Kerry Bringhurst: Holly Richardson with Utah Policy joining me to discuss what's happening at the State Capitol. Let's begin with bargaining and unions and legislation related to that for public employees.
Holly Richardson: There was a bill that's being run. It passed the House and headed over to the Senate side, and what this bill would do is prevent unions from participating in collective bargaining for their members. Tons of outcry, lots and lots of response from the public, thousands of letters and people showing up. So the Senate held it and said, let's work on a compromise. They haven't reached a compromise, and so they have gone back to bill that is a complete ban on collective bargaining for public unions in the state, so that affects teachers, that affects firefighters, police officers, etc, and that bill is going to be heard in a Senate committee coming up soon.
Editor's note: House Bill 267 passed out of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee and passed the Senate. It now goes to Gov. Cox's desk for his signature.
Kerry Bringhurst: They've also discussed ideas of allowing for these, these types of unions to be involved, but also giving options for those outside of the union to participate in that bargaining. How is that different from doing away with these unions altogether?
Holly Richardson: That's a really good question. And I think the employees who are affected and impacted by unions, that that's a question they're asking themselves as well. So that's a good question. So you can technically join a union, but they can't bargain for you. So that that makes it, I mean, it pretty much neuters the unions, right? So.
Kerry Bringhurst: Yeah. Well, we'll continue to follow that bill. Also a lot in the news about K-12 students, not only related to their education, but also being able to carry loaded weapons. I believe that's 18- to 20-year-olds, not necessarily in the school system, but we do have some 18-year-olds. Does that mean that they could potentially take those loaded weapons into the schools?
Holly Richardson: So they cannot carry loaded weapons at school. That's still a protected space, but a bill that Rep. Lisonbee has passed through House committee and the House in general would say that 18-year-olds can carry a loaded weapon openly. They don't have to have a concealed carry permit. They can have it in their home, they can have it in their car, they can have it with them in public. So they can conceal it without a concealed carry permit, or they can carry it with them in the open. And this is again, 18-year-olds, 18-year-olds and up. So they — they still can't take it into schools. They can't take it into some churches that have expressly prohibit weapons. But it's — for a lot of people, it's very concerning because we know that most teenagers don't have their full frontal lobe completely developed, can't make a lot of great decisions sometimes. But that's the bill that has passed the House.
Kerry Bringhurst: And we should make it clear they're already allowed to carry a weapon. It's just not loaded.
Holly Richardson: Yes, that's right. So this would just open it up some more.
There is a bill that would require gun safety training every year that a child is in elementary school, at least once a year in junior high, and then once a year in high school, and those trainings can be combined with hunter education, or it can even be combined with suicide prevention training. But the idea behind this bill is that children get exposed to gun safety from the time they start kindergarten and then all the way till they graduate from high school.
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