General Session 2016: Week 1

Openers

The first week of the general session was very interesting.  Of course, it wouldn't be the first day of the session without some fanfare.

Calvary Baptist Church sings The Battle Hymn of the Republic

We also heard The State of the Judiciary from Chief Justice Matthew Durrant.

The speech was very blunt and highlighted the need for the state to fund drug treatment in light of recent criminal justice reforms.  The state needs to fill a $16M funding hole to do that.  The gap was left after the Legislature opted not to fund Medicaid expansion last year.  Apparently, the Executive Branch's plan was to pass both court reform and Medicaid expansion last year and did not contemplate the possibility that expansion would not happen.  Fortunately, there are plans in the works right now to fund the treatment described by Chief Durrant.  I expect this issue to be resolved this Session.

Bill Bonanza

Our first week on the House Floor was also fairly uneventful except for the barrage of committee bills that were vetted and voted upon during the interim.  We heard over 30 bills that were unanimous in their committee votes and uncontroversial.  It was unusual to see so many bills voted upon without much debate due to their sheer mundanity.

Committee Crankiness

Since the Legislature is part time, the first week is a time for Representatives to yawn, stretch, and come out of hibernation.  This means it takes a little time to get back into the groove of parliamentary parlance, bureaucratic jargon, and political euphemism.

Interestingly, our Revenue and Taxation Committee, of which I am Vice-Chair, has a reputation for being a tough and smart committee that is used to handling the hard issues.  So, when our committee heard a couple lightweight bills for the first meeting, it didn't quite know how to handle them.  One bill, which was a simple repeal of an obscure requirement for a report that nobody ever read or cared about, took over 45 minutes of discussion before it passed.  I was next on the agenda with my Property Tax Valuation Notice by Email bill, a very easy issue, and we took over an hour wrestling with its nuances.  Then the committee inexplicably held the bill.  After watching this painful performance, other Representatives with items on the agenda that day ran for cover and asked to be bumped to another day rather than receive similar treatment.

Fortunately, this is a once-in-a-session experience.

Negotiation and Compromise

As all the issues advocated by various Representatives come to light with their bill files, competing interests also manifest themselves.  I discovered that one of my bills interfered with some priority policy advocated by our House Leadership.

The great part about our system is that we are able to talk through our objectives and find common ground.  I learned about our Leadership's vision for using Motion Picture Tax Credits as a stable source of incentives for attracting projects to Utah.  After expressing my desire for greater accountability and transparency, we found a solution we all could agree upon.

State of the State Address

My wife accompanied me to the State of the State address by Governor Herbert this week.  While I didn't take any pictures of the event, I did find the Governor's speech online rendered as a music video:





Committee Redemption

Our second Revenue and Taxation committee hearing was much more fruitful.  I was able to present again the bill that was held on Tuesday as well as two other bills.

Here is audio of those bills being presented:



HB104, HB162, and HB170 all passed out favorably and will be heard on the House Floor.

Coming Soon...

Look for more potent bills to be discussed next week on the House Floor.  There are a myriad of controversial topics coming up.  I still have 6 bills in drafting right now that need to be numbered.  I will be eagerly prodding stakeholders and staff to complete the writing and have the bills released for debate.  The Session is just getting started and a lot can happen quickly.  If you have any issues or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out to me.

HB170: Repealing Obsolescent Tax Credits

In a summertime review of tax credits on the books, one in particular really stood out.  Medical Care Savings Accounts (MSAs) are a tool used to save for medical emergencies.  The state provided a tax credit for individuals who used these in order to create an incentive for people to prepare for such an occasion.

However, implementation of the Affordable Care Act has had a significant impact on the use of MSA's.  The chart below demonstrates:

As you can see, use of the tax credit has fallen precipitously.  Data from 2015 shows only about a dozen people claimed the the tax credit.  (Note:  Health Savings Accounts are still being used and are a separate thing from MSAs.)  

