“We, as your representatives, see you, we hear you, and we endeavor to show up for you,” House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said during his opening day speech, listing issues including rising prices, housing, child care, education and Utahns’ hope to live in safer communities and to spend less time in traffic.
While highlighting the state’s current successes, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said Utah is also “on track to become a national leader and the No. 1 state” for a list of industries, including: missile defense, energy production, cancer research, artificial intelligence, critical minerals and more.
“After 250 years, America is still the hope of the world. And I believe Utah is the hope of America,” Adams said.
Schultz and Adams’ messages were focused on optimism and calling on lawmakers to prioritize policies that have real-world impacts for Utahns and the state’s economic future. However, their opening-day speeches did not directly address some of the most controversial topics already sucking up much of the oxygen on Utah’s Capitol Hill, including several bills targeting transgender people and others aimed at restricting resources for immigrants without legal immigration status.
Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, told reporters she worries the coming session is already being underscored by “mean” legislative proposals.
“They’re coming with everything,” Escamilla told reporters during a media availability, saying the immigrant and the LGBTQ+ communities are being directly attacked like she has never seen in her 18 years in the Legislature.
“I think some of these bills are pretty mean,” she said. “I mean, it’s at the core of keeping kiddos without access to health care or food at school. That’s a new low level.”
Senate Minority Assistant Whip Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, said there are “some really difficult, some might even say horrifying, bills that are coming out,” but she added “those feel like distractions from the real issues at hand for our communities. We want to focus on those real issues, not on the cruel distractions.”
Read the full report at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
