435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Literature Influences, Housing Strategies, and Political Unity with Governor Spencer Cox
Discover how Governor Spencer J. Cox is reshaping our understanding of governance and politics through insightful literature. We delve into the transformative impact of "American Covenant" and Yuval Levin's "A Time to Build" on his leadership, exploring how these books influence both personal perspectives and cabinet initiatives. Join us as we traverse the themes of self-governance, family empowerment, and the unique democratic experiments happening in Utah, particularly in addressing the critical issue of housing affordability.
Governor Cox sheds light on the innovative strategies being implemented to tackle the housing crisis, from empowering local governments to easing zoning restrictions. We discuss the nuanced debates surrounding state versus local control and the initiatives that prioritize building affordable homes, including low-interest loans for developers. These efforts underline the importance of local governance in crafting solutions tailored to community needs, balancing autonomy with overarching goals in housing policy.
Our conversation takes a reflective turn as we navigate the complexities of political discourse and party dynamics. Governor Cox shares his journey toward fostering civility and unity amidst growing partisanship, exploring the concept of "disagreeing better." We also delve into the evolving dynamics within the Republican Party, examining the caucus system's challenges and the broader implications for political engagement. This episode offers an enlightening perspective on the art of dialogue and the potential for meaningful connections in today's divisive political landscape.
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We do too much of just you know 280 characters on X on Twitter. We do too much of just a 30-second soundbite. I think to really get to know someone you have to spend time with them, you have to listen to the whole context of their answers and you get a better feel. You can judge the character of somebody and what they truly believe in. Through this medium, I love podcasting. Through this medium, I love podcasting.
Speaker 2:From the Blue Form Media Studios. This is the 435 Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah. Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the 435 Podcast. I'm your host, robert McFarlane, and today's guest, governor Spencer Jaycox, sits down with us and talks about a book called American Covenant. There's a lot of things we could talk to the governor about and I could talk to him forever, but this book was very impactful to me as I've been thinking through the Constitution and what's going on in government as the election comes up, and I jump in with Governor Cox specifically on the book and then we expand from there. So we hope you enjoy this episode, guys. We touch on a lot of things that I think you'll want to hear, so we want to get in the comments. We want to get more of an engagement into the community. So please, if there's questions that you want me to ask the next time I have the governor on, if there's something that jumps out to you, please jump in the comments, search us out. If you want a summary of American Covenant, I can send you a summary If you just go on to YouTube, facebook, instagram, message 435 podcast ask for the summary of the American covenant. I'll make sure I send it to you so you can understand a little bit more about what we talked about today. But definitely jump in the comments. We hope you enjoy this episode, guys. We'll see you out there.
Speaker 2:The Housing Action Coalition is a coalition of businesses, leaders and members of our community that are working on housing affordability in Southern Utah members of our community that are working on uh, housing affordability in Southern Utah. In October 30th at eight 30 at black desert resort the link will be in the description below we're going to have a forum. It's our annual forum. I'm going to be hosting a panel interviewing two of our mayors and two developers on this exact problem and, uh, it should be a full morning of a breakout sessions and panels talking about the idea. So if you have an opinion on it or if you want to learn more about what Southern Utah is doing to solve and to push the rock forward in affordable housing for us, make sure you show up there October 30th.
Speaker 2:It's in the morning, 830 to about one. The links will be below. You tweeted about the book American Covenant and I just picked. I was like, if he said to read it, I'm going to, I'm going to read it and I think at one point you were like, uh, you had stated we were trying to find it. We couldn't find the exact tweet, but you said, um, everybody should read this book, yeah, and that was like I went on to audible and I downloaded it and I meant to bring it today because I couldn't just listen to it. It was like it's a textbook.
Speaker 1:I did the same thing. I have one sitting by my bed and then I have the audio version. Yeah, Nice.
Speaker 2:So when did you read it for the first time?
Speaker 1:So I read it actually before it came out. That's when I started. I'm one of the blurbs on the back of the book because I believe so strongly in it. So I've known Yuval for a while. So Yuval wrote a book before this. He's written lots of books.
Speaker 1:But the book that he's kind of best known for is called A Time to Build and I read that about the time I became governor maybe shortly before I became governor and it's about kind of the destruction of institutions in our country and what's happening, the divide in our country, why it's happening, how it's occurred and a little bit about what we could do to fix it.
Speaker 2:So in that book he talks specifically about the institutions themselves. He does yes.
Speaker 1:It's really kind of an institution-focused book Interesting. Does it read like a textbook? Not as much as Covenant. It reads a little more. I mean, it's still. He's a very smart person, so it's a little wonky, right? Yeah, he's very smart, no question.
Speaker 2:But it was Incalcated? Yes, I legitimately didn't. I'd never even heard the word before.
Speaker 1:I have to look at. I had to look at you.
Speaker 2:And then now I'm like it applies so often, because it's that like repetitive repeat, which you're very good at, by the way. You're very good at like.
Speaker 1:You have to, you have to.
Speaker 2:You have to. Yeah, I cut you off.
Speaker 1:No, no, you're good. So I asked. I never met him, read the book. I was so impressed by it. By the way, it's another one I said everybody needs to read so a time to build a family and community to Congress and the campus, how recommitting to our institutions can revive the American dream. So in this book he talks about about not just our government institutions, he certainly talks about those Congress, but he talks about higher ed and issues with higher ed that we're seeing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's obvious.
Speaker 1:When we saw that committee hearing with the presidents of Harvard and. Mit, and it's been awesome to see that coming the other way. But he talks about the family as an institution as well, and so it was powerful. When I became governor, I created basically a book club. I just well, it's another way of saying I made my cabinet members and senior staff all read books.
Speaker 1:And so we started with A Time to Build. That was the first one, and he was gracious enough to join us in as we talked about the book on a Zoom call to kind of walk through his thinking, and that's when I really kind of fell in love with the work that he's doing. And so when this book, american Covenant, came out, I felt like it was the answer to a time to build. I was left a little wanting at the end of a time to build. He does a great job of outlining the problems in our country, but I didn't feel like there was a great solution. And so when American Covenant came out, it felt to me and I've talked to him about this that this is the answer to a time to build, that the answer to all of the problems that we're facing as a country can be found in the Constitution.
Speaker 1:And I believe he's kind of the James Madison of our time. He's very smart. He helps people who maybe don't have a great understanding of the Constitution. He helps people who maybe don't have a great understanding of the Constitution, or even those that do. The power of this book is in the why behind the Constitution, not just the words, but why Madison and the other founders chose those words. What was it that was driving them and what is the purpose behind the Constitution? Not just it's more than just law, it is that for sure but it is also an institution of sorts meant to guide us and really meant to change our human nature, to help us understand how to work better together and we can't solve the problems. I think too many people have forgotten the constitution. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I think something you said there as the constitution, as an institution if I take a step back because I think people listen, what I've tried to do is I want to have a high level conversation and I also don't want to lose people sometimes right, because not not everybody I got to be honest. I feel like I'm pretty educated and I can any work, any. Any writing I can, I can. I know the language right, I can figure it out given enough time. But this is a difficult book to read.
