Good Thursday morning Utah! Thanks for reading “The Rundown”.
📬 Send me your story ideas, news tips, questions, comments, or anything else on your mind. You can reach me via email. You can also find me on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Reddit
Get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up for free here.
Online graphic from the Renew America Movement targeting 13 Republicans in Congress for defeat in 2022.
Anti-Trump Republicans target Burgess Owens
A group of anti-Trump Republicans released a list of GOP members of Congress it plans to target for defeat in the 2022 midterm elections. The list includes Utah freshman Rep. Burgess Owens, along with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
The Renew America Movement added Owens to a list of “dividers” that they planned to unseat in Congress next year.
A press release said the list of 13 lawmakers included “conspiracy theorists, overt white nationalists, and prominent election deniers.”
All of the lawmakers on the list voted to overturn the 2020 election results on January 6 and against impeaching former President Donald Trump following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Owens barely slipped past Democrat Ben McAdams in 2020 by just over 3,700 votes in their hotly contested 4th Congressional District race. Owens has already drawn two challengers for the GOP nomination this year, Jake Hunsaker and Nicholas Huey.
Utah independent U.S. Senate candidate Evan McMullin is listed as a co-founder of the Renew America Movement.
The Owens campaign could not be reached for comment.
Here’s what you need to know for Thursday morning
Utah
🏛 The independent redistricting commission will present its map proposals to the Utah Legislature on Monday, but there’s already talk about revamping the process from Utah lawmakers. [Tribune]
💉 Intermountain Healthcare will require “all caregivers” to be vaccinated against COVID-19. [Tribune]
⚖️ Utah County commissioners vote to support a move to end the death penalty. [Tribune]
🏡 Real estate prices continue to climb in Utah. The median home price in Alpine is $1 million. Houses in East Salt Lake, on average, are selling for $800,000. [Tribune]
🗳 A controversial Black lives matter mural on Park City’s main street last summer is roiling the race for mayor ahead of election day. [Tribune]
National
🏛 President Joe Biden will announce some of the programs it hopes to include in a new social spending proposal which is believed to be around $1.75 trillion. [WaPo]
Democrats jettisoned paid family leave from their social spending plan to help reduce the cost. [CNN]
A Democratic plan to tax billionaires is in jeopardy after opposition from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. [The Hill]
📊 President Biden and Congressional Democrats get low marks from Americans over how they’ve handled spending negotiations. Fewer than half of Americans say they approve of how they’ve approached the spending bill, and many don’t know what’s in the proposal. [AP]
✈️ President Biden heads to Europe today for the G20 Rome summit meeting. [CNN]
⚡️ Los Angeles hopes to move all of its power generation away from fossil fuels by 2035, a decade sooner than initially planned. [WaPo]
💉 The CDC says some immunocompromised people are eligible to get a fourth dose of the COVID vaccine. [The Hill]
🦠 A widely available antidepressant drug may significantly reduce the hospitalization rates for patients with COVID. [WSJ]
Whoops!
In yesterday’s newsletter, we mistakenly identified Rep. Candace Pierucci as the only millennial member of the Utah Legislature.
That was obviously erroneous (and embarrassing), as there are several millennial lawmakers in the Utah House, including Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, Rep. Casey Snider, R-Paradise, Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Sandy, Rep. Ashlee Matthews, D-West Jordan, and Rep. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Salt Lake City.
We sincerely regret the error.
Thursday morning’s Utah news roundup
Utah
South Salt Lake fertilizer maker charged with illegally dumping chemicals. [Tribune]
Will Utah weather be better for trick-or-treating on Saturday or Sunday? [Tribune]
Politics
In Heber City, the mayoral election is a race to manage booming growth. [Tribune]
Moab grapples with housing costs, off-highway vehicle noise in crowded mayoral race. [Tribune]
Utah’s era of big tax breaks to attract new businesses may be nearing an end. [Tribune]
Mandate or not, House Speaker says more Utah businesses requiring vaccine. [Fox 13]
What Sen. Mike Lee asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about the FBI ‘intimidating’ parents. [Deseret News]
COVID-19
Utah reports more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases, and 22 more deaths. [Tribune]
Education
Utah higher education commission approves Dixie State name change. [Fox 13]
After year of pandemic, this Utah high school’s halls are overflowing. Here’s how enrollment has rebounded. [Deseret News]
Opinion
Rob Bishop plants bomb in Utah redistricting process. You can diffuse it, Editorial Board writes. [Tribune]
George Pyle: Appeals court tells Salt Lake City police they can assume we are all armed, so they can shoot us. [Tribune]
Opinion: Conservatives delighting in Alec Baldwin’s pain show how far we’ve fallen. [Deseret News]
Crime and inflation — two bad things that go together. [Deseret News]
— Tribune reporter Jordan Miller contributed to this report.
