Situational Analysis | December 9, 2021

It's Thursday and raining at my house in Utah County. Where's the snow??

It's also National Pastry Day and Christmas Card Day (are those still a thing?)

Be in the Know

1. Lt. Governor Henderson spoke bluntly when asked about an election audit approved by a legislative panel this week. “From all of the things that I have seen, the endgame here is to fundamentally destroy the voting system we have here in the state of Utah,” she told The Associated Press. “Where there are challenges and problems, let’s work together to solve them and overcome them. But let’s not deliberately spread lies, falsehoods, misinformation and do it in a way that ensures that certain people don’t have access to the ballot. My question to those elected officials is, why are you afraid to let people vote?” 

2. Utah County Commissioners voted 2-1 to split the Clerk/Auditor roles, a single position currently held by Josh Daniels. The one no vote was Amelia Powers Gardner, the former county Clerk/Auditor. She also made a motion to have a public poll or survey done prior to the split but did not receive a second. “It’s a solution in search of a problem," said Taylor Williams, the Deputy Clerk/Auditor.   

3. Swig, Sodalicious, Fiiz and Twisted Sugar made the New York Times for their "dirty sodas," an idea that started in Utah and is expanding rapidly. Kevin Auernig, an owner of Sodalicious said their goal is to do for soda what Starbucks did for coffee. So far, that plan is going well, as they expect to double their locations in the next three years. "After Mitt Romney was photographed drinking a Diet Coke while running for president in 2012," the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted a statement on its website clarifying its stance on caffeine, saying it “does not prohibit the use of caffeine.” We just drink our caffeine cold, something these companies are banking on.

FROM OUR SPONSOR

Providing products that are “Made in USA”

We support partners who manufacture products in the USA. Create a FREE account at overstockgovernment.com and purchase your “Made in USA” supplies from State Contract MA3638.

Utah Headlines

General

• Bob Dole: Serving his country from the heartland (Deseret News)
• Supply chain chaos, labor shortage, inflation: How has it impacted holiday shopping? New Utah poll has answers (Deseret News)
• ‘The secret’s out’: Utah is seeing ‘remarkable’ population growth. Over the last year, Utah saw second-highest recorded net migration and the lowest natural increase since 1975 (Deseret News)
• Salt Lake Airport to missionary families: Use the greeting room, not the walkway (KUTV)
• South Salt Lake company to pay $2 million for 'environmental crimes' (Fox13)
• Utah, SLCo ask judge to dismiss school mask mandate lawsuit (Fox13)

Politics

• Should Utah audit its elections? Lt. Gov. ‘welcomes’ audit but warns claims sowing ‘seeds of doubt’ are ‘destructive’ (Deseret News)
• Sen. Mike Lee to Instagram: ‘You’re the new tobacco, whether you like it or not’ (Deseret News)
• Is Vladimir Putin trying to create a new Soviet Union? Utah Sen. Mitt Romney thinks so. Russia has tens of thousands of troop at its border with Ukraine (Deseret News)
• Washington County state Rep. Lowry Snow announces he won't seek re-election in 2022 (The Spectrum)
• Washington County offers $3.78 million for SITLA land in response to the Northern Corridor (The Spectrum)
• Santa Clara City Council extends landscaping drought restrictions (St. George News)
• Senate challenger Becky Edwards visits Cache Valley, talks innovation, future (Herald-Journal)

COVID Corner

• 1423 new cases, 16 new deaths
• Utah County man is state’s second COVID-19 omicron case. He is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, state health department says (Deseret News)
• What a study on heart inflammation in COVID-19 vaccinated kids reveals (Deseret News/KSL)
• COVID spurs biggest rise in life-insurance payouts since the 1918 pandemic (Wall Street Journal)

Education

• Utah school district names team who will investigate Black girl’s bullying and suicide, after Tribune request (Salt Lake Tribune)

Family

• Why marriage has ‘lost its luster’ among young people (Deseret News)
• Why families become strangers— and how they can reconcile (Deseret News)

National Headlines

General

• U.S. weekly jobless claims lowest in more than 52 years (Reuters)
• Former senator Robert J. Dole to lie in state at U.S. Capitol; Biden to pay tribute (Washington Post)

