February 25, 2018

"What we're doing is making sure that all of our schools are prepared. There are laws on the books that require our superintendents and our principles to make sure that access to the schools is controlled, and we need to make sure that that's in fact the case." Governor Herbert

NARRATOR: KUED presents the governor's monthly news conference, An exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Gary Herbert.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Good morning.

REPORTERS: Good morning.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: It's good to be with you, it's been a while since we've been together, and thank you very much for being here today.

In fact, we finished last year very strong. As you probably know, in 2015 and 2016 we finished our economy, the numbers from the Department of Labor showed us that we had the most private-sector job creation of any state, per capita, in America. When I have the final numbers for 2017, I expect we'll be at the top of the list again, so three years running, showing our healthy economy, and the experiences that we've had in growing the economy in the state of Utah.

Again, it gives us a good start for 2018, and here with 2018 starting off robustly, again our first real order of business is the legislative session. We're now about two thirds of the way through the legislative session, and they've only introduced about 1400 bills, so a lot for us to track and for the public to be aware of. I feel good about what's taking place. I don't know that everybody recognizes the miracle of the legislative session in 45 days of coming together, and virtually unanimously balancing a budget, prioritizing our issues in the state of Utah with again mostly unanimous consent, 16.7 billion dollar budget.

Somewhat unique by the way in the state of Utah how we do it, because we actually have what we call consensus numbers. So, our Office of Management Budget works with the legislative fiscal analyst, and the tax commission all having their different models, but they come together and say here's the amount of money we really have to spend. So, everybody works off the same numbers and it works very well.

I think one of the reason why we in fact have been recognized multiple times as the best managed state in America, is because we start with the same amount of money to spend, and there's only so many ways you can slice up the pie. We live within our means, we don't spend more than we take in, rational death, and again those fiscally prudent policies that we've put in place in Utah has served us very well.

One last point, there's a number of issues, you probably want to talk about some of the legislation that's being proposed, but one that I'm kind of excited about, is we've come down the home stretch with the legislature, is a bill sponsored by Rep. Robert Spendlove, which has to do with Medicaid and Medicaid expansion, the issue that's been a hot topic for a number of years. With this new administration, there seems to be a willingness that we've not found in previous administration to have waivers to allow us to do things we've not been able to do in the past.

I'm a believer in state rights and state flexibility, and what we do in Utah that's appropriate, may not be what they do in Massachusetts that’s appropriate in other states. But the ability for us to have waivers allows us to make a proposal, to take those who are impoverished up to 100 percent of poverty, get a 90-10 split on the money, from the federal government, and allows those who are over a hundred percent of poverty then go into the federal exchange.

It allows us to be proactive in helping to save money and costs. It allows us to be able to cap, so we don't have runaway costs. That's something we buy today, that we cannot afford tomorrow. It allows us in fact to have something that we've talked about many times, and that's to have a work requirement, so that those who are able-bodied physically and mentally able to actually go out and work. We will help them with skills, education and training to get a job. If you are unemployed to get a job, if you're underemployed to get a job, and to help you get off the government dole and the government system to be self-sufficient.

So I'm excited about the possibilities, it will require waivers from this current administration, I've talked with the vice president, I've talked with Seema Verma, with our department of health, and I think we have a great opportunity to get the waivers we need to get something in place which I think most people of Utah will appreciate and support. So again, I'm excited about that, as again we come down the home stretch for the legislative session. I think Utah is in a very good position of strength, economically, quality of life wise, doing a lot of great things for education, so I'm very optimistic about the future.

So, with that, I'll turn it over to you and see what questions are on your mind.

JULIA RITCHEY, KUER: I'll jump in with the bill that would repeal the death penalty that was introduced last week, and House Speaker Greg Hughes is behind it. I want to know if your position has changed on the death penalty since the last time this was debated?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: You know I've been a strong supporter of the death penalty for those most egregious and heinous of crimes. I think society does have the right to say we're going to eradicate you from our society, and so the death penalty is appropriate.

