The Utah Legislature began its annual session on Tuesday, Jan. 20, and issues such as housing affordability, public transportation and education are on the horizon for Utahns and Brigham Young University students.
The Utah legislative session begins in January each year. Lawmakers meet over a period of 45 days (approximately 33 of which are actual lawmaking days because of weekends) and propose, protect and shoot down legislation of all kinds.
Leaders from both chambers of the Legislature met with the media over breakfast, Jan. 13, to discuss what they planned to cover during the legislative session.
The Republican caucus vowed to fight rising costs and improve housing affordability, while the Democratic caucus stated that food security was high on its list of priorities.
Adam Brown is a BYU political science professor, researcher and author. He created a Guide to the Utah Legislature website, which tracks everything from each party’s success rate in passing bills to flashcards that teach about lawmakers.
He explained that local politics affect people in Provo more immediately than many federal policies and that involvement in the process is key.
Brown also spoke on lawmaking in Utah, explaining that the small window of time given to the Legislature only allows for so much legislation each session.
This means that the sessions are short, intense and packed with bills.
“If this year looks like last year, legislators will have well over 1,000 bills in preparation. Most of those won't get fully drafted in time. You'll have something in the neighborhood of 800 to 900 bills actually introduced … but you'll have like 700 that get at least one vote on the floor, and you'll have 500 to 600 that pass. That is an absurd pace,” Brown said.
Brown also stressed that much of the legislation introduced often takes the form of "clean-up" bills, made to amend mistakes or oversights in previous legislation.
These bills don’t just affect political science professors or the family next door; they affect every BYU student.
Declan Miller, a pre-business major and freshman at BYU, spoke about how public transportation affects him as a student.
“I think expanding public transportation could help with all of the traffic issues around Provo as well, just running buses more frequently, doing things like that. I think as far as local things, that's a really important issue,” Miller said.
Other students expressed concern about what they felt was overreach by ICE and the federal government.
Aimee Caldwell, an international relations major, shared this sentiment.
“Currently, one of the main things that concerns me is the presence of ICE in a lot of communities and the damage that they're doing to a lot of people, their families and homes. So that's like a big one,” Caldwell said.
Elise Villarin, a political science major, said she is concerned about housing affordability.
“I think a lot of people do care as well, especially (at) BYU … what happens after they have kids and stuff like that. Where are they gonna live? You know, there aren't a lot of houses here. And even if there are houses, (they) are so expensive … why is a five-bedroom house a million bucks? It's so crazy to me,” Villarin said.
Anna Bella Shimazaki, a BYU student majoring in psychology with a minor in music, expressed worry about education funding in public schools.
“I think just being able to provide really good education for special needs children growing up in order to prepare them for adulthood (is important). And with that … proper funding (to public schools) and not just focusing on private institutions,” Shimazaki said.
Other popular subjects were public transportation in Provo, abortion and the economic burden on young people.
The legislative sessions go by fast. This one will be brimming with bills, leaving Utahns watching and waiting for the outcome.