So, with this tax credit becoming totally obsolescent.  It's time to repeal and clean up our books. 

Here is a draft of the bill:

HB0170

If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to give me a call.

HB162: Transparency and Accountability for Taxpayer Funded Film Incentives

This session I am running a bill to provide more legislative oversight and more accountability for money that the state spends in promoting film production here in Utah.  Currently, the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) has been granted permission from the Legislature to issue up to $6.7 million dollars in tax credits for film productions that the department deems worthy to receive them.  Certain benchmarks and yardsticks are used to quantify which productions show the most promise for spending money and driving economic growth in the state.

The problem with tax credits, however, is that they typically receive very little legislative scrutiny once they are initiated.  Our annual legislative budget process provides a great forum to debate how we should spend money the state receives in tax revenue.  Unfortunately, there has historically been little opportunity to debate money that IS NOT received because it was excluded due to tax credits.

Thus, this lack of scrutiny creates a blind spot in regular policy discussion.  So, to bring the film incentive back into the arena of regular policy discussion, my bill proposes to do away with the Motion Picture Tax Credit and instead appropriate those funds directly into an existing account that GOED also uses for the same purpose.

Another important change that the bill makes is how film productions report their economic impact.  Current law allows for the filmmakers to report the impact their production has on the Utah economy.  In other words, how much the production spent in Utah while they were here.  The law also gives them the option of reporting how much new tax revenue they generated.  My bill, instead, will make it a requirement that tax revenue reporting also be part of what filmmakers report back to GOED.

The benefits of this bill are many fold.  First, we will have a chance to review performance of the funds with GOED each year as we do with other incentive programs they oversee.  Legislative oversight and accountability are important parts of good stewardship of taxpayer dollars.  Also, our Business, Economic Development and Labor (BEDL) sub-appropriations committee is tasked with placing money where it makes the most return on investment. Understanding how much tax revenue is generated by the incentives is absolutely important in making those judgments.

I will be working with GOED and staff to determine the best way to transition the film incentives out of the tax credit arena and into existing direct grants.  As a member of the BEDL Appropriations Sub-Committee and as Vice-Chair of the Revenue and Taxation Committee, I believe we should be able to work through the details very quickly and effectively.

 


Here is the draft of the bill as it is currently written:

HB0162

QUALITY CONTROL: The Case for Partisan Candidate-Specific Voting

I recently signed on as the Republican co-sponsor of a bill to change our ballots to allow only candidate-specific voting in partisan races.  This bill would stop the practice of 'straight ticket' voting.

HB119 is sponsored by my House Democratic colleague Patrice Arent.  FOX 13 recently interviewed her and the Republican and Democrat Party Chiefs.  Here is that video:


Straight ticket voting allows a person to vote for a political party rather than a candidate. While at first glance this seems like a reasonable thing to permit, in the end it provides for a less robust and healthy civic discourse.

FULL DISCLOSURE:  Part of my bias against straight ticket voting is that I lost my first election because of it.  In 2008 I ran against a 10-year Democrat incumbent.  We ran a tireless campaign only to lose by 200 votes.  My district at that time was gerrymandered specifically to give safe harbor to a Democrat candidate.  So, it was an uphill battle.  Yet, I was able to persuade many people of Democrat persuasion to support me.  Why?  It wasn't because I was a liberal guy, but rather I was able to speak with them on their doorstep and find common ground where it existed.  So, its no surprise that scenes like this were common in downtown Ogden in 2008.

Clearly, things were so bad that many Democrats felt their best option at that time was to vote for a Republican.  So, what happened on election day?  A significant proportion of voters voted straight ticket (in this case Democrat) not thinking that there was this lonely Republican guy on the ballot needing their specific attention.  In my follow up with voters, I heard from many of them that they had voted for me while at the same time telling me how they proudly voted straight ticket Democrat.  Discouraging to say the least.