Speaker 1:It doesn't read like a novel.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not a page turner, it feels like a textbook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you have to go over it multiple times. That's what I like, that's why.
Speaker 2:That's why I love. That's why I loved it too, and why I don't think so very many people are going to read it.
Speaker 1:That's the hardest thing. Well, by the way, I ask people when was the last time you read the Constitution, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:And a lot of people will say never.
Speaker 1:It's funny because the MAGA, like far-right Republicans. A lot of them carry it around in their pocket, which I think is awesome. It is awesome and we need more people to do that. And so I ask but when you start reading the constitution, your eyes can glaze over very quickly. Right, it's deep, it's short. It's one of the shortest constitutions ever written. It's short but it's so powerful and so meaningful. And what I think he does, if you'll stick with the book, he helps to unlock some of those pieces that may make your eyes glaze over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what the funny thing is, I went to chat gpt yeah because, because it helps me get cliff notes on it, right, absolutely, and break down, like the, the, the segments, so kind of the. The type of conversation I want to have with you is to break these down into segments on kind of what he drives home, and I think you touched on, uh, the first part of the foundations of self-government, right, so, like those institutions, and I'm guessing the time to build is kind of a deep dive into that.
Speaker 1:Is that right? Yeah, it is a little bit. And again it's about how, why these institutions are falling apart, yeah, and what's kind of causing that? The rise of social media and how that's impacting things a whole bunch of different ways it's falling apart. But, yes, part of that again goes back to the framing and the foundation of this country, why we have these institutions in the first place.
Speaker 2:And why did we write it the way we did? Right and this is an important thing is that these are centuries.
Speaker 2:There's civilizations that have come and gone that we have learned from, and the framers of our constitution we're learning from. All those right um, the, the greatest political ideologues, ideologues in the world. All that knowledge was at the fingertips of the founders and they had a blank sheet of paper, and we had never been able to have a blank sheet of paper as civilizations go for a, for a real reset without a catastrophe in my mind. Is that right? That's absolutely right. So this, this, uh, we had never been able to have a blank sheet of paper as civilizations go for a, for a real reset without a catastrophe in my mind.
Speaker 1:Is that right? That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2:So this, this quote from the book, I think, really jumped out and I want to have a follow-up question with it. But so here's the quote self-government begins at the most fundamental levels of our society, not in the grand institutions of the state, but in the daily lives of our families, communities and local institutions. That's from the book. Yes, so, considering Levin's emphasis on local institutions, how can we better empower families and communities to engage in self-governance, particularly in light of the house affordability issue and local development in general? I kind of wanted to dive that self-government and applying it to housing, because there was a survey done. You want to pull up the survey, the Utah Priorities Project. So this was April 2024. I don't know if you've seen this. Utah Foundation, yes, utah Foundation, yep.
Speaker 2:So the key issues scroll down to page four, jeff. These are the key issues on voters' minds at this election. I think this is such an interesting list and we could come back to this list. But going back to that quote, self-government begins at the most fundamental levels of our society. Not in the grand institutions of the state, the state being I think he's talking about the federal state Right, not the local state Correct Right but in the daily lives of our families, communities and local institutions, the local institutions. So how do we, you know, considering this question, how do we better empower families and communities to engage in self-governance, particularly with that number one issue, which is housing affordability?
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's a fascinating question, and until you asked it I hadn't really thought of it in those terms, but I'm so glad you did. Look he, Maybe it was a weird question. No, no, no, not a weird question at all. And that's what I love about what you're doing, it's how do we apply the theoretical to the practical?
Speaker 1:right, and that's what they were trying to do as well. And so when you look at the Constitution, so two pieces of this are really important. One we are a republic, right, and the federal government was never meant to be as powerful as it is. The states were meant to be co-equal partners and, in fact, the states were meant to be laboratories of democracy. So that meant, and they understood this One of the reasons we're so divided he believes and he argues in this book is that the federal government has become too powerful and trying to make a one size fits all, and people chafe against that.
Speaker 2:And even the framers of the Constitution in the Federalist Papers. When they're going through this process they're like this is a problem because you can't. A diversified uh community right, uh, yes, first, a diverse um culture has challenges trying to put these blanket issues over. They already knew that, so they framed it with this problem in mind. And here we are, that that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:They, they knew I mean, you know, california and utah didn't exist at that time, but they knew that New England and Georgia were very different and so they wanted to allow those regional differences and cultures to flourish. And being laboratories of democracy means we, you know, once we get to copy each other or learn from each other's mistakes.
Speaker 1:So Utah should be different than California and fix our own mistakes and fix our own mistakes that's right and learn from them. So if Utah does something right, other states are going to steal our ideas, and that's a good thing. That will help us be better. And, conversely, if California does something very wrong, people are going to leave California.
Speaker 2:They're going to move to places like Utah, which is happening, right, which is part of the housing issue.
Speaker 1:So I think the first part of this is that states have to be free to be able to do their own things Now, within the states. Let's talk about that right. So a couple things are important here. One the institution of the family, I think, is the most important institution on earth right now, and far too often government leaders are trying to supplant what families are supposed to be doing right, and so that's something we have to check ourselves. That's why I created an office of family, the first one of its kind in the state and in the nation. So we now have an office of family.
Speaker 1:People said, well, should the government be creating an office of family? I said, well, you misunderstand what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is make sure that the government is not in family's business. So the Office of Family reviews legislation to see are we taking the place of parents? Are we giving parents more freedom or less freedom? That's really important to us. We created school choice right in Utah. That's a big deal. I think it's a big deal. We tried to do it for a long time. Nobody could get it done. We actually did pass it 20 years ago. Then it got overturned in a referendum. We finally got it done.
Speaker 2:So, just like even that, that to itself, I do the office of family Could it be perceived as? Is that bureaucratic middle piece, like what is its function? Is it to question the legislation or advise on the legislation?
Speaker 1:Like maybe all of the above. So it's to make sure that we're putting families first in everything we do. So sometimes that's legislation to help families and sometimes it's legislation to stop government from getting involved in families. To protect, I think protect in both ways. But to the housing piece specifically. So we have to have some room for regional differences in housing policy. We just do. St George is going to be very different than Fairview, where I grew up, and Fairview is going to be very different than Salt Lake City, and it's okay. It's okay that we choose a different route. Salt Lake City is building lots of apartment buildings, and that's okay. We need apartment buildings and we need density in the right places at the right time. That's okay. We need apartment buildings and we need density in the right places at the right time.
Speaker 1:My focus has been on single family homes. My focus has been on starter homes and empowering communities to build more starter homes, encouraging developers to build more starter homes. I believe that family formation is at the core of everything we do. It's at the core of the American dream and I believe that home ownership is critical to family formation and so, if you I mean just an example if we have an entire generation of people that never own real property. We're in trouble. Think about what that means for reliance on government, which I think is bad right. I don't believe Social Security is going to be around when I retire. I certainly don't think it's going to be there when my kids and grandkids retire.
