Good Monday morning from Salt Lake City.
Lee fails in his bid to force a vote on Obamacare repeal. Are the feds plotting a new national monument in Utah? More billboard shenanigans in the Salt Lake City mayoral race.
The clock:
- 15 days to the Utah municipal primary elections – (8/11/2015)
- 99 days to the 2015 election – (11/3/2015)
- 175 days to the 2016 Iowa Caucus (tentative) – (1/18/2016)
- 182 days to the opening day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (1/25/2016)
- 183 days to the 2016 New Hampshire Primary – (1/26/2016)
- 227 days to the final day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (3/10/2016)
- 337 days to the 2016 Utah primary election – (6/28/2016)
- 470 days until the 2016 presidential election – (11/8/2016)
Monday's top-10 headlines:
- Sen. Mike Lee fails in his bid to force a vote on repealing Obamacare [The Hill, Politico, Tribune].
- Sen. Orrin Hatch slams fellow Sen. Ted Cruz for accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying about the process on the federal highway bill [Washington Post].
- Hatch has donated money to Lee's re-election bid but has not endorsed the state's junior Senator [Tribune].
- A secret meeting in southern Utah is stoking fears the federal government is plotting a new national monument in the state [Deseret News].
- An independent PAC is putting up more billboards in support of Ralph Becker's opponents in the Salt Lake City Mayoral race [Utah Policy].
- Gov. Gary Herbert takes over as head of the National Governors Association [Utah Policy, Tribune].
- Democrat Doug Owens says he's ready for a rematch with Rep. Mia Love in 2016 [Deseret News].
- Utah gets another waiver exempting the state from portions of No Child Left Behind [Tribune, Deseret News].
- The NSA has paid more than $1 million to the state for the Utah Highway Patrol to police the entrance to their data center in Bluffdale [Tribune].
- Utah transportation officials are working to reduce congestion at the state's busiest intersections [Tribune].
On this day in history:
- 1789 – Congress established the Department of Foreign Affairs, the forerunner of the State Department.
- 1953 – A truce officially ended the Korean War.
- 1974 – The House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend President Richard Nixon's impeachment on a charge that he had personally engaged in a "course of conduct" designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.
- 1996 – A bomb exploded at Olympic Park in Atlanta during the Summer Games, killing a woman and injuring more than 100 other people.
- 2003 – Legendary comic Bob Hope died of pneumonia at his home in California. He was 100 years old.