Politics

• Instagram's CEO Adam Mosseri hears senators brush aside his promises to self-police (NPR)
• Biden to decry democracy ‘recession’ at White House summit (AP)
• Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards (Reuters)
• U.S. senators announce bipartisan social media data transparency bill (Reuters)

News Releases

House Judiciary Committee passes Owens’ bipartisan Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2021

The House Judiciary Committee passed Rep. Burgess Owens (UT-04) and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández’s (NM-03) bipartisan Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Amendments of 2021, legislation to expand support for those who have suffered from cancers and other diseases related to fallout from above-ground nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War period of the 1950s and 1960s.

“For almost 50 years, the U.S. conducted over 200 above-ground nuclear weapons tests, blanketing communities in Utah and many western states with harmful radioactive material,” said Rep. Owens. “On behalf of Downwinders in Utah’s Fourth District, I’m proud to work with Rep. Leger-Fernandez to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and right the wrongs that destroyed the lives of countless innocent Americans. Legislation championed in 1990 by Senator Orrin Hatch was an important step in correcting the problem caused by the federal government, but this compensation ends next year, and too many Utahns will be left behind.”

Rep. Blake Moore’s statement on final House passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022

The House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022. Following its passage, Congressman Blake Moore issued the following statement:
“I was thrilled to vote for the House’s final passage of the NDAA this week, and I’m extremely proud of the countless hours my team, committee staff, and my HASC colleagues put into this bill over the last 12 months,” said Congressman Blake Moore. â€œThis NDAA delivers critical wins for both our national security and Utah’s defense community by reversing the Biden Administration’s harmful spending cuts and investing in depot modernization and nuclear deterrence. This will ensure the U.S. is best positioned against an increasingly aggressive China and resurgent Russia and will demand accountability for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. This bill has a history of achieving the most bipartisan outcomes each year, and I applaud House and Senate leadership for ensuring several harmful, partisan provisions were removed as expected.  The removal of 2^nd Amendment restrictions, female draft requirements, and heavy-handed vaccine mandates in the final bill demonstrates that the legislative process can be trusted. I urge my Senate colleagues to rapidly move this legislation so it can be signed into law and we can give our service members the assistance they need to keep Americans safe.” (Read More)

Numbers of the Day

Upcoming

• Utah Economic Outlook & Public Policy Summit 2022 - SLC Chamber – Jan 13, 2022, 8:30 am - 1:30 pm. Register here
• Utah legislative session begins – Jan 18, 2022, 10:00 am
• Utah legislative session ends – Mar 4, 2022, midnight

On This Day In History

From History.com

• 1793 - Noah Webster establishes New York's first daily newspaper, the "American Minerva"
• 1835 - The Texan Army captures San Antonio in its war for independence from Mexico
• 1872 - P.B.S. Pinchback was sworn in as the first African American to serve as a governor of a U.S. state. He replaced Governor Henry C. Warmoth when his term ended due to impeachment charges.
• 1886 - Clarence Birdseye is born. He developed a quick-freezing method for preserving foods that revolutionized the food preservation industry.
• 1906 - Grace Hopper is born. Rear Admiral Hopper ​​was a pioneering computer scientist who invented the compiler, co-invented COBOL and is credited with coining the phrase “debugging” after seeing an actual bug inside a computer.
• 1906 - Esther Peterson is born. As head of the Commission on the Status of Women, she was the most powerful woman in the Kennedy administration. 
• 1958 - John Birch society founded.
• 1965 - A Charlie Brown Christmas premieres on CBS.
• 1979 - Smallpox is officially declared eradicated, following a global inoculation effort
• 1992 - U.S. Marines storm Mogadishu, Somalia in Operation Restore Hope
• 2002 - Award-winning ABC News journalist, Michele Norris, becomes the first African American female regular co-host of National Public Radio’s news magazine, All Things Considered
• 2008 - Rod Blagojevich, Governor of Illinois is arrested by federal officials

Wise Words

“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."

— Linus

Lighter Side

Q: What kind of motorcycle does Santa ride?

A: A Holly Davidson 

– Advertise With Us –

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