Speaker 2:It was funny I was just having this conversation with a bunch of uh.
Speaker 2:I spoke at a group of the associated uh university women the association of university women, aauw, and I spoke and I presented to them, just talking about the podcast, but just local presentation stuff which talk about it. But they were talking about social security. I was like, well, I'm not planning on getting social security, like we're not. You know, that's not it, that's not going to be something that I am concerned about. So if we're making social security changes, just make it quick in my mind. But going back to the home ownership and the fundamental piece of a family, I also think it's fundamental to the community because you don't, it's the planting roots. If you live in that community and you know your neighbor every single day, you have a vested interest in success of everybody around you and that has an echo effect. But renters, they don't fit into the community the same way. They just don't.
Speaker 1:You just gave my speech. Sorry, no, no, no, I love it, I love it and I'm so happy. I mean I-.
Speaker 2:It's very frustrating to me at this stage of my life to see it unfolding this way, but it's almost like okay, is government going to save us. Is government going to save us from this problem?
Speaker 1:No, it's not. But government can make the problem worse. So to your point and I say this all the time rootedness, there's a great book called them why we Hate Each Other and how to Heal by former why we Hate Each Other.
Speaker 2:That's what-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why we Hate Each Other, that's what the book is about.
Speaker 2:It's so simple.
Speaker 1:It's a classic, it's by Ben Sasse, former US Senator, then became the president of the University of Florida. Really interesting guy, conservative guy, and in that book he talks about this very thing. As renters and I'm going to be perfectly honest the people at church didn't care quite as much about us because they knew we were temporary. It's normal. I'm not casting aspersions on them. We also didn't care as much about them because we knew we weren't always going to be there. But the minute we bought our first home we were rooted. Now I cared about who the mayor was.
Speaker 2:I cared about who was on the city council.
Speaker 1:I cared about the schools, all of that stuff. When you own a home, it changes everything. But here's the other thing I'm worried about. I'm talking about social security and everything else. We have a birth crisis in not just our country but the world. The number of births per female is dropping precipitously. I just got back from Korea and Japan, where the lowest rates in the world the number of births per female is dropping precipitously. I just got back from Korea and Japan where the lowest rates in the world now 0.7 births per female. Replacement rate is 2.1 births per female. Those societies are going to collapse. Right Even in Utah now, we're below replacement rate. Every state in the United States is below replacement rate.
Speaker 2:We're at about 1.9, still higher than most places Every but if the Mormons aren't having babies, like what's going on here, guys. No, that's it.
Speaker 1:Every industrialized country is now below replacement rate, Even countries you wouldn't expect. Most continents now are below replacement rate South America, Central America, Mexico all below replacement rate. Africa is the only place that's above replacement rate right now.
Speaker 3:And like Brazil. I think right Elon was talking about that in Tucker's interview that he just did about Europe and how he says look, they're collapsing because they're not having any kids. That's right.
Speaker 1:And Elon is correct on this.
Speaker 2:He's absolutely correct on this. This feels like the asteroid's coming. It's like are we? We're worried about a problem, Like how would you? I mean, what can we even do about that?
Speaker 1:Let me, tell you what one of the reasons I think and there's a lot of evidence about this. Now, there are lots of reasons for it, but one of the reasons is home ownership. Look, a lot of people. So what's one of the most interesting-.
Speaker 2:Do? They own a lot of homes in Africa?
Speaker 1:Well, so there are some differences. For sure, if you go back to an agrarian society, people had kids because that's how you kept the farm going.
Speaker 1:I mean there are eight kids in my family, 10 in my wife's family. Both grew up on a farm in rural Utah. But I believe home ownership is central to this, because the most interesting statistic to me isn't how many kids we're having in the United States, it's how many kids women want to have in the United States, and then the gap between what they want to have and what they actually have, and it's a pretty big gap. I don't remember the exact numbers, but most women I mean the average is like 2.7 is what they want. What we end up having is about 1.7, 1.5, somewhere in there. So what's making that difference?
Speaker 1:Well most people don't want to have kids until they own a home, right. You want to again feel like you have a place, you have rootedness, and if you can't own a home until you're 40, the odds of you having two or three kids goes. Biology kicks in, right? Biology just says you don't get to have kids after 40 for most women. You have to start earlier, and so I believe getting people into starter homes earlier will actually help with that, and there's some polling that would back that up. So that's why I believe home ownership single family, detached home ownership is so very important. So again, what can government do? Well, one of the things government can do is help make sure that we have the conditions so it's easier to build homes. Look, government weighs in on home ownership in lots of ways, but the biggest way is kind of land use decisions. Right, if we had no zoning whatsoever and anybody could build whatever they want wherever they wanted, it would probably be better in lots of ways.
Speaker 2:It may be worse. Libertarians would say yes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think they're mostly right, not all the way right. Yeah, I think they're missing. There's some big problems that come and we've seen that there's a reason that we have zoning all over the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, because If your neighbor builds a pickleball court next door and they have 14 foot rental to boot and it's, you know, that's right.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden you're like wait a minute, this isn't what I signed up for, that's a problem, right, yeah, but we can do better and we can allow for more, and so that's one of the things we've been able to do this last session is to say, okay, look, we're going to incentivize, we're going to try to help and encourage local governments to allow for more density for single family homes. There's a lot less nimbyism in this state when it comes to starter homes. People get it. People understand they want their kids and grandkids to live near them, not with them, and so most of us started in a 1,500 square foot or less home. I did. I started my own family in a home that's that size. We just stopped building those for lots of different reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Mayor Hart, in a meeting with a bunch of the mayors, was talking about this like raise your hand in the room if you grew up in a three-bed, two-bath house right. Who had a carport right.
Speaker 1:I'm raising my hand.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and obviously there's stages, there's the move up, but we're missing the middle. Right now we're not, we're not developing the middle. That's right and that's the biggest challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so what we've tried to do is set up to to get the incentive structure right With both local governments as well as developers to start building more of that. We just approved a first project in in in Washington County, where so what we did was we set it up also so that developers can get lower interest loans if they're willing to build homes under $400,000. And we're really excited about that. So if 60% of a project will be under $400,000.
Speaker 2:Assuming the zoning of that city allows for it, that's right.
Speaker 1:So that's, we're also working with cities and counties to allow for more of that zoning right To, to make that happen.
Speaker 2:And so like, when it comes down to like units per acre. That's any city council meeting you go to, you know where there's a public, you know uh discussion about a development going in and a vacant spot. We get a lot in Washingtonhington county right. Um, it always boils down to units per acre. Yep, it seems so simple, but I guess um can. Is it the state's proper role to go into cities and force those zones? That's the debate, that's the debate right now.
Speaker 1:I mean you're, you're at the heart of it. So like I've had moments where, legally, I've me me personally.
Speaker 2:I've had these like bipolar moments where I'm like, no, we need to have full control here locally, county down, the state can stay out of what we're doing, right. And then I'm like, wait a minute, I don't know if we can do this by ourselves right, you start to get into the realization like oh no, we can't and I have to say I'm a former mayor and a former city councilman and a county commissioner.