That being said, I think that the court system itself has made it so it's a little bit hard to defend the death penalty. It takes so long, justice delayed is justice denied, the cliché we have used. And when you find people that are tried on capital punishment, 20 to 25 years, and longer, people on death row for over 20 years, that's not timely, and that's probably not just. Not only is it unfair for those who are being prosecuted, but I think it's really unfair and unjust to the victims, as that constantly the appeal, after appeal, after appeal ad nauseam kind of reopens the wound that they have to live with.

So, I'm at the point of saying for the taxpayer and for justice, it certainly is less expensive by all accounts to have life without possibility of parole as a replacement for the death penalty, and so I'm going to take a very hard look at that passage through the legislature, and it's something I would consider signing. 

Reporter:  Governor Herbert, does the possibility that someone who is innocent could conceivably end up being executed weigh on you, or play into your calculus on supporting or not supporting that bill?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well it certainly is a factor I think that needs to be considered. I think our judicial system is such that it is very rare. It doesn't mean that it hasn't ever happened, I think it's very rare today as opposed to yesteryear, when probably our judicial system was not as thorough, and there was not as many appeals to make sure people who were found guilty really were guilty. But it certainly eliminates that point of error, but it does introduce the fact of life in prison without the possibility of parole. I expect the other challenge will be if we go to that, as a sentencing, that people are going to say I've been in prison for 30 years, I've been a model prisoner, I ought to now have the ability to be paroled. That's where there's going to be some rub, people are going to say we did away with the capital punishment, and exchanged it for life without the possibility of parole, and it should be then without possibility of parole.

So, there's still going to be some debate and discussion as far as what's going to be the right process and what's going to be the right outcome, but I think we are at the point where having a discussion on a life sentence without possibility of parole as a replacement for capital punishment is timely.

BOB BERNICK, UTAHPOLICY.COM: We haven't had any school mass shootings in schools in Utah, what do you think about, what are you doing to try to keep that the case, that we don't have any mass shootings in schools?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well it's a tragedy wherever we have them, and it's like a ticking time bomb, you wonder and worry is something going to happen in our own backyard. We have had not a school shooting, but the Charlie Square incident comes to mind here a few years back.

What we're doing is making sure that all of our schools are prepared. There is laws on the books that require our superintendents and our principles to make sure that access to the schools is controlled, and we need to make sure that that's in fact the case. I don't believe it probably is the case in all instances, so there's just a single point of access to where we can control it, to help screen people who come onto campus. 

I think we need to make sure that drills are taking place, we have an active shooter drill. It should be just like a fire drill; you go through the process of lockdown and what needs to be done to protect the students. So, we want to make sure that what we have in place is actually being prepared for and practiced.

Secondly, I think it's important for us to talk about what is happening in society that causes our young people, these tend to be younger people that go on this rampage, and have a desire without any compunction to kill people. Is that part of our family upbringing or the breakdown of the family, the lack of fathers in the home? Those are frank and open discussions we ought to have. We ought to be concerned I think about violence, that we just seem to tolerate, that comes out of Hollywood, we in fact have these Rambo movies and slasher movies that I think tend to desensitize we as the people that this violence is just okay. It's just part of life, when it's really not.

I remember being in the military when I was in basic training, and I went through a process of taking my M-16 and shooting targets which was kind of fun. Then we went to pop-ups, then we went to silhouettes, and the realization that happened in my own life, when I said gee they're teaching me how to kill people. I'm kind of being desensitized to the fact of pointing a rifle at what may be a human being and pulling the trigger.

I think our virtual reality games does that same thing to our young people. We ought to be concerned about that, and have a discussion are we in fact desensitizing our young people to violence, and it makes it a little easier for them to go off. Certainly, mental health issues and background checks are all part and parcel of what we ought to be doing to prevent violence in our schools or other places where the public assembles to. So, it's a complex issue, there's no easy answer but we ought to have the discussion. 

REPORTER: Is the state assessing how schools are actually implementing these safety protocols they're supposed to be doing?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Yes, in fact we have asked our education director Tammy Piper to work with our superintendents and our principles to ensure that they are following the rules that we have in place today. I want to have a refresher, a reminder, and report back to me to make sure that all of our schools are in fact putting into practice these things that had been asked to do to make our schools safe.

