This last legislative session has been a masterclass in cowardice. Utah Republicans had been your dad’s Republican party for decades — a stronghold for governance-minded, level-headed conservatives.
Unfortunately for all Utah citizens, Utah Republicans have sold out the state to the alt-right MAGA wing of their party, and its consequences will be devastating to our state.
Right now, Utah is having a cultural and economic renaissance. There’s urban growth downtown and talk about new major league sports teams in our state. All of that should bring with it motivation to continue being the state where business can be done, but instead our elected officials have been too focused on keeping one student off of the high school sports team they chose, putting clergy in schools and banning books and information from students.
Other states that have followed this path have not prospered, which should serve as a bright red warning sign for state leaders. A state that had a similar approach to the transgender bathroom panic is North Carolina, which attempted its own bathroom bill in 2016. The impact that the bill had on the state was vast and heavy with reports indicating that the state would lose $3.76 billion, as well as over 3,000 jobs. They also lost the ability to host the 2017 All-Star game which the NBA moved to New Orleans from Charlotte due to the backlash. This should raise red flags for state leaders as Salt Lake City was named a preferred candidate for the 2034 Olympics, which we could lose if Utah cant prove itself to be a welcoming and stable space for the world to compete in.
Utah leaders must be more careful and even-minded or we will end up with another Natalie Cline situation, which elevated Utah into the national discourse and thoroughly embarrassed the state. Cline — the Utah State Board of Education member who doxxed a cisgender student who she suspected of being transgender, requiring the school district to hire security — is clearly not fit for the office in which she currently sits.
The Utah State Board of Education serves over 670,000 students daily and, according to estimates collected by the SHARP survey in 2021, more than 17% of students in the state identify themselves as a member of the LGBTQ community. It is puzzling — but not surprising — that the Legislature failed to act on this egregious violation of public trust. In many ways, they are to blame for the culture of public harassment of queer people in educational spaces.
The past few sessions, especially since Spencer Cox became governor, have been riddled with controversy regarding queer people in public places, and has allowed a renewed culture of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, which has been on the rise nationwide, to have a stronghold in Utah.
The Legislature has a responsibility to ensure good governance for all Utahns, and its refusal to impeach and remove Natalie Cline is an abandonment of duty.
A common argument against impeachment proceedings is that the people should decide her fate, and while I wholeheartedly support the democratic process in removing bad officials, I believe that — in some cases — it is best for an individual to be removed through a process of their peers. Impeachment is meant for scenarios such as this, in which an elected official is harassing a student to the point where the school district believes they need to protect her from violence. If not for cases like this, what is the point of even having a process to remove elected officials from office?
Cline should have been made an example of. All she got was a slap on the wrist, and copycats saw approval to do something possibly more reckless.
Utah deserves better than leaders who can’t lead and dividers who pretend to lead.
(Photo courtesy of Jackson Lewis) Jackson Lewis
Jackson Lewis is a 19-year-old candidate for school board in Canyons School District 1. He is a recent graduate from Hillcrest High School in Midvale.
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