Speaker 1:I've done all three. So you never wanted to get in politics.
Speaker 2:You said that a couple of times I get it.
Speaker 1:I did. I never wanted to be in. I never wanted to be a full time politician.
Speaker 2:So I was a political science major. I went to get into law school. Couldn't get into law school at least the law school I wanted to get into, and I I'd ever do city government. Not a chance, it's so hard.
Speaker 1:So, hard and it's gotten harder.
Speaker 2:Mayor Randall. Every time I meet with her, or any of the mayors Mayor Hart, mayor Rosenberg it's a thankless job.
Speaker 1:It is very hard it is, and you've got great mayors down here. I love what they're doing. We really do have great mayors what we're trying to do. So first of all, from a clear about this the federal government and the state government in the constitution are two very separate entities. Right, they're supposed to be co-equal. The states are meant to be as powerful as the federal government when it comes to state versus local. That is not in the constitution. So states and counties are subdivisions of the state. They are creations of the state.
Speaker 2:And so cities and counties are subdivision states.
Speaker 1:So there's nothing that like in law that says that the state can impose. The state can impose their will. The state can set zoning ordinances for the whole state if they want to. So the question isn't can they legally do it? The question is is it a good idea? And should they do it, is that the proper role? And that, is that the proper role? That's exactly right, and so my argument has always been government closest to the people is always better, and so when we are having these debates, there are certain areas where it makes sense for the state to impose their will, but those should be very limited. So let me give you an example of that.
Speaker 1:In Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front, wherever we have invested significantly in, say, transit stations right, so the state is paying for that infrastructure we have put zones around that. That says you can't have acre lots around a transit station. That doesn't make any sense, right? If we're going to have density, it should be around transportation, where we have invested. So we have imposed our will there. But in other places in the state what we're trying to do is use the carrot approach, not the stick approach, like we want to help cities. So, for example, with this new law. One of the things we did, one of the things we heard from cities and towns, was we hate that so many of our local residences are getting turned into Airbnbs secondary rentals.
Speaker 1:So could we, with these new homes, if we allow for this density, right, could we deed restrict those homes to owner-occupied, single-family owner-occupied homes? And I said that is a great idea. So that's the carrot approach. Hey, if you'll do this, we're going to give you a tool that will make your life better, and so I think we're trying to find the right balance between allowing our local municipalities to do things their way, do it differently. We want that different culture. We don't want every city in Utah to be exactly the same, but I believe we have a moral obligation to create opportunities for our kids and grandkids, and I will argue that all day long. Create opportunities for our kids and grandkids, and I will argue that all day long. I will go into any planning commission, any city council, and say you have a moral obligation to provide for the next generation and so you've got to find ways to do that. And, by the way, the municipalities down here are doing that and we're very excited. Well, I mean.
Speaker 2:I saw a development plan get shot down in Washington just recently. Right, where there's, there's just too many units. It's like, well, guys, we need to build more houses, we have to build more houses, and if it's a, there's a lot, there's a lot that had been approved as well, right. So this is another function where I feel like, even of the approved building units, they're not coming out of the ground in southern utah. So why aren't they coming out of the ground? What do you what? What do you think are the biggest causes? I think there's there's one other function that state might be able to impact, but I'm well, and I'd love to hear so.
Speaker 1:So one. When we were talking to developers in in putting this plan together over the past year, uh, one of the things we heard was just getting funding was really difficult.
Speaker 3:So when when we had those bank failures.
Speaker 2:uh, a year and a half ago now you remember, the Silicon Bank failed they didn't get a lot of media attention but yeah, we had a couple of big banks fail.
Speaker 1:It was very problematic, and what happened was the FDIC changed the rules because they felt banks were overextending in their lending, so they limited the amount of money that banks could loan, and what that meant was that that kind of middle piece. It became very difficult for small and medium-sized developers to actually get loans, and if they could get loans, they were getting construction loans at 10%, 8%, 12% somewhere in there, and it's almost impossible to build the type of smaller homes, starter homes, that we know we needed. If you're getting loans at 8%, you either have to build big apartment buildings or you have to build really big homes.
Speaker 2:That's the only way to make it work. So back to the maybe help me understand. They restricted how much the bank can loan for development specifically.
Speaker 1:Based on the amount of assets that a bank controls. They couldn't loan beyond that right. So it's not the size of the loan, but it's how many loans the total size of all the loans they have out there. And so what these banks did just for self-preservation is said okay, well, we're only going to loan to really big developers that we have an institutional relationship with, and also we just can't have as many loans as we used to have. And so the people that got killed in this were the small and medium-sized developers we heard it from so many of them.
Speaker 2:If you look back at the data in 2022, Lenar and DR Horton built 40% of all the single-family homes in the entire country.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's exactly what was happening. So now only the big guys are getting it right. And so, as we're talking to these smaller, medium-sized developers, they said look, if you could get me a construction loan at 3% 4%, I can go build this stuff all day, and we want to build it. We're excited to build that. So we did something very unique. We're the first in the state to do this.
Speaker 1:We took the money from our treasurer's account. So basically, the treasurer's account is a savings account for the state. When people pay their taxes, it goes into account until we spend it on other things, right? So there's not a perfect match between when money comes in and money comes out. So the treasurer invests this in short-term bonds, you know stocks. Most of those investments aren't inside of Utah, because that's how investing works. You're investing in New York, you're investing in California, you're investing in other countries. They're short term. We get a return on that of about 5%, right. So decent, it's fine. But we sat down and we said look, could we pull away some of that, say $100 million? Could we match that with banks to give out 3% loans? So the return to the state we'd get 3% instead of 5% short term. But here's the thing when the economists looked at this, if we're investing in Utah, utah developers, utah homes, the actual return on that gets multiplied over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a huge echo effect on that Huge.
Speaker 1:Because now a kid, one of our kids who buys a house who wouldn't have otherwise been able to buy one. Now they're homeowners, now they're building wealth, now they're part of their community. The echo effect, as you said, is tremendous. It ends up being like an 18% return versus a 5% return over time.
Speaker 2:So this, so thinking about, like the grants that we're giving to first-time home buyers, right, and those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Great question. I think there's.
Speaker 2:I think there's a, and even I've had these thoughts obviously I haven't thought through them all the way but thinking isn't it just a subsidy? Aren't we just subsidizing this? And it's? Not actually going to have the impact that we want it to if we're just giving money away and it's a subsidy.
Speaker 1:So here's the argument. Now. The Senate was the one really pushing for the subsidy. Right Now, we've also heard Kamala Harris propose a subsidy for first-time homebuyers Right, right, and I believe that's inflationary. I believe all that does is increase the price of every home. If we give everybody $20,000 to buy a home, the price of every home is going to go up $20,000. It gets baked into it. Now there is a little difference in what Utah did now again, and most economists are more supportive of what we did. So the Utah subsidy, though, is only for new construction, not for every first-time home buyer, and here's why we did that. The answer to our problems when it comes to the price of housing is more supply. It's pure supply and demand. We just have to build more. So the intention behind that was to spur developers to build smaller homes for first-time home buyers, because there would be a whole bunch of people who had cash, who could go in and start doing that.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people when they heard that as a function. Even when I read it, jeff, we read it together, right when you announced it, we read how it was just for new construction and the first thought I had, what was the first thought you had, jeff?