BILL DENTZER, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Mitt Romney said that he doesn't think Washington is the place for legislation to happen, it's a slow process place, and that it should happen in states. Do you agree with that, and what could the state do legislatively?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I believe states have the primary role. I know that on Second Amendment rights for example, this is going all the way to the Supreme Court, and the parameters and the restrictions that are placed around the Second Amendment really come from states making that determination. So, he's right from the standpoint of states ought to take the lead on this. I think we are in a better position to understand the unique challenges of our respective regions and states. It doesn't mean that the federal government doesn't have some kind of role to play when it comes to federal legislation, but I do believe that the bulk of that should come from the States, and Governor Romney is correct in that regard.

BOB BERNICK, UTAHPOLICY.COM: Should Utah ban assault rifles?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I don't know where you decide what's an assault rifle and what's not. How many rounds in automatic weapons that we already have laws that say you cannot have automatic weapons, fully automatic, you can have semiautomatic, and I think that's appropriate. Again I see where the President has come out and talked about where he wants to do away with bump stocks, which I think is appropriate, or trying to convert a legal weapon into an illegal weapon, and skirt the law, finding that loophole. I don't think that's appropriate. But those are discussions that we need to have, and I think people are saying do something.

I mean there is frustration out there because these incidents keep happening, and we want to make sure that what we do actually has a positive result. It's not just a feelgood thing, and we think we've done something when in fact we have not. But I think Utah is actually in pretty good place when it comes to Second Amendment rights, and with what we're going to do and what we should be already doing with our schools to make sure they are safe environments for our young people.

MICHAEL ORTON, UTAHPOLITICALCAPITOL.COM: Governor as you're aware, the statistics bear out the fact that the gun in the home is most likely to be used against a person in the home, and specifically I'm interested in what you have done recently with your task force on suicide. Utah is number five in the nation for suicide-related deaths, and I know that you have recently convened a task force on that. Tell me also if you have any thoughts regarding the dominant culture's influence on the pressure to be perfect, in that way that puts a lot of pressure on our young people.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well again I think suicide and suicide prevention, and it kind of dovetails with violence, is really a complex issue. The fact that we have high standards is not something we ought not to apologize for, but it may in fact have a factor.

We have social isolation, we have too much bullying that takes place in schools, and other environments, we ought to be concerned about that. We ought to make sure that we hug our children and tell them we love them. We actually have young people say I've never been told anybody loved me, and they're in the junior high school, I mean how does that happen?

My wife the first lady has a very significantly important initiative called Uplift Families, which is designed to teach people how to parent, and what are the skills necessary. Most of us didn't have any training on parenting. Whatever we experienced with our own parents, maybe we've piggybacked on that, good, bad or indifferent. But again, the First Lady Jeanette is actually out there trying to teach people from all different kinds of families, single parent, and the typical family of here are skills. Here's how you ought to the handling your children, to help them grow up to have good values and principles and fit in with society. So, there's a lot of things be can be doing and we should be doing.

Certainly, gun locks, again one of the things that came out of our task force with suicide prevention is working with in fact some of our gun right advocates. We've placed over 40,000 gun locks into homes now, because we know that again it's easy for a young person that's despondent and in depression, to grab your gun and then use it against themselves. So, having gun locks in place and having them in a secure facility is an important aspect of being smart about how we in fact have guns in our lives and our homes. So that's again something that we need to in fact address, and do a little bit better of in securing them.

So I think again, spawning the discussion, we ought not to be afraid of discussion, we ought to come together. We have different points of view on Second Amendment rights and what the parameters should be, but let's address it head on. Let's reason together sayeth Isaiah, and see if we can't come up with in fact a solution that we can all feel good about, and I think make it better, and I think we are doing that right now, and I think we'll do more of it going forward.

By the way the task force on suicide prevention, we changed it from teenage suicide prevention to just suicide prevention, and that task force which goes along with our coalition we've had here in place already, will continue to work together for a number of months, maybe a year to see what we find. We have found that there's other areas we need to have more discussion on.

