Jay Evensen - Opinions

Try to rewrite Utah's political boundaries - it's not easy

4/8/2020

Have you run out of table space for your pandemic-therapy jigsaw puzzles? Are Rubik’s Cubes just too easy? Already a whiz on every aspect of the $2 trillion congressional stimulus package? Do you find the theory of relativity boringly simplistic?
Are you secretly glad for social distancing because you no longer have to wonder why people avoid you at parties?
Then maybe redrawing Utah’s congressional districts is just what you need to while away the hours in isolation.

Pandemic reminds us of the things that really matter

4/1/2020

I noticed one of those emails the other day; the kind that, a mere month ago, seemed to confront my field of view wherever I looked.
It went something along the lines of “candidate X is lying about subject Y to cover up his misdeeds, blah, blah, blah…” Or perhaps it had an urgent tone to it, warning about impending doom caused by the success of some liberal or conservative agenda. The memory of it is blurry at this point.

Is Utah's nominating process good for democracy?

3/31/2020

The most popular politician in Utah is running for governor this year, and he’s having trouble getting on the ballot.
If you thought we had fixed democracy in Utah, this ought to give you pause.
Remember 2004? That was the year Gov. Olene Walker failed to make it onto the ballot -- the first time that had happened to an incumbent Utah governor -- because she was rejected by state convention delegates. She left office with an 87% approval rating, and polls showed she probably would have been re-elected.

A few non-medical lessons so far from the pandemic

3/25/2020

Pandemics like this may come around less often than Halley’s Comet. Let’s hope so. (Right now you might wish you were on that comet. Maybe someone is playing a basketball game up there.)
But this frequency makes it hard to take all the lessons we are learning and apply them the next time. What, for instance, do you remember from the 1918 flu?
Still, a few lessons are apparent at this stage. I’m talking lessons for politics, education and the private market, not medicine. Those lessons will have to wait.

Should we release prisoners to combat COVID-19?

3/24/2020

Anyone discussing the early release of prisoners due to the novel coronavirus needs to consider the case of Joshua J. Haskell.
He has a long rap sheet, including drug-related jail sentences at least four times, according to a Deseret News account. Most recently, he was in the Utah State Prison for committing a parole violation, but he had been released to a halfway house, where he subsequently was let go early last week because of concerns over the spread of COVID-19, according to a police affidavit.

An earthquake in a pandemic? Are there silver linings?

3/18/2020

So, does Mother Nature have your attention now?
As former Utah governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told me years ago, pandemics are “a part of biological fact” that generally catch people off guard. A force of nature, in other words, that happens so infrequently people face it with little historical knowledge.
Ditto, earthquakes.
The fact that Northern Utah dealt with both of them in a single day on Wednesday means we won some sort of disaster lottery. It’s the kind of luck you probably don’t want to take to Las Vegas, or even Wendover.

Should candidates be allowed to still gather signatures?

3/17/2020

Politicians want to provide relief for people whose lives and incomes have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Mitt Romney even wants to give every American adult $1,000 to help with bills. Airlines and other industries want bailouts.
But what about helping democracy?
The governor of Ohio decided this week to postpone that state’s primary election, which was supposed to happen Tuesday. Could Utah’s governor step in and change the signature-gathering process to help candidates gain access to the state’s June primary ballots? After all, it’s not safe right now for people to go door-to-door asking for signatures, and it’s not safe for people who answer the door to use pens that might have been touched by many other hands

Is America ready for a pandemic?

3/11/2020

In a meeting Monday with the editorial boards of the Deseret News and KSL, Salt Lake International Airport Director Bill Wyatt described what is being done to keep travelers safe in the face of a spreading virus.
All “high-touch” areas — railings on moving sidewalks, door handles, restroom fixtures and buttons on elevators, for example — are being “double deep cleaned” once a day, deep cleaned one other time and cleaned to a lesser extent one more time, he said.
Just make sure you’re not the last one to touch these surfaces before the next cleaning begins. The day before our meeting, Wyatt said, 29,000 passengers had entered the airport to fly, and that was a typical day.

Tax cut or save for a rainy day? Why not help the seniors?

3/10/2020

When the economy begins to falter, is it better to give people a tax cut or to put extra money aside in case the state needs it to pay for services?
That’s an age-old question, and it’s being debated right now on Utah’s Capitol Hill. In this case, however, it’s like fighting over inches on a football field.

Tax reform, part 3, and a curious connection

3/9/2020

Few things are as surreal as talking to legislative leaders about a potential tax cut and the creation of a new fund dedicated to education growth while, on smartphones around the room, people were watching the economy seemingly catching fire in real time.
At one point during Monday’s daily press availability with state Senate leaders, someone noted the Dow Industrial Average had slipped 2,031 points for the day. It was just a little past noon.
All of which had some in the room wondering why Utah lawmakers seem to be tying a recession-beating education funding scheme to a public vote in November. Why not simply pass it?

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