Speaker 3:I don't know I'm getting.
Speaker 2:Jeff into the conversation.
Speaker 3:I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning it was too long ago.
Speaker 2:No, because I, Because I remember thinking like why just new construction?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that was one of the things we chatted about, because there's only so much new construction, but there's plenty of resale homes too. That would be perfect, for I mean, I was just having this conversation yesterday with A buyer, yeah Well, with Chandler, a plumber. He owns his own business.
Speaker 3:He's a plumber, his own business, he's a plumber. And, uh, he was like man, I would. I would love to buy a fixer upper home because you know, people see or hear plumbing issues and they freak out and run away. And he's like I see and hear plumbing issues, I'm like man, I could, I can fix this. So, um, I think that's one of the things we chatted about was well, why not just open it up? Why not just open it up to all first-time homebuyers, instead of just relegating it to just but then it goes back into that slippery slope, and now you know the reason why we didn't do that.
Speaker 1:The reason we didn't do that is because that would lie we. We need more supply. Everything I'm doing is focused on more supply. That that's the idea behind this.
Speaker 2:Now, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do all the other things because expanding out goes back into the same problem we just talked about with the if you give everybody money to do it for all of it, then you're just going to it's inflationary.
Speaker 1:It gets baked.
Speaker 2:It just gets inflationary. So we were trying to do something to help that wasn't just inflationary, that actually helped solve the problem, and it's also thinking about we have the plats that are approved and the builders could go put the product out, but they're not doing it, and this helps incentivize them to do it Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. So now you're reading what we're trying to do. That's everything. Now we'll see Again. We just approved our first subdivision in northern Utah 240 homes under $400,000. And when you say you approved your first, not me Weber County, we approved the first developer who is taking advantage of this new 3% loan. Okay, got it, construction loan, that makes sense Building. But again they have to promise to build homes under $400,000. I'd love to get that under $300,000.
Speaker 2:We're working towards that someday and the product looks a lot different than it, goes back to units per acre, right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:So to do this, the Weber County this was a project that was already in some stage of approval may have already been approved, yeah, but to qualify and to get it under $400,000, they had to increase the density of lots. So they went back to Weber County. It was hard. Weber County approved the higher density and so we hit the sweet spot. We're getting homes under $400,000. We're getting a little more density. The developer is going to be able to make money. I want people to make money. I'm a big fan of capitalism.
Speaker 3:That's how we do this. We need markets.
Speaker 1:And kids are going to be able to buy homes in Weber County and our hope is that as people start to see these projects and see that they're good projects. By the way, these homes under 1,500 square feet, they're beautiful. They're not like we kind of imagine in our minds, the way they used to be. These are great looking homes in beautiful neighborhoods and the way they did this development. There's green space now in there as well and we're not requiring that 100% of the project be under $400,000. We're only requiring that 60% of the project be under $400,000 so that you can still have some bigger homes to help and places for people to move up and stay in the same neighborhoods. You have green space, you have walkable communities. There may be a clubhouse with a pool. I mean, these are amazing neighborhoods and we can do this. We can do it here in Utah.
Speaker 2:We can do it, and I think there's a lot of different nuances to this too, because it's not a one size fits all solution to housing, and it's a problem that if it's not a problem today, it's going to be a different problem 15 years from now. That's right, right.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, on the one side fits all. Look, we need condos and townhomes. That's ownership, that's a great entry level into building equity and starting up, and there's a big portion of the population that want to buy those things, that's where they want to live, yes, and so there's a place for that.
Speaker 2:The missing middle has been a big, big issue. I I wanted to to shift into the constitution as unifying force. Yeah, but I think we I think we've already talked through that it's it's 10 50 now, so I don't know what your hard stop is. I like to talk, for I tried to get you here for two hours and they're like nah, that's gonna be a little long, I know, I know, but I probably got 10-15 more minutes.
Speaker 2:I got you, I got you, okay. Um, so then, uh, now, I don't know, with only 10 or 15 minutes, I don't know which direction I like this conversation about housing and some, uh, some of the other things that we could do, but, um, there's so much more I wanted to talk about. Um, any direction you want to go. I know I didn't, I didn't bring this up, I didn't. I don't think I sent it, that's okay.
Speaker 2:Sent it to you. You you had a quote at the convention. I got to go to the Disagree Better campaign because I hear what you're saying and I don't disagree with you, I don't disagree, but you disagree with what I said at the convention, and you should.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't.
Speaker 2:I thought it was so awesome because I think the people in that room that were upset about what you said it's because you touched on something that was true, that they didn't want to look at, and then they, because they didn't want to look at it, they got upset about it. So it's like whenever you know, when my wife says something that makes me get upset, I'm like it's probably because she's right. You know what I mean but.
Speaker 1:but even if you're right, it doesn't mean you should say it, and that was my mistake.
Speaker 2:But I still think how you said. It was an example of there is a way that we can disagree. But let's run through the facts Now. Your full setup. It was snarky, there was some snark to it.
Speaker 1:And that was the mistake I made, was the snark to it.
Speaker 2:for sure I did appreciate you getting us pizza. You're welcome.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's. Look, politics is hard. I like to say that campaigns bring out the worst in everyone, and that includes me, the. You know, part of the problem with trying to be the face of something like Disagree Better is that I I'm not always, I don't always do it. It's as much for me as it is for anybody else. Look, I grew up a fighter. My initial instinct is always to punch someone in the face. That's the first thing that comes into my mind, and I've had to fight it my whole life. I've had to work at it. I've had to learn not to be snarky. When I went to law school, you get trained.
Speaker 2:I know exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And so I really do try. And when you're there and there are people screaming at you and flipping you off, you know, with kids next to them, even the kids were flipping me off, it was really interesting. One family in particular I'm like you know there was. There was just kind of this moment where, where I wasn't as as thoughtful and professional as I wish I would have been the snark piece. I didn't need that, but but. But thank you for the feedback.
Speaker 2:I when I. So when I heard it, I thought, man, he's got a big set, you got to have a big set of stones man it. I thought, man, he's got a big set, you got to have a big set of stones. Man, like as a Republican governor in a Republican state, to go to the Republican convention and have a speech like that, I think, well, that was not the prepared speech.
Speaker 1:That wasn't the no, no I had. This is one of the quotes.