So, this is an old story and we know how it ultimately ended.  But, besides my own personal grievance, why would eliminating straight ticket voting and moving to partisan candidate-specific voting be a good idea for Utah?  Here are some points.

Political Branding

First, political parties of all varieties are a brand name.  The brand name is supposed to mean something.  Before SB54, political parties had control over the candidate nominating process which created some quality control to determine which candidates made it on the ballot.  Wild flaming liberal candidates were weeded from the Republican ballots and the boring lifeless conservatives were weeded from the Democrat ballots.  All this was done through the caucus-convention system which provided a forum for debate and inquisition.  The new "signature route" to the primary ballot provides an end-run around that discovery process and puts people on the ballot who may or may not share the philosophy of their declared political party.  In other words, the political parties have lost a large degree of quality control over who is on the ballot.

Educated Voters

The loss of control means that much of the vetting process must be done by individual voters rather than informed participants in the sieve of the caucus-convention system.  Unfortunately, straight ticket voting detracts from this delicate differentiation process.  Instead, instituting partisan, candidate-specific voting creates an environment that encourages voters to make informed choices.  An educated electorate makes better candidate choices.

Incentive for Quality Candidates

The other benefit to eliminating straight ticket voting is that it will put pressure on political parties to recruit better candidates.  Voting for a candidate with a "D" or "R" next to their name doesn't mean much if it doesn't mean anything to the candidate themselves.  So, parties have an incentive to find and recruit candidates that share their same political values and bring those candidates forward for consideration.  

Here is a copy of the bill as it us currently written:

HB0119 -

Our new system provides plenty of opportunity for gaming the election process.  Eliminating straight ticket voting helps voters to stop that from happening.  I look forward to debating this issue and hopefully bring better outcomes to an increasingly complicated election process.  

HB104: Property Tax Notices By Email

I have been working on a bill file for the past couple of months with our Weber County Clerk Rickie Hatch.  In what may be a surprising breakthrough discovery for government, a new technological innovation may promise efficiency and cost savings to taxpayers.  The bill proposes to allow property tax notices to be sent by email (pronounced [ee-mayl]) if taxpayers choose to receive notices via this method.

This bill also allows taxpayers to opt out and receive them via snail mail as well.  Here is a copy of the bill:

HB104 - Property Tax Notice by Email

If you have any legislative issues or concerns, don't hesitate to contact me...even by means of this mysterious new email technology.

Interim Session November 2015: Power, Perverts, Ethics, Taxes, and Refugees

We just completed a last round of interim committee meetings before the General Session begins in January 2016.  In this last round of meetings we discussed several potent subjects that are in the headlines and on the minds of the public.  We also discussed several potential bills to be heard during the General Session.  Here is a summary of items I thought were worth mentioning.


Power to the People

One bill that we heard in morning committee dealt with the public's ability to overturn legislation.  The vehicle the public has to do this is called a public referendum. Currently, if the Legislature enacts a wildly unpopular law, the people can follow steps to initiate a public referendum which places the law on a ballot to be voted up or down directly by the people.  If I recall correctly, the last law that this happened to was the Legislature's creation of school vouchers in 2007.  The education community rallied and successfully overturned that law.

In the bill we heard, Representative Brian Greene wants to expand the referendum power so that it applies to cities, school boards, special service districts, and any other legislative body at the local level.  I support his effort.  The referendum power acts as a check against laws that may simply be too difficult to tolerate until the next election cycle where the elected officials can be replaced the law reversed through the normal course.

Unfortunately, it appears the bill sponsor did not speak with the cities, school boards, specials service districts and others that would be affected by enactment of this law.  They showed up to testify at our committee that hey had just been made aware of the bill.  With that in mind, I voted against the bill so that these entities were given a fair amount of time to review the policy and share their informed perspective.  Had the bill received a unanimous vote at our committee, it would have been heard on the first day of the session with little debate. The few dissenting votes from our committee insure that the bill is heard at committee again and that all sides of the issues can be assessed before a vote.  I look forward to supporting the bill (even if it is refined) when it gets to the Floor for a vote.

