Blog Posts - Jay Evensen

Texas doesn't get to decide when the pandemic is over

3/3/2021

When do we cross the finish line? Whose job is it to throw a symbolic mask in the air and declare the world back to normal, or as close to that as we can ever be again?
The answer, sadly, may be another question: Why should we expect the end to be any less combative than any other part of the last 12 months?
The intersection of politics and science isn’t easily governed by stop signs or traffic lights. Loud collisions have been common during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pandemic certainty remains elusive, no matter what people say

3/1/2021

If you write a political column for a living, it often doesn’t pay to tell strangers about it. But when someone I hired recently to do some work at my home asked, I couldn’t think of a way to be vague or evasive.
What followed was an unsolicited lecture, of sorts, on what I should be writing about COVID-19 restrictions and the Biden administration. (Strangers these days rarely want to talk about local school boards or city councils, for some reason.) The administration wants to impose travel restrictions on Florida to stem a fast-moving new strain, he said. But Florida has had a low death rate because, unlike liberal states, it has stayed mostly open, while California, on the other hand, has closed down and suffered a lot of deaths.
Well …

Should we let 16-year-olds vote?

2/23/2021

A lot of proposed constitutional amendments pop up each year, then die a quiet death.
So, it’s wise not to hyperventilate. However, it is worth noting that one, introduced in Congress earlier this month, has many smaller echoes across the country right now, including in Utah. Echoes sometimes combine to make real noise.
HJRES23, introduced by Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., would lower the nation’s voting age to 16, changing the wording of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the age to 18 amid the cacophony of anti-war protests a half-century ago. It has been introduced before, and it has died before.
This time, however, Utah lawmakers also are considering HB338 which, in its present form, would let Utah school districts decide whether to allow people 16 and older to vote in school board elections only.

NASA Mars landing tells us something about ourselves

2/22/2021

The image last week of NASA engineers raising their arms in the air, giddy with excitement at the landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars, was a perfect reminder of the nation’s on-and-off love affair with its space program.
We love it when it reminds us how brilliant minds, working toward a common goal that requires dashes of ingenuity and inventiveness, can accomplish a spectacular goal. We like to think this embodies a unique American can-do spirit, inherited from ancestors who overcame heavy odds to forge new lives.
But euphoria has a short shelf life.

This would help Utah's 'messed up' homeless system succeed

2/17/2021

Four years ago, Dr. Robert Marbut, who then was an author and consultant on issues related to homelessness, told me the Salt Lake area had one of the most “messed up” approaches to the problem he had seen.
He later became the nation’s homeless czar in the Trump administration. Now, as he returns to life as a professor and consultant, he again worries about the Wasatch Front, and for good reason.

How to restore trust in elections

2/12/2021

It should have been a routine committee hearing about an innocuous resolution.
State Rep. Joel Briscoe, a Democrat representing part of Salt Lake City, wanted to recognize Utah’s success in holding the 2020 election, from its secure vote-by-mail procedures to its lack of fraud, to its hard-working county clerks and volunteer election workers, and to its voters, who showed up in numbers not seen in at least six decades.
And yet the resolution had to withstand attacks and an effort to table it before finally passing favorably, by a vote of 7-2, out of a committee last week.

Why did it take Paris Hilton to make Utah listen?

2/9/2021

Of all the testimony provided to the Utah Legislature on Monday about abuses at youth residential care centers, Jeff Netto’s may have been the most powerful.
It was packed with the sort of emotion only a 42-year-old could feel while remembering the worst days of his life as a teenager suffering the constant humiliation of solitary confinement and restraint, sometimes for days on end, as well as being tethered to a bed on plastic sheets put in place to repel bodily fluids that come when you are denied use of a bathroom. It was compelling because he’s a native Utahn, an admittedly difficult teenager to deal with 29 years ago, and because, as he said, he would rather never have had to relive those days.

Is the minimum wage the best way to help the poor?

2/8/2021

I know a teenager who works at a warehouse for $14 an hour. If Congress passes President Biden’s plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 (gradually, over four years), this young man would eventually benefit, but not much.
He would benefit more if he lived in Alabama, where the cost of living is low, but much less if he lived in California. If he lived in Seattle, where the city’s minimum wage is $16.69, as of January 1, and if he had a similar job, he might consider his newfound raise a windfall. That is, until he tried to find a place to live.
Americans can’t really begin a serious discussion about the minimum wage without first recognizing that its 330 million people are scattered among different, sometimes widely varying markets.

Should Utah lawmakers change the state flag?

2/3/2021

Time for a spot quiz. Today’s subject is the Utah state flag.
Without looking at it, can you tell how many years it contains? Are there arrows, and if so, how many? Is the American flag depicted within the flag? If so, how many stars does it contain? Does the state flag contain flowers? What about an eagle? Bees?
And finally, does the state Legislature have better things to do than to worry that this isn’t good enough?

Should it be easier to rent out part of your house?

2/1/2021

Want to rent out a basement or another part of your house? Here’s what happens in many Utah cities:
City officials may tell you they accept so-called “accessory dwelling units,” or mother-in-law apartments, but when you apply for a permit, you enter a twilight zone of regulations and rules. You may be told that your home isn’t set back far enough from the street, or that you need a separate ventilation system for the rental space, or that your basement rental can’t be as large as the floor above, or that you don’t have enough space for parking.

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