Good Friday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 62nd day of the year. There are 303 days remaining in 2017.
Lawmakers plan to boost public education funding by $200 million next year. Swallow found not guilty. Herbert would support reinstating sales tax on food.
The clock:
- 6 days until the final day of the 2017 Utah Legislature (3/9/2017)
- 106 days until the Utah Democratic State Convention at Weber State University (6/17/2017)
- 249 days until the 2017 municipal elections (11/7/2017)
- 325 days until the opening day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (1/22/2018)
- 370 days until the final day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (3/8/2018)
- 614 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
- 1341 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)
Today’s political TL;DR –
- SCOOP! Lawmakers plan to boost public education funding by $200 million next year. It includes a 4% increase in the WPU, $70 million for student growth and $8 million for classroom supplies [Utah Policy].
- Want to understand what happened this week on the hill? Watch our week in review [Utah Policy].
- Jordan Garn takes a satirical look at the effort to remove the “Zion Curtain” [Utah Policy].
- Bob Bernick praises the efforts of lawmakers to tackle reforms this year [Utah Policy].
- Some minority legislators say a slight modification to Utah’s self-defense law adds to the bias against the state’s minority citizens [Utah Policy].
- Shocker! Former Utah Attorney General John Swallow is found not guilty on all charges in his public corruption trial [Tribune, Deseret News].
- U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions decides to step away from any investigations about the Trump campaign and Russia after revelations that he met with the Russian ambassador after denying under oath he had done so [Washington Post].
- Rep. Jason Chaffetz was the first Republican in Congress to say Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from those investigations [Utah Policy, Deseret News].
- Utah House Republicans still haven’t come to any consensus on tax reform this year, including restoring the sales tax on food [Deseret News]. Gov. Gary Herbert says he would not oppose reinstating the sales tax on food [Tribune].
- Gov. Gary Herbert says he supports the bill to take down the “Zion Curtain” as well as lowering the blood-alcohol level for a DUI [Tribune].
- Congressional Republicans are preparing their Obamacare replacement bill in secret. Sen. Rand Paul tried to get a copy and was rebuffed by his own party [Washington Post].
