The UtahPolicy.com daily newsletter gets you up to speed on the top local and national news about politics and public policy. Send news tips or feedback to editor@utahpolicy.com,.

Situational Analysis - January 4, 2021

Happy Monday morning! Today is the 125th anniversary of Utah statehood - a great day for an inauguration. Spencer J. Cox will be sworn in as Utah's newest Governor and Deidre M. Henderson will be sworn in as the new Lt. Governor in the Tuacahn Amphitheater in Ivins, Utah. Live-streaming will be available via multiple channels.

TICK TOCK

1days until Senate runoffs in Georgia(January 5, 2021)
2days until a joint session of Congress to certify the presidential election (January 6, 2021)
16days to the start of the 2021 Utah Legislature (1/19/2021)
17days to presidential Inauguration Day (01/20/2021)
61days to the end of the 2021 Utah Legislature (3/5/21)

Today At Utah Policy

Utah Headlines

Deseret News

• The culture war will continue to rage in 2021
• The rather unremarkable tale of Lester Wire, and the rather remarkable invention that changed the world
• Utah's newest congressional leaders sworn into office at U.S. Capitol on Sunday
• Saving horses in the West may solve Africa's elephant problem
• Will Utah become the next state to drop concealed carry permit?
• Visiting Utah's public lands? Human feces, trash and debris may await you
• What is 'the Great Reset' and why does it scare some conservatives?
• Romney strongly opposes GOP plan to reject election certification

Salt Lake Tribune

• These Utahns protested police violence by dancing through neighborhoods. Was it a success?
• Mitt Romney calls Republican effort to reject Electoral College votes a threat to democracy
• Paul Huntsman: Today brings an even deeper commitment to our mission of local news
• Utah's incoming Gov. Spencer Cox faces challenges on vaccinations, education
• A power struggle over Utah's pandemic response: 5 key findings from hundreds of emails.

COVID Corner

• A case every six seconds: The mayor of Los Angeles warns of the virus's rapid spread in households. (New York Times)
• Sunday brings Utah 1,819 new COVID-19 cases, 7 deaths (Deseret News)
• Coronavirus in Utah: State sees 1,819 new cases, now in U.S. top five in cases per capita (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Exclusive: Utah leaders went rogue in early coronavirus response, emails from health experts show (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Robert Gehrke: This Utah couple was married for 60 years and died of COVID-19 hours apart (Salt Lake Tribune)
• New quarantine rules take effect for Utah schools after winter break (FOX 13)

---

National Headlines

• 'I just want to find 11,780 votes': In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor (Washington Post)
• Transcript: President Trump's Phone Call With Georgia Election Officials (New York Times)
• The Guardian view on Trump's strategy: overturn result, cheat democracy (The Guardian)
• All 10 living former defense secretaries declare election is over in forceful public letter (CNN)
• Rodney Davis slams Democrats over 'shameful' plexiglass structure to 'protect' Pelosi votes (Fox News)
• Biden's inaugural committee hosting 'virtual parade across America' on Inauguration Day (CNN)
• The Election Rejectionists (Wall Street Journal)

---

Policy News

4-part series on the 'sausage making' of Utah statehood
Dr. Leo Lyman has spent almost half a century diving deep into the "sausage making" of Utah becoming a state. He is a professor emeritus of history, the author of eight books and multiple peer-reviewed articles and a fellow of the Utah State Historical Society.His book Statehood Finally!explores the behind-the-scenes political wrangling and compromise and what's a good sausage-making without intrigue and betrayal?

---

United Utah Party announces new leadership
Richard Davis, the Chair of the United Utah Party since its creation in 2017, is stepping down as party chair at the end of the year. He will be succeeded by Hillary Stirling, who is currently serving as United Utah Party Vice Chair. The new United Utah Party Vice Chair will be Jim Bennett, who is currently serving as the party's communications director.

---

Cox/Henderson choose Tom Ross to lead CCJJ
Gov.-elect Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov.-elect Deidre Henderson nominated Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross as executive director of the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCCJJ)."Chief Ross has a deep knowledge of criminal justice issues and a track record of leadership that will serve Utahns well," Cox said. "I look forward to working with him as he engages with the commission in the important work of criminal justice policy."

---

So 2020: Octopus punches fish
OK, so this video was taken a couple of years ago but it so epitomizes most of us getting to the end of 2020. We are tired and after nine months of working/studying/supervising from home, we just don't want anyone in our space anymore.(H/T Peri Kinder)

---

Congressman Stewart wraps up 2020's accomplishments
Almost 5000 letters to constituents, 615 casework requests, 29 military academy nominations, 19 bills sponsored and 16 townhalls. See video below.

---

Business Headlines

• Chinese billionaire Jack Ma suspected missing (Yahoo! Finance)
• Stock futures slip as Wall Street kicks off the new year (CNBC)
• Quibi reportedly in talks to sell its shows to Roku (The Verge)
• Samsung to launch its newest Galaxy smartphones on Jan. 14, earlier than usual (CNBC)
• WhatsApp Sets an All-Time Record as Users Welcome in the New Year Virtually (Gizmodo)

---

On This Day In History

(From History.com)

Don't miss anything from the holiday weekend!