SB 54 - Scrambled Eggs Election Law and Ethics

Last month the Republican Caucus moved to support an option of making changes to SB54 to provide clarity to the signature gathering process and also clarify dates for filing for office.  However, one of the provisions of the changes would permit "in-kind" campaign contributions to be made during the General Session.  The law prohibits any type of contribution during the General Session currently.

I felt that this was a major setback (even if only in perception) to the public's confidence in our political system to run as ethically as possible.  So, I had some constructive criticism while the bill was being presented.  You can hear the dialogue at committee here where I voice my opinion.  My more salient comments are around the 4:00 mark although the whole snippet is worth hearing:

Ultimately, a motion was made and the words allowing in-kind contributions were stricken from the bill by a slim margin.  Yet, the bill passed the committee and will be heard early during the General Session.  My complaint is not about "in-kind" contributions (typically services, like signature gathering, that are performed in lieu of cash donations) being performed during the General Session. My main concern is that the negotiation of those contributions during the Session creates clouds of doubt.  It can create the situation where contributors are tempted to make promises to donate based the performance of the Legislator.  We should never be having those kinds of conversations in such close proximity to voting. 

Ultimately, I expect the language to be clarified so that the contributions are solicited, negotiated, and reported before and after the General Session but the services the contribution represents may be performed during the General Session.   

Syrian Refugees

Another topic we discussed in our Republican Caucus was the Syrian Refugee issue.  In light of the Paris Massacre, doubt is being cast on the ability of our Federal Government to properly vet individuals coming from Syria to seek refuge in the United States.  I have my own doubts.  Many of us felt that Governor Herbert should publicly express concern over Syrian refugees coming to Utah to resettle until proper safe guards were put in place.  

My view has always been that the Middle East needs to deal with problems in the Middle East.  Many countries bordering Syria, including Turkey and Jordan, have refugee camps that provide housing and food for these people while the war is on going.  I suggested that instead of spending our state tax dollars on resettling Syrians here, we should contribute those funds to the organizations managing the camps abroad.  This would provide the humanitarian aid they need, while also providing for our immediate safety.  It is not the responsibility of The West to guarantee a First World standard of living to the rest of the world.  Yet, we can and should keep them from starving.
      

I believe we can be compassionate and common sensed about this issue.  

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

As Vice-Chair of the Revenue and Taxation Committee, I get to hear a lot of interesting discussion on topics related to tax policy.

One bill we discussed would prevent taxpayers from being overcharged when "centrally assessed" properties decrease in value and then increase again.  Under current statute, the counties get to include any upper movement in value of these properties to the formula dictating taxes that you pay.  The concept is difficult to detail here but the proposal is liked by stakeholders on both sides of the issue.  Look for this bill to pass this next session.  

Another significant bill we heard dealt with the way corporations elect to be taxed by the State.  Depending on their business structure, they can chose between three different types of taxation.  The bill proposal we heard offers the "Single Sales Factor" method to more companies.  The effect is a tax decrease of up to $50 Million per year.  This decrease would be a giant incentive to bring more companies here to Utah with their capital and jobs.  It's a big proposal from Senator Howard Stephenson and we will see what happens with it in the General Session.  

Shoot'em Up and Taken'em Down

After our meetings concluded at the Capitol, we were invited by the Attorney General's Office to visit their facility and view some of their training and tactical equipment.  We heard from Sean Reyes how the AG's office is working with law enforcement agencies to help moderate the tone of police interactions with the public.  A lot of this effort is due to the ongoing disgruntlement of minority communities in how they view their treatment by law enforcement.

We were also introduced to some fantastic tools that the AG's office hopes to use with local agencies to help train officers in de-escalating volatile situations while also honing their marksman skills in difficult circumstances.  The tool they have for this an interactive video studio.