For example, we found that our Native American brothers and sisters, the tribes, have a higher incidence of suicide. Why, we don't know. So we need to study that, get some data and find out why. We found our military personnel again have a higher incidence of suicide, some of that you can probably understand if they've been involved in combat, PTSD, just the stress of military law and compliance, and the aspects it has on family life. Then last but not least, there's a social isolationism we find with LGBTQ young people, our gay community.

We need to in fact make sure that those three communities are studied, and see if we can analyze what is causing higher incidences, and what we can do to correct that, to make sure that that doesn't continue. In fact, we reduced the trend. So, again we are having discussions on very delicate and difficult discussions, and needful discussions, so I think we are headed in the right direction.

BILL DENTZER, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE:Governor what's your position on the bill that would eliminate the state sales tax on food?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well I've been very vocal about good tax policy, includes broadening the base, and lowering the rate, everybody paying their fair share, it can be a regressive tax, but again it ought to be a broadening of the base and a lowering of the rate. I think eliminating the sales tax off food, does just the opposite, in fact it narrows the base, and raises the rate.

The exchange is that we're going to take it off food and put it on other goods and services, and raise the sales tax somewhere else. I don't know that that really helps those who are impoverished. They have to buy hard goods to as well as food. We're probably better off I believe targeting those people who need help with food stamps and government assistance, not only do they not have to pay the tax, they don't have to pay for the food, and I think that's a better approach than eliminating it across the board, which again is I think contrary to good tax policy.

BRADY MCCOMBS, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Governor where do you stand on the proposal to use two million of the state funds to sue California over the extra fee on coal. Utah coal companies think that's unfair.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I'm a little unclear as far as the motivation. I understand the concern that has been expressed. I'm not sure that the state has a role to play in this litigation. Again, states have their own policies and philosophies, and California has a policy that really evolved to we don't want to burn or take energy that comes from any kind of the carbon based fuel, and so the demand for that supply is somewhat limited.

I think there's an argument that says well that's causing the cost of coal to either go up or be less profitable, because it's having a harder time competing. That might be an issue for the coal industry itself to take a look at, and see if there is some unfair competition or some violation of commerce clause or other laws out there that they would want to sue on. I'm not convinced that that's a place the state should weigh in on.

Now in the Oakland Port which is a little different situation which I think you're familiar with, that clearly seems to me to be a violation of the commerce clause, that Oakland and maybe the state of California, is saying in spite of the commerce clause, and in spite of the fact that these are legal products, we are going to restrict access in our state. That would be a violation of our Constitution, that's something the state probably does have a role to play in.

MICHAEL ORTON, UTAHPOLITICALCAPITOL.COM: One of the attorneys that presented for an allocation of two million dollars of taxpayer funds to do just that, to litigate that particular issue, indicated that that would just before getting to a summary judgment only, and that the meter could run up from there. Do you think that the state should go ahead and initiate that, as a budget appropriation item? I think it was ranked at number 21 recently, and I don't know what will happen once it gets to executive approach, but what's you thought?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well what it tells me is that I should have been an attorney. It seems like that's an exorbitant amount of money just to get to summary judgment, two million dollars. So again, I think we need to take a hard look at our attorney generals, who I would look to to take a look and see whether the state should be involved in any kind of litigation or not. That's really the attorney general's role, and so I'd work closely with him and see if that's something that he would think is appropriate. Otherwise it may just be a private sector to private sector litigation, and if they want to pay however much for their attorneys to sue. Whatever their rationale is behind it, God love them, but again I'm trying to find out whether this is a state role are not.

MICHAEL ORTON, UTAHPOLITICALCAPITOL.COM: So you would sign a budget that included two million dollars of taxpayer funds to initiate this whole thing?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Not necessarily, again I would have to decide whether it's even appropriate for us to be involved in litigation, and I'm not certain that suing because California is deciding to not take any energy that is produced by carbon-based fuels is a state issue.