December 31

• 1600 - Queen Elizabeth I grants charter to the East India Company
• 1879 - Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent light
• 1904 - First New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square
• 1911 - Marie Curie receives her second Nobel Prize.
• 1937 - Anthony Hopkins is born.
• 1943 - John Denver is born.
• 1999 - Panama Canal turned over to Panama

January - National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month

Jan 1

• 45 B.C. - The Julian calendar takes effect for the first time on New Year's Day
• 1735 - Paul Revere is born
• 1803 - Haitian independence proclaimed
• 1818 - Frankenstein is published. Mary Shelley's identity as the author is not revealed for 3 more years.
• 1863 - Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation
• 1892 - The first immigrants come through Ellis Island Immigration Station
• 1895 - C.W. Post introduces Postum.
• 1939 - Hewlett Packard Company is founded in a garage in Palo Alto.
• 1914 - Noor Inayat Khan is born. After joining the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) during World War II, Khan was recruited as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) to be a radio operator for the resistance network in occupied Paris. Her mission was to send coded messages back to London. In 1943, Germans captured her, and she was later executed.
• 1919 - J.D. Salinger is born; best known for his coming-of-age story, Catcher in the Rye
• 1936 - James Sinegal is born. In 1983, he founded Costco.
• 1942 - United Nations created
• 1994 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect

Jan 2

• 1776 - Congress publishes the Tory Act
• 1788 - Georgia becomes the 4th state in the Union.
• 1811 - First censuring of a U.S. Senator, Timothy Pickering, who publicly revealed secret documents
• 1839 - Louis Daguerre takes the first photo of the moon
• 1890 - President Benjamin Harrison welcomes Alice Sanger as the first female White House staffer
• 1920 - Isaac Asimov is born
• 1974 - President Nixon signs national speed limit into law
• 2006 - 13 coal miners trapped in Sago Mine explosion; 12 die

Jan 3

• 1521 - Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Catholic church
• 1793 - Lucretia Mott, women's right pioneer, is born
• 1841 - Herman Melville sails for the South Seas
• 1879 - Grace Anna Goodhue is born. She was teaching at the Clarke School for the Deaf when she met and married Calvin Coolidge in 1904. She later became the nation's 32nd First Lady.
• 1892 - J.R.R. Tolkein is born.
• 1924 - King Tut's tomb discovered.
• 1925 - Benito Mussolini declares himself dictator of Italy.
• 1938 - Franklin D. Roosevelt founds the March of Dimes.
• 1949 - Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) starts her tenure in the Senate, where she stays until 1973. She became the first woman to serve in both the House and Senate, having served in the House from 1940-1949.
• 1959 - Alaska is admitted to the Union as the 49th state.
• 1953 - Mother and son serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress, Frances P. Bolton and Oliver Bolton.

Jan 4

• 1809 - Louis Braille is born
• 1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolvers to the U.S. government.
• 1892 - Helen Hull is born. She was the director of Henry Street Settlement House, and then appointed by FDR to the Committee on Economic Security which created the Social Security Act of 1935 and Unemployment Compensation
• 1896 - Utah becomes the 45th state admitted to the Union.
• 1905 - Sterling Holloway, the voice of Winnie the Pooh and the Cheshire cat, is born.
• 1943 - Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Lincoln, also wrote The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson.
• 1965 - L.B.J. envisions a Great Society in his State of the Union address.
• 1974 - President Nixon refused to hand over tapes.
• 1995 - GOP wins control of Congress for first time in 40 years.
• 2001 - Michael Jordan scores his 30,000th career point.
• 2007 - Nancy Pelosi is elected the first female Speaker of the U.S. House.

Wise Words

"I believe in a future for woman...I do not believe that she was made merely for a wife, a mother, a cook, and a housekeeper. These callings, however honorable--and no one doubts that they are so--are not the sum of her capabilities.

It is woman's destiny to have a voice in the affairs of the government. She was designed for it. She has a right to it.

The women of Utah understand what suffrage means. They are not as ignorant as some suppose. They enjoyed the elective franchise for seventeen years, and voted again and again.

I believe in woman suffrage. I have always believed in it. I look upon it as another step, another impulse of humanity toward perfection.

They tell us that woman suffrage in the Constitution will imperil Statehood. I don't believe it. But if it should, what of it? There are some things higher and dearer than Statehood. I would rather stand by my honor, by my principles, than to have Statehood."

Excerpt from a speech made by Orson F. Whitney at the Utah State Constitutional Convention, 1895.

Lighter Side

My New Year's resolution is to stop procrastinating.

I'll start tomorrow

Subscribers may receive special messages with information about new features, special offers, or public policy messages from clients and advertisers.

Advertise With Us