Good Tuesday morning from Salt Lake City.
Trump and Kim meet in Singapore. Utahns are still not aboard the Trump train. Bramble says voters, not delegates should decide who fills legislative vacancies.
One word movie review: I had the chance to see an advance screening of the new Disney/Pixar film Incredibles 2. In a word? Terrific!
TICK TOCK
- Early primary voting begins today (6/12/2018)
- 7 days until the final day to register to vote online or in person before the primary election (6/19/2018)
- 10 days until in-person early primary voting ends (6/22/2018)
- 14 days until the 2018 Primary Election (6/26/2018)
- 147 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
- 230 days until the first day of the 2019 Utah Legislature (1/28/2019)
- 875 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)
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HERE ARE THE STORIES WE’RE WATCHING TODAY
Utahns still not on board with Trump
President Trump’s job approval ratings in Utah still haven’t crossed 50% since his election in 2016 [Utah Policy].
Changing how legislative vacancies are filled
Sen. Curt Bramble says voters, not party delegates, should decide who fills a midterm vacancy in the Utah Legislature [Utah Policy].
Campaign cash
Rep. John Curtis raised more than $130,000 ahead of his primary matchup with Chris Herrod. Herrod has not yet filed his pre-primary financial disclosure [Utah Policy].
Washington bound
Several Utah lawmakers are headed to the White House later this month for meetings with Trump administration officials [Utah Policy].
Bishop for Speaker?
In the battle to find a replacement for Speaker Paul Ryan, some Congressional Republicans are floating Rep. Rob Bishop’s name as a compromise candidate [Utah Policy].
OTHER UTAH HEADLINES
- A proposed 8,800 housing development in Herriman has blown up as a campaign issue between Republican Mia Love and Democrat Ben McAdams. Love has accused McAdams of accepting more than $10,000 in donations from the project’s developers [Associated Press]. Residents of Herriman have filed a public referendum to put the development to a public vote in November [Fox 13, KSL].
- Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski surprised the City Council by coming out in opposition to raising sales taxes to fund transportation [Deseret News, Tribune].
- House Speaker Paul Ryan will hold a fundraiser for Rep. Mia Love on Tuesday [Deseret News].
- Utah’s members of Congress decry migrant children being torn away from their parents as they try to cross the border into the United States [Tribune].
- Sen. Orrin Hatch says North Korea must end their pattern of human rights abuses along with giving up their nuclear program [Deseret News].
- Attorney General Sean Reyes says the decision by the Trump administration not to defend parts of the Affordable Care Act will boost Utah’s lawsuit against the healthcare law [KSL].
- Jeff Rasmussen has been named as the new head of the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation [Deseret News, Tribune].
NATIONAL HEADLINES
- President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un meet in Singapore. The two men sign a document stating North Korea will work toward denuclearization while Trump has pledged to suspend military exercises on the Korean Peninsula [New York Times].
- While we’re all celebrating Trump’s meeting with Kim, let’s not forget North Korea’s wretched record on human rights and crimes against humanity. Here’s a refresher on some of the atrocities from a 2014 United Nations report [New York Times].
- Voters in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia head to the polls on Tuesday for primary elections [ABC News].
- Attorney General Jeff Sessions says victims of domestic and gang violence would not qualify for asylum in the United States [Washington Post].
- Republican senators are left scratching their head after President Donald Trump’s inexplicable feud with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau [ABC News].
- The Supreme upheld Ohio’s method of removing names from its voter rolls [CNN].
- A federal judge criticized the Justice Department’s argument that President Trump’s financial interest in his company’s hotel in Washington, D.C. does not violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution [New York Times].
- White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow suffers a heart attack [Washington Post].
- Financial disclosures show Jared and Ivanka Trump made at least $82 million in outside income last year while working in the White House [Washington Post].
- New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill into law on Monday allowing sports betting in that state [New York Post].
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
- 1665 – Thomas Willett is appointed the first mayor of New York City.
- 1942 – Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.
- 1963 – NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith.
- 1967 – The Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all state laws prohibiting interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.
- 1987 – At the Brandenburg Gate, President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
- 1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are murdered outside Simpson’s home in Los Angeles. Her estranged husband, O.J. Simpson is later charged with the murders but is acquitted by a jury.
