I love Utah politics

[USUC]

It was more than that. He’s also a good candidate with a background of being pragmatic and bipartisan.

We'll see I suppose. Washington has a way of changing people. I'm just hoping he's to the right of Matheson.

[frank ryan]

We'll see I suppose. Washington has a way of changing people. I'm just hoping he's to the right of Matheson.

You’ll be disappointed then. He’s not more conservative than Matheson. Jim was very conservative for a Democrat, but I think McAdams will try and follow his example and be more beholden to his district than anything else. He’s not an idiot

[USUC]

You’ll be disappointed then. He’s not more conservative than Matheson. Jim was very conservative for a Democrat, but I think McAdams will try and follow his example and be more beholden to his district than anything else. He’s not an idiot

Well, he just has to make it through the 2020 election. Once redistricting happens, his seat is safe.

[Uncle Ted]

He has already signed a document expressing opposition to Pelosi as Speaker.

My money is still on Pelosi to be the speaker... she has a way of forcing the vote. It would be awesome if Ocasio-Cortez somehow became the speaker, however.

You're not wrong, but there is another group of democrats that oppose Pelosi because they are moderate red state democrats, and McAdams falls into that category. It's interesting.

I have been in Utah this week and saw McAdams on the news declaring victory. He seems like an young guy (with young kids) and claims to be somewhat independent ("people over party" which seems like a good thing). He seems quite conservative on the issues: wants secure borders ("build the wall!"), fiscally responsible government, supports tax reform and simpler tax system, etc. The one big negative about him is that he is an UofU grad. Given he is fiscally conservative and socially liberal maybe he should just come out of the closet and declare that he is actually a Libertarian.

[frank ryan]

Lol, Mia Love called McAdams w wolf in sheep’s clothing. Sore loser much?

[BlueK]

Lol, Mia Love called McAdams w wolf in sheep’s clothing. Sore loser much?

In the local article she says she's going to speak her mind more now. I think that implied she's going to be less hesitant to be critical of Trump. We'll see. I did appreciate she spoke out against some of the worst things he's done. I think had she gone full Trump worship and had him campaign for her that she would have been buried in that district instead of losing close.

[Northwestcoug]

Since everyone gets in a huff when non-quack-medicine Hatch news gets posted in that thread, I guess this is the best place for this:

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Embarrassing and sad. Definitely time to retire.

[wapiti]

Since everyone gets in a huff when non-quack-medicine Hatch news gets posted in that thread, I guess this is the best place for this:

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Embarrassing and sad. Definitely time to retire.

SDNY = Democrats

[RC Vikings]

https://fox13now.com/2019/02/08/this...e-legislature/

Looks like Utah could get a new state flag.

[MartyFunkhouser]

Beer amendments. I'm sure this will go nowhere or else it will be cut back substantially, but the proposal is to allow 6.0 ABV beer to be sold in stores and on draft. Something will change with the weight of grocery store beer, because as it stands Coors, Miller, and Budweiser are going to be out of Utah grocery stores soon.

https://le.utah.gov/~2019/bills/stat...0y3TYSRpVM4kKk

[Eddie]

What's the deal with ballot initiatives in Utah. Are they just a fun exercise in spending a ton of time and energy to essentially do a poll that lets the legislature know what the voters are interested in?

First we have the medical marijuana thing. The legislature holds an emergency session when it passes in order to change a bunch of it up. Granted, they apparently brought in the people who authored the initiative and got their input into whatever the compromise was - but I know they also made some people who voted for it angry for changing what they voted for.

Now we're starting to hear advertising about the medicaid expansion initiative that passed. Utah's legislature thinks it's too expensive to actually adopt/implement what was voted on, so they are again looking at some compromise and apparently planning to implement something different than the initiative that passed.

In a related note - I was listening to one of the legislators on KSL talking about the medicaid expansion thing. He says that it would cost $70 million to implement the initiative - and they just don't have that in the budget. I mean, they have a surplus THIS year, but there's no guarantees that they will have a surplus in future years. So they don't want to do anything that commits them when the future is unknown as to what money they'll have to work with. Sure. OK. I get it. I'm good with fiscal responsibility.

But I'm having a hard time reconciling that with the $250 million tax cut they're proposing. I mean - you might have a surplus THIS year, but if you do a tax cut, isn't that kind of like the exact opposite of what this legislator was saying as far as not wanting to commit money that you aren't sure will be there? Because it sure seems to me that if you didn't to a $250 million dollar tax cut, you might have the $70 million dollars you'll need to do the medicaid expansion that the people all voted for.

Don't get me wrong - I'm OK with tax cuts. I'm just not sure how it reconciles with "we don't have enough money to implement the initiative the people voted for".

So - that's my Utah Politics rant of the day.

[MartyFunkhouser]

After killing the pot ballot initiative with the compromise bill that ensures medical marijuana is not in Utah, the LDS church moves on to making sure to damage grocery store profits.

https://www.ksl.com/article/46489179...enience-stores

[myboynoah]

Oh dear.

[beefytee]

I don't know why we need to sell any beer in grocery stores. Where I grew up, you had to go to the liquor store to get any alcohol. Canadians seemed to do alright imbibing in that environment.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2015/04/...across-canada/

[Jeff Lebowski]

I don't know why we need to sell any beer in grocery stores. Where I grew up, you had to go to the liquor store to get any alcohol. Canadians seemed to do alright imbibing in that environment.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2015/04/...across-canada/

I can't believe the church is reaching its heavy hand all the way to Canada.