ROGER MCDONOUGH, KCPW: Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski, along with a couple of hundred other mayors around the country, recently signed a letter endorsing the clean power plan that was an Obama era plan to limit emissions, to reduce emissions. The state of course has been opposed to that for a long time. The power plan itself, the clean power plan, has there been any change in thinking on the state park, and what about this the fact that Utah's capital city is supporting this plan?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well people have different points of view, and Salt Lake City and Mayor Biskupski, doesn't see things necessarily the way the legislature or I do, and that's okay. That's part of the healthy discussion and debate. I don't think that's a bad thing, I think that's in fact a healthy thing.

We have in fact sued on the clean power plan, and we've got a stay on that. Part of it is just wanting to be practical. I think everyone wants to have sustainable energy, we don't want to have to turn on our lights and they don't go on, brownouts. We've seen that in times past. So, we want to have sustainable, reliable energy. We want to have it affordable. We don't want to break the bank when it comes to our household budgets or our business budgets.

But we also want the third component, and that's to have it cleaner. What we're finding is the marketplace, which is a wonderful thing if we let it work, is finding ways with new technology, new science, new innovation to find what we call our greener fuels, whatever that means, or finding the ability to be more competitive, more economically sustainable. They don't have to have as much subsidy as they have had in times past. 

So, they're getting better, but the other side of the equation is that carbon-based fuels with new technology, new science, are getting cleaner, and that's a good thing. We're finding cleaner ways to use carbon-based fuels. We're finding greener fuels that are becoming more economically competitive. That means we the consumer are going to benefit with having reliability of our energy, that is going to be affordable and cleaner.

So again, the part of the practical aspects of the clean power plan was they were requiring you to have capabilities of say coal-fired power plants the innovation, the technology was not even available. It's like we anticipate there will be new technology in the next generation, we want you to incorporate that now. Well that's impossible to do.

So, some of it is just a practical aspect, I would say this to us all, as we look at all of the evolution of energy and production in the state of Utah, and for the next generation, carbon-based fuels and/or nuclear power will really constitute the baseload of energy production in this country for the next generation. Now disruption is occurring, and changes and evolution is going to occur, but nuclear power and carbon-based fuel, if we want to have energy, is going to be part of the bulk of the baseload as we evolve into something better into the future.

MICHAEL ORTON, UTAHPOLITICALCAPITOL.COM: Let me ask a political question, this is a big election year, should the Utah Republican Party, which you are the titular head of. Should the party itself be able to decide who is a member of the Utah Republican Party? Who can be a candidate for the Utah Republican Party? Or should it be up to the voters through voter registration to say I am a Republican, and the party not be able to pick and choose who they want to be members?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well I think the laws have been cleared on that people can self-select. I'm a right of center Conservative, I line up with the Republican Party platform, therefore I identify myself as a Republican, and there are 650,000 people in Utah that identified themselves as Republican based on that same kind of process. I'm right of center, I'm Conservative, I want more limited government, I want fiscal austerity, and here's the platform of the parties, and I identified this one.

So, I think we have gotten away from the patron saint of Republican Partyism. Ronald Reagan, who said one, we ought to have a broad tent, people are welcome, and he said if you agree with me 80 percent of the time you're my friend. We've kind of got to the point with this purity, if you don't agree with me on every issue therefore you must be a Rhino, a Republican in name only, and it tends to be the narrow elitist part of the party that says we are the right pure wing of the party, the rest of you are apostates.

I don't think that's healthy. Last but not least, I think again Ronald Reagan said the 11th commandment, thou shalt not speak evil of fellow Republicans. We have too much of that backbiting going on, so it's going to be unity that's going to help the Republican Party prevail. It's not going to be purity, and different regions, different states have different needs for Conservative thought, and so again I think we need to be a broader tent, ala Ronald Reagan.

JULIA RITCHEY, KUER: That's all the time we have, thank you Governor Herbert.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Thank you, great to be with you.

NARRATOR:  This has been the governor's monthly news conference, an archive of transcripts video and audio is available online, please visit KUED.org, thanks for joining us.

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