Good Monday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 65th day of the year. There are 300 days remaining in 2017.
Lawmakers still have big decision to make in the final week of the 2017 Legislature. President Trump spent the weekend raging at staff and critics. New travel ban expected this week.
The clock:
- 3 days until the final day of the 2017 Utah Legislature (3/9/2017)
- 75 days until the Utah Republican State Convention (5/20/2017)
- 103 days until the Utah Democratic State Convention at Weber State University (6/17/2017)
- 246 days until the 2017 municipal elections (11/7/2017)
- 322 days until the opening day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (1/22/2018)
- 367 days until the final day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (3/8/2018)
- 611 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
- 1338 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)
Today’s political TL;DR –
- As the final week of the 2017 Utah Legislature begins, lawmakers still have some big issues to tackle before they adjourn on Thursday [Utah Policy].
- Republicans in the Utah House approve a voting change proposal offered up by a Democrat, voting to implement Ranked Choice Voting in Utah primary elections with more than two candidates [Utah Policy].
- If Donald Trump taps Attorney General Sean Reyes to head the FTC, some Republicans could try to nominate a replacement who is hostile to SB54 [Utah Policy].
- Our “Political Insiders” aren’t too happy with the effort to reinstate the sales tax on food [Utah Policy].
- LaVarr Webb wonders if President Donald Trump can push past opposition from liberal groups to create a conservative utopia [Utah Policy].
- Monday blockbuster read. President Donald Trump spent the last week raging at his staff and critics, especially after the revelations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador derailed the positive reviews of his address to Congress [Washington Post]. Here’s a second, independent account of the president’s very bad weekend [Associated Press].
- President Donald Trump accused President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 election but offered up zero evidence to back up his claim. The FBI asked the Justice Department to refute Trump’s claim, which is a stunning rebuke of the nation’s chief executive [New York Times]. The wild claim of wiretapping started on the fringes of conservative media, filtered through a right-wing website then made its way to the president before he pushed the allegation out on Twitter [New York Times]. Democrats pounced on the president’s conspiracy-mongering saying it’s a sign he’s buckling under the pressure of scandal [Politico].
- Travel ban 2.0. After the first travel ban was killed in federal court, President Trump is expected to sign a new travel ban order this week with the aim to keep would-be terrorists out of the United States [Associated Press].
- Congress plans to move forward with their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare this week [The Hill].
- North Korea fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan early Monday morning [CNN].
- Utah lawmakers have agreed to reinstate the state portion of sales tax on food, but will offset the negative impacts on poorer Utahns by offering some income tax credits [Deseret News, Tribune].
On this day in history:
- 1836 – The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.
- 1857 – The Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled against a slave suing for his freedom and said Congress had no right to limit the expansion of slavery.
- 1965 – Alabama Gov. George Wallace declared “There will be no march between Selma and Montgomery,” and that he had ordered the highway patrol to “use whatever measures are necessary to prevent a march.”
- 1981 – Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”