The scenario I faced involved active shooters at the local Megaplex Theater.  The guns they gave us had real recoil and limited ammo.  We had to shoot the shooters before they shot us or shot other civilians.  It was stressful to say the least.

We were also shown the Internet Crimes Against Children mobile forensics lab.   This elite team is tasked with catching perverts and abusers of children.  We discussed the inroads that child pornography is making into society and the impact that it is having on the community.  It is sad commentary to know that this is a real problem in our society.  It is even worse to know that this problem is growing ever larger.  Kudos to this elite team for their work in taking our most devious and dangerous predators out of circulation.

In summary, it was a busy but informative day.  The Republican Caucus meets again in December to discuss issues coming up for the General Session.

   

Medicaid Expansion Propaganda and Mythology

We held an open caucus meeting during Interim Session this month to discuss some new information regarding Utah's experience with the Affordable Care Act.  One of the  most revealing topics of conversation had to do with criticism the House has received for its stubbornness in not moving forward with the Governor's Medicaid Expansion plan as proposed.

One of the first arguments that is made by supporters of the plan and the media is that Utah is being penny wise and pound foolish by not expanding Medicaid.  Their argument for the past two years has been that with the Federal Government "committing" to pay 90% of the costs of the program, we are losing out on tax money we are already paying to the Feds.  They say we have been paying taxes and not getting anything back to show for it.  Here are a few snippets from emails I received from supporters of Medicaid Expansion:

"By not expanding medicaid Utah can't access the healthcare the Utah taxpayers have already paid for during the last 2 years." 

- Ms. Summers

" MR PETERSON, I'm not at all happy how you and the others voted on the Medicaid Expansion!! We elected you for the views of the people you represent, NOT on your views!!  I do not need Medicaid but so many others do! You should all be ashamed of yourselves! Then you leave ALL that tax payer's money on the table!!" 

- Ms. Phelps (emphasis added)

Surely, the public believes that there is a steep price to be paid to avoid entangling ourselves in an uncertain deal with the Federal Government.  Supposedly, to reject expansion is to forfeit hundreds of millions of our tax dollars and consign us to watching our poor and disadvantaged die en mass. At least that is what advocates want you to believe. This inaccurate narrative has been pushed by the big-hearted but grossly misguided folks at the Utah Health Policy Project and Alliance for a Better Utah among others.  

Alliance for a Better Utah rallys among 361 Christian crosses that represent people who have died this year while waiting for Medicaid health coverage.  (NOT SHOWN:  The 4,000+ crosses that represent unborn Utahns who have died this year at the hands of an abortionist.)  - Photo Courtesy Salt Lake Tribune

This tax dollar narrative has been particularly effective in provoking public sentiment.  Yet, it is an outright lie.  How so?  Here are the facts;

Federal Health Care Reform Fund Impact on Utah

As you can see, Utahns are paying $710 Million a year in taxes collected by the Federal Government related to the Affordable Care Act.  That is a lot of money.  However, contrary to the convenient narrative pushed by advocates for Medicaid Expansion, Utah is receiving $730 Million a year from the Federal Government to pay for subsidies, cost-sharing, CHIP and other coverage programs.

The truth is we actually receive MORE than we pay in tax dolloars!  Whoa!

So, the next logical question is about how would Medicaid Expansion affect these dollars.  Would we get more?  Of course!  But where would they come from?  They would come from other states who had the ignominious distinction of having to pay more than they receive.  Ironically, expanding Medicaid in Utah would put other states in the same situation that advocates are falsely claiming we are in today.  Regrettably, beggar-thy-neighbor appears to be in vogue.

Bad data makes for bad policy.  Lets stop the charade of telling taxpayers they are wasting their money if they don't submit to a massive entitlement expansion.  It simply isn't true.

Meanwhile, we will be seeking other more sustainable solutions to help the truly disadvantaged in our state.