Speaker 2:I want an actual prepared speech, but I want to so this is the direction I want to see if we could take it. We can take it as far as we want. To those of you who are borrowing cancel culture from the left, there are a whole bunch of people out there who want to get rid of this meaning the convention. They're telling us that the caucus convention system has been hijacked by extremists who don't represent the real republicans in our state, and I hope we're not giving them more ammunition today.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't disagree with that, because I think there is a big, uh, a major. I think there's a majority of the population that disagrees with the extreme right and the extreme left, both sides but because we're such a republican, dominated super majority state, it's rare that the party within is fractured the way that it is here, and so, when thinking of the unifying forces of these institutions, obviously I appreciate you saying that you regret maybe not regret it, but you know it wasn't the best. No, no, I think regret is, I think that's fair, okay, and so, um, saying things that need to be said, though, and saying them differently, but we still need to keep saying it right. We need, we need to continue to say it. How do you think we can, uh, solidify that divide within the Republican party. Right, if we're just talking party politics now and we say within the Republican party, what, where's the? Where do we bridge this? Where do we mend this fracture?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is where I've been subject to criticism, and I think it's criticism I probably deserve, in that I've been working really hard to try to fix the fracture between the right and the left Right, but I haven't worked as hard to fix the fracture between the right and the right, if that makes sense Right.
Speaker 1:Between the right and the far right or however we want to do that. So I spent a lot of time actually over the past couple months I've been meeting with groups of people that hate me on the right and having conversations with them about what I believe and what they believe. And what's interesting in those conversations is they realize that I'm actually not kind of the woke rhino, that they think that on policy we're actually very close together. There isn't that much daylight between us. The way we do things is differently, and I had this conversation with somebody who's very well known on the right and who's been very critical of me, and we sat down together and we had a very good conversation and we were both, I think, a little apologetic of the way that we had treated each other. And it is about I think there are lots of things we can do to help mend those fractures. I really do. My point to him was that I think how we do things matters as much as what we do, and on the what we do, we were very similar. On the how we do, we were very different, right, I think that the tone we use, the language we use, the way we talk about other people really does matter, and I think the difference we were seeing in each other is I'm trying very hard to persuade people on the left that what we believe on the right is really good for them, it's good for their families, it's good for their communities.
Speaker 1:I think that the right, that the conservatives, especially the kind of the Utah version of conservatism has the answers to the problems that our country is facing right now, and I think if you read Yuval's book, he would make that argument as well. He is conservative, he is right-leaning, and so I think the way we talk Now, his point was we have to be a little bombastic to maintain, to hold our side or we'll be pulled to the other side, and I don't think he's. You gotta hold your ground. Yeah, I don't think he's completely wrong on that either, and so I, I, the. The question we both kind of struggled with is can you, can you hold, can you hold your side and still be persuasive and treat each other with dignity and respect, treat the other side and still, and, and, and maybe the answer is we need both of those things, we. We need somebody to be the bombastic to kind of hold and and someone else to to kind of it's a good cop bad cop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Maybe you need a little of both of that, and so that's the conversation. What I loved about what Yuval said is and this goes by the way he actually uses the term disagree better in the book. Oh, he does, he does. Yeah, I'm sure you weren't listening to it, but when I heard it I'm like oh, that's amazing, and it wasn't a nod to me, it was just the language.
Speaker 1:But he makes a brilliant argument, and this is what we get so wrong with Disagree. Better is that the whole point of the Constitution is to unify us as a country. But unity is not thinking the same. Unity is acting together. Now that's a really important. So I'm going to say that again Unity is not thinking the same. Unity is acting together. Now that's a really important. So I'm going to say that again unity is not thinking the same. Unity is acting together.
Speaker 1:Too many people think that disagree better means we all have to think the same. Too many people, you know, on the left I hear this all the time that, if you know, if you disagree with me, you're a terrible person, but we should be unified, and unified means you have to think exactly what I think. Yuval says no, no, no, no. Unity means acting together, and the Constitution is the document, is the form, is the institution that forces us to act together.
Speaker 1:We keep thinking that if we just win this election, right, if Donald Trump just wins, and we win the House and we win the Senate and you've all said this in a podcast he said, if we just do that, we'll never have to deal with those damn people ever again. And the Constitution says no, james Madison says no. We are always going to have to deal with those damn people. You will never, never, not have to deal with people who are different than you. And the whole idea behind the Constitution, the whole idea behind the Electoral College, the whole idea behind the division of power was to force us to work with people who are different than us, to build coalitions. You're never going to get 100 percent.
Speaker 1:Coalition building is so big yeah you're never going to get 100 percent of what you want. But if you're willing to give up 10 percent or 20 percent, you'll get 80 percent of what you want. But if you're willing to give up 10% or 20%, you'll get 80% of what you want. And I do think that's what both parties have kind of forgotten and that's what I worry about on the extremes is that we've entered this thing where if I don't get everything I want, then I'm going to take my ball and go home, and that's really dangerous. Our country, our constitutional form of government, cannot survive if that's the way we're doing politics, If we're not going to engage with people that are different than us, even on the right you know the right engaging with the right, which is my mistake or if we're never going to deal with the left and try to help understand and to help them see why we're right and how we can help them be better. If we're not willing to have those conversations, we're in big trouble.
Speaker 2:So do you think the caucus system you know that idea of the caucus system getting hijacked, right, we have the signature gatherers and you have the caucus, the convention system within the primary elections, do you feel like that? It gets brought up in every central committee, the republican central committee, and we just had ours this last week and it got brought up again as sp54. And you know the signature gatherers versus the caucus. It seems to me like that is the rift within the party, right there. Yeah, do you? Do you see a path? Because going, just signatures, every other state's gone, just primaries only right there's a reason, nobody does it like we do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's not how the framers set it up right? It wasn't. The framers thought this would be the best way to do it.
Speaker 1:Actually not. It's really interesting if you go back and look at the history of the caucus convention system. Yeah. So if you go back and look, it wasn't something that was like enshrined in the state constitution, it wasn't the framers, and uh, it's actually come and gone. It's changed a lot over the years. It actually went away for a while, then it came back again.
Speaker 1:So we've we've kind of gone back and forth over time just in utah, just in utah, just, yeah, just just in utah and and so um so, and even if you look at the national level, like party politics, is not part of the constitution, doesn't exist anywhere in the US Constitution. This is, this is, but it is important. Yuval talks about that in the book about the importance of parties, and so I love the caucus convention system and if it worked the way it was supposed to work it would be beautiful. And the only way it works right is if everyone gets involved. So if you have huge turnout so that it is actually representative of the party, that would be great.
Speaker 1:We only had 10% of Republicans show up to caucus night this year and when only 10% show up it tends to not be representative of the rest of it. And you can see that in the votes right. John Curtis lost big at convention and won big in the primary. I lost big at convention, won big in the primary. Derrick Brown lost big at convention, won big in the primary. So you can see how it's not representative. And when it's not representative then it's kind of the opposite of what was intended when it started. It also made sense at a time when it was really hard to get people together, right. The idea was you get together more locally and then you just send a few people to a convention because you have to take a horse, a buggy to get to where a convention might be right, so that's very different than everybody can drive from St George to Salt Lake for a day.
