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Ten Things You Need to Know for Friday – February 20, 2015

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Herbert is scaling back Healthy Utah. House GOP can't come to a consensus on Medicaid expansion. Utahns mostly rely on television to follow legislative news.

Countdown:

  • Days to the final day of the 2015 Utah Legislature – 20
  • Days to the 2015 Utah municipal primary elections – 172
  • Days to the 2015 election – 256
  • Days to the 2016 Iowa Caucus (tentative) – 332
  • Days to the opening day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – 339
  • Days to the 2016 Utah presidential primary – 494
  • Days until the 2016 presidential election – 627

Friday's top-10 headlines:

  1. Gov. Gary Herbert is scaling back his Healthy Utah proposal in an effort to make it more palatable to lawmakers [Deseret News].
  2. The House GOP caucus, meeting behind closed doors, still cannot come to a consensus about Healthy Utah [Tribune].
  3. Sen. Mark Madsen is proposing a bill to legalize medical marijuana [Tribune].
  4. Sen. Stuart Adams says the effort to merge non-discrimination and religious liberty legislation is extremely difficult [Deseret News].
  5. A new poll shows Utahns mostly rely on television to follow news from the Legislature, while hardly anyone uses Twitter [Utah Policy].
  6. Lawmakers kill a proposal that would pay tipped workers the federal minimum wage [Associated Press].
  7. House leaders unveil their proposal for raising the gasoline tax that is technically not a tax hike [Tribune].
  8. Rep. Ken Ivory is sponsoring legislation that would eliminate the statue of limitations for sexual abuse cases [Utah Policy].
  9. The House approves a measure requiring pornography filters on school computers [Tribune, Deseret News].
  10. Walmart says it will increase the minimum wage it pays employees to $9 per hour [New York Times].

On this day in history:

  • 1809 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the power of the federal government is greater than that of any individual state.
  • 1839 – Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia.
  • 1938 – British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned in protest over Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's decision to negotiate with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
  • 1962 – John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, flying aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.