, becoming the first Black Senator.
• 1879 - After graduating law school in 1873, Belva Lockwood lobbied to be admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court bar. It wasn’t until March 3, 1879, that she would become the first woman admitted to appear before the Supreme Court.
• 1887 - Helen Keller meets Anne Sullivan for the first time.
• 1902 - Sarah Rector is born. She was an African American member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, best known for being the "richest colored girl in the world.” Given her wealth, the Oklahoma Legislature declared her to be a White person, so that she would be allowed to travel in first-class accommodations on the railroad, as befitted her position.
• 1910 - John D. Rockefeller Jr. announces his retirement from managing his businesses so that he can be devoted full time to being a philanthropist.
• 1912 - Isabella Goodwin is the first ever female municipal detective when she is promoted within the New York City police department.
• 1913 - The Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C. gathered over 8000 women asking for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.
• 1923 - Time Magazine publishes its first issue.
• 1931 - The Star Spangled Banner becomes official US national anthem.
• 1990 - Carole Gist is crowned the first Black Miss USA.
• 1991 - LAPD officers beat Rodney King on camera
  2017 - Mass grave of 800 children and infants confirmed at a former Catholic care home in Tuam, Ireland.

Wise Words

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

— Helen Keller

Lighter Side

“Last night, President Biden gave the shortest State of the Union address since 2016, clocking in at one hour and two minutes. The shortest — I like this trend. I like it. Let’s get it down — let’s get it down to one TikTok, just save us all a bunch of time.” 

— JAMES CORDEN

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