Speaker 1:It works if you have to do it that way. And so look, there are very good arguments on both sides of this. I don't know that there is that there's a pathway outside of what we've tried to do, and that is to keep both of them alive and active and give them an opportunity so that the caucus convention system can put their stamp on people, which they did, and then we let the Republican voters aside in a closed primary. We have done things to strengthen the core of that, like making it harder to change your party affiliation so you can't be a Democrat who registers as a Republican right before the election and then registers back as a Democrat. We've changed those laws. We closed the primary, which maybe was a good idea. Maybe it was a good idea, Maybe it wasn't a good idea there's lots of debate on both sides of that but we closed the primary, maybe 20 years ago, to make it only Republicans get to vote in the primary.
Speaker 2:And that's, that's why I'm I'm honest with you, that's why I'm a Republican. I would be an independent, naturally. I'm an independent Cause I'm like, well, I like some of that stuff over there and I like some of that stuff, but in when I was living in California, uh, as an independent, I could vote in the democratic primary. So I stayed independent and then I still had influence over you know who ended up getting uh, sent to the general ballot Exactly. So when I moved to Utah, I was like, well, the primary election is to me the, that's the key piece. Like as if, if you want the best candidates, you got to do it in the primary and we just don't get the turnout. So do you think it's an edge? Is it a cultural thing, an educational thing that can shift? Or Well, I, I it's a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:I mean I I've talked to people who have gone right.
Speaker 2:And they go and I'm a delegate I'm the vice chair of precinct seven and Ivan's.
Speaker 1:So so many people show up and they're really turned off by what they see.
Speaker 2:I was very turned off. I was very turned off. I was so disappointed. I hate to say that because Lisa Sandberg, the Republican Party down here, they have a lot of great leaders and we're still missing a lot of great leaders. We need a lot more leadership within that caucus system for it to really function. I feel like the way it should.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if there's a perfect answer. I would hate to go away, though, because I don't want to see it go away it should not go away.
Speaker 2:I can imagine what it would look like seeing the dis, the uh, dysfunction. You could see where you're like if it functioned right. This is awesome, right, it's almost like when you're going through it.
Speaker 3:You could see where you're like if it functioned right. This is awesome right.
Speaker 2:It's almost like when you're going through it, you could see a couple of changes and then you could see how powerful it could be. So that's why I'm hopeful for it. But man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm hopeful too. Again, I believe in the Cockroach Convention System. I want it to be successful. I hope that over time people will come back, that people who are involved in it will realize that they're turning people off and how they're turning people off and ways to help people feel more comfortable coming there, ways to make it easier for people to attend, to participate. I believe that we are all better off when we have more participation, not less, and when people feel like they're more represented and not less represented, and that's all I hope for. I think we achieved a level of that where people are again not everyone, but people feel like there are these dual paths. So we did keep the caucus convention system. We also have another path for those who don't feel comfortable in that system.
Speaker 1:But this is a debate happening all across the country. By the way, if you look at historically, it's changed a lot. If you go back and look at the history of how parties choose their candidates, over time it has changed drastically. One of the complaints about what's happening in Congress right now is that you tend to get I don't think so in Utah, but in other places you get more extreme candidates because they all that matters is the primary right. Nothing else matters, the general doesn't matter, and so you tend and only those people who participate in the primary who tend to have stronger views and maybe be a little more extreme, and so that's all they care about is instead of solving problems and figuring out. Sometimes you have to compromise again. This is Yuval is worried about this that with Congress specifically, if they're not acting together, if they're not actually working on legislation and trying to solve problems, but all they care about is a platform where they can perform and get their most extreme voters to support them, that's. That's not healthy for for our democratic Republic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we. We have a cultural shift that needs to occur specifically along these lines for those leaders to get into the position and do actual work. Right, that's right, that's. That's the piece.
Speaker 1:And and there are a lot of people out there who think that changing the way we elect our, our, our candidates yeah, I was going to say we elect the party representatives, but just the way we elect candidates and the whole. There's some interesting stuff happening out there. Maybe the most interesting one is what they've done in Alaska, where they do kind of a jungle primary where everybody, you know anybody can sign up. So you'll have 50 people on the primary and everybody just goes and votes for their candidate and then they take the top four. Oh yeah, Okay, Right, they take the top four and they go to the general election and then they use rank choice voting on the ballot in the general election. So you rank your candidates one through four and they, they add all, they add up all the number ones and whoever finishes fourth is eliminated, right? So then whoever voted their fourth person number one, they go to their number two and that becomes their number one. Then they add them all up again and then number three is eliminated and then they do it again until somebody gets over 50%. Now, what's interesting about that?
Speaker 1:The argument is that it tends to get a candidate that more people support. So it may not be my number one candidate, but it was to get a candidate that more people support. So it may not be my number one candidate, but it was my number two candidate, right? So there's generally more support for that candidate. It also they argue and I don't know if I believe this, but they argue that it moderates it, because if you're campaigning, you don't want to tear the other people down, because even if somebody doesn't put you as their number one, you want them to put you as their number two. So you're going to treat the other candidates with a little more dignity and respect, so that so that you know the the person who supports your opponent it's a lot more difficult to attack a bunch of people too, rather than just like a smaller.
Speaker 1:All of that and interesting idea. So I you know I have no idea if that's how long they've been doing it.
Speaker 1:So they've just been doing it for like four years. I think they had a congressional race that was really interesting and I haven't studied it that closely, but I think well, sarah Palin I know she was running and she made it to the final four, but the person who actually won ended up finishing third, I think in the primary, and it was somebody who was very moderate to appeal to like a broader section of people. Again, I don't think we know what the kind of the long-term consequences of doing it that way are, but that's just one example. I was shocked to learn how different every state is in the way they nominate their candidates.
Speaker 2:Which just goes back to that cool part about you know being laboratories. It should be that way.
Speaker 1:Yes, we shouldn't have a federal government telling us how to nominate our candidates, but I do think it's healthy that we're having these debates. I like that people are thinking this way, that people are getting more involved and trying to determine the best way to get representation in our state. But it's tough, it's really tough and it's tough. I mean this is you know, again in my lifetime, this is about as difficult as it's been for candidates right now. Everybody is so polarized, not just between the right and the left, but between the right and the right, the left and the left, and I talk to candidates, local school board candidates, city council candidates, you know, candidates for higher office, for the U S Senate and others. And it's a really tough time right now. Uh, it's with, with the rise of social media, it things you would never say face to face to someone. You're willing to say anything online.
Speaker 2:Something interesting in the book that he talks about is, uh, the transparency and I get I think hamilton talks about it in one of his one of the federalist papers though about transparency and it's like you want things transparent, but there's some things that not everybody can be uh, watching at all times. Right, like negotiations have to happen in a closed room and the convention, the, you know the first in in Pennsylvania. That's how they did it. It wasn't open to anybody who could come in, it was a closed room. Nobody was talking about what was going on during the negotiations and it wasn't until later.
Speaker 2:You know in these longer debates in the, in the papers, that they got that opinion out there, but they were also forced to write it down. They were also they weren't just, you know, flinging it off their tongue and then having that echo and be able to get on repeat over and over again. Right, when you write something down, you have to think through exactly, and then you're like, do I really want to say that? Right, and you kind of question yourself that that uh cap has been blown off. So now that urge for transparency is is actually uh, hurting our ability to communicate to each other in important decisions because we're worried about hurting somebody's feelings or saying something that hurt someone's feelings, and now you can't get anywhere because you run around in circles. That transparency question you can have too much transparency. You can speak too much, you can talk too much.
