Good Thursday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 75th day of the year. There are 290 days remaining in 2017.
Orrin Hatch is working on establishing the “Hatch Foundation” to secure his legacy after he leaves office. The expansion of Salt Lake International Airport may not be big enough to handle future traffic. President Trump unveils his budget proposal.
The clock:
- 13 days until the last day Governor Gary Herbert can sign or veto bills (3/29/2017)
- 65 days until the Utah Republican State Convention (5/20/2017)
- 93 days until the Utah Democratic State Convention at Weber State University (6/17/2017)
- 236 days until the 2017 municipal elections (11/7/2017)
- 312 days until the opening day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (1/22/2018)
- 357 days until the final day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (3/8/2018)
- 601 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
- 1328 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)
Today’s political TL;DR –
- Even though he hasn’t officially announced he’s running for another term, Sen. Orrin Hatch is working behind the scenes to secure his political legacy by setting up the “Hatch Foundation” for when he leaves office [Utah Policy].
- Rep. Jason Chaffetz has history on his side to win another term in 2018. Chaffetz was the last person to oust a sitting Utah Congressman from his own party, but it only happened twice before that [Utah Policy].
- Only four of the men ever elected to U.S. Senate from Utah have voluntarily retired. All of the others were voted out of office, not including the current office holders [Utah Policy].
- Membership in the Utah ACLU has nearly tripled since Donald Trump won the presidency last year [Tribune].
- Salt Lake City International Airport is being rebuilt and expanded, but it could be too small to handle future traffic just five years after that project is finished [Tribune].
- John Huber, Utah’s U.S. Attorney submitted his resignation last week at the behest of the Donald Trump transition, but he will stay on in an interim role until his replacement is hired [Tribune, Deseret News].
- Provo Police Chief John King was asked to resigned this week after a sexual assault accusation against him surfaced last month [Deseret News, Tribune].
- Salt Lake City leaders tamp down rumors that the Sorenson Unity and Multicultural Center will close down and become a homeless center [Deseret News].
- President Donald Trump unveils his budget proposal that features increased spending for military and law enforcement and deep cuts for federal agencies like the EPA, State Department and the arts [New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico].
- A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump‘s revised Muslim ban from going into effect [New York Times].
- Members of Congress are starting to zero in on what they want to investigate during their probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election [Politico].
- President Donald Trump will not back away from his accusation that President Obama surveilled him during the 2016 election despite the complete lack of evidence [Politico].
On this day in history:
- 1512 – Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines, where he was killed by natives the following month.
- 1802 – Congress authorized the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
- 1935 – Adolf Hitler scrapped the Treaty of Versailles.
- 1986 – U.S. troops gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War.
- 2003 – Vice President Dick Cheney predicted on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that American troops would be “greeted as liberators” by the Iraqi people.