Speaker 1:I think it's fascinating. You picked up on that because to me the most interesting part of the book comes out of the Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention and some of the some stuff. I mean I've read the Federalist Papers multiple times. I've studied the convention, but there were even some things I learned in that that I didn't know. Let me give you an example on that transparency piece.
Speaker 1:So when I was in the House of Representatives, the Utah House, we had an open caucus which meant that anybody could come, including the press, when we would have our internal Republican caucus debates at the Capitol. The Senate always had a closed caucus, so they did not allow the press in when they were having their debates and deliberation and we would close it once in a while for some important conversations. A few years after I got out of there, they decided to close the caucus completely and there was a lot of pushback. This is terrible. This is undemocratic. Transparency is so important and I defended it.
Speaker 1:I wasn't in the legislature at the time, but I defended it for the very reasons that you just mentioned. And that is what I saw happening was people didn't feel comfortable saying what they really wanted to say if the cameras were always on and we couldn't have robust debate. And then it got even worse Once social media started to grow. It became posturing, it became this is my opportunity to say something that I wouldn't normally say, because it's going to get me more followers and clicks and likes. Yeah, and so people weren't being true to themselves. The minute you closed the caucus, you actually had real debate and people were willing to say what they felt and why this was problematic, and we started getting much better results once they closed that caucus. Now they still should have open debate on the floor and they do.
Speaker 1:And that's important, and the decisions should be important. You should know who voted for what. One of the arguments that I hear often about the caucus convention system is that the ballots are secret and if you're really representing your community, they should be able to see who you voted for. So again-.
Speaker 2:And they have that now.
Speaker 1:Transparency. They do here, yeah, they don't at the state level.
Speaker 2:Oh, they don't Okay, which is?
Speaker 1:interesting and I love that Washington County did that. So transparency is important, but it has to be. You can't have too much transparency and in the wrong ways that end up leading to terrible results and that's what we were seeing with these open caucuses.
Speaker 2:Like just me, as a human, right, I think out loud, right, I would rather say it out loud and then be like, wait, did I really think that? Or allow somebody to respond, because I'm not as much of a, you know, I guess I have my moments where I'm thinking through a specific response. But when we're in a debate it's kind of like, well, I got to be able to say what I think out loud and challenge myself and offer it up for challenge against me. But if I'm worried about, if I say this thing, I can't pull it back in Like once I say it out there now. No, anybody can take that little slice and then turn it into whatever they want, and that's where we are now.
Speaker 1:There's no grace, there's no nuance. People will take one thing, take it out of context. Maybe you were just kind of-.
Speaker 2:Almost every Kamala Harris ad I've seen yeah, almost every single one I was like that's not what he said. That's right, that's not at all what he said.
Speaker 1:And that happens all of the time. I mean, I just went through this with, you know, with Trump at Arlington right. I got home and read and that's not what happened at all.
Speaker 2:I could totally, and that's the hardest thing too, because it and you say something, one thing that just might connect to this other thing, that whole thing too. I didn't dive too deep into it because again it's like what are we arguing about? What did he do wrong? That was so horrible? Was it really a photo op? I don't think so, come on.
Speaker 1:And what's interesting was and again, here's the rest of the story that people never hear. We were done and we were walking away and those gold star families said hey, will you guys come back and take a picture with us with our child's grave right here? That would mean the world to us. Who on earth is going to say no to a gold star family? To think that we set this up to? You know, it was us asking the families to take pictures. It was the exact opposite. So we took a picture and they said they also said will you please share these pictures so people will remember our kids? You know that's how this all went down and I'm like this was one of the most somber special events I've ever participated in. And then I get home and the next day I read about it and it's like I like that you're laughing about it, but that's the world we live in and uh it, it's, uh.
Speaker 1:it makes me sad that we've lost something in there. Now, look, don't feel bad for me. I'm the luckiest guy on earth. And we have um we still live in the best country on earth. I thank you. Uh, we, by the way, go back and look at what was happening Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. It was brutal back then. It was brutal.
Speaker 1:The newspapers were awful and Jefferson was. They were jerks to each other. I mean they, you know there was all kinds of terrible things being written and said about them. It's just it's just a little different about how easy it is and how quickly it can spread. We like to say that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on, and that's kind of how it works with social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been something. I guess, because you've held a lot of political offices, it's something you just get used to, I'm guessing.
Speaker 1:I guess you get used to it, but it's never. I mean people. People always say, oh, you have to have thick skin. Like thick skin isn't a thing. I just don't believe in it. You get better at pretending and better at trying to ignore it, just cuts your soul little by little, but it cuts your soul every time.
Speaker 1:It just does. I mean, I see it every day. I see the. You know the people who are willing to say anything, don't care about the truth, don't care about any nuance, don't care about how things actually happen, and everybody does it. But it's always discouraging and there's a reason that lots of good people don't get into this stuff, Think I would never do that, I would never put my family through that. I can see why they feel that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think even you, you had those moments where you're like is this really what?
Speaker 1:I want. I still have those moments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every day. Yeah, that's tough. I took all your time. It's been great, we'll just have to do it another time. I really do, I really. There's so much I want to ask. And I do have one more question, though. Yeah, yeah, why did so? Why did you agree to come on this podcast?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. No, I agreed. Look, I love being able to talk. Well, first of all, you wanted to talk about a subject that I care deeply about. So if you say let's talk about Yuval Levin and let's talk about the Constitution, I will never say no to anybody about that. Also, I know other people who have been on with you and, uh, they felt like you were very you were, you were honest. Um, you, you weren't trying to throw you know, uh, trick questions at people trying to trying to catch them. Uh, and so I, I and I love long form.
Speaker 1:I think it's important that we, we, we do too much of just you know, 280 characters on on X or Twitter. Uh, we, we do too much of just a 30 second soundbite. I think to really get to know someone, you have to spend time with them. You have to listen to the whole context of their answers and you get a better feel. You can judge the character of somebody and what they truly believe in through this medium. I love podcasting. I'm so grateful that this idea of like old school radio has come all the way back around, which is what it is. We just stopped doing this stuff and I'm grateful for the work that you do locally. I think that that's really important. We love the local bent and we need more kind of niche podcasting. I think it's really great stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad my strategy was the book. I was like if he tweeted about the book he's for sure he would love to talk about that, that was my angle.
Speaker 3:It was a brilliant strategy. You hooked me, you got me.
Speaker 2:I'm glad it worked Well. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for having me. Good luck in the election. Thank you, Everybody. Get out there and vote. Don't forget to that we need to get our votes in as fast as possible is what the strategy is.
Speaker 2:So if you're Republican, you get your ballot in the mail, go put it in a drop box, get it out of the way, because it's going to come down to the wire. Yeah, vote early. Do not vote often. Yeah, vote early, don't do it often. Exactly. Thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue. We want to continue that going.
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