S.B. 232 Regulatory Impacts on Families: transcript

Thank you. It's good to be with you guys again. Um, uh, Senate bill 2 32. Um, this recognizes something here, and that is we have a lot of state agencies that make rules. We've got a lot of political subdivisions that make policy and ordinances. Uh, and so, uh, this bill requires all of those bodies when they are proposing a rule or an ordinance to consider what the impact will be on the strength, viability, stability, formation of families.

I think it's got, uh, good utility, so I support it.

Oh, great. Regulatory impacts on Families Senate Bill 2 32. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a simple bill that requires that, um, government agencies and political subdivisions, um, as they promulgate rules or ordinances or policy, should consider the effect of, uh, family stability and family formation as they are creating those policies. That concludes my presentation.

All right. Uh, thank you Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Carson Allers, and I'm representing the Utah League of Cities and Towns today and all days, actually. Um, it's a pleasure to be here for my, uh, I guess, annual visit to the Senate Education Committee. Um, not a regular here, but I appreciate you having me. Um, yeah, we, uh, I wanna thank Senator, uh, Fillmore for reaching out to us. We do have some concerns about just the language of the bill. We appreciate the, the sponsor's intent. Um, and we're working with the sponsor to just to try to clarify, um, clarify the language. We wanna avoid any situations because the, the language in the municipal section is in our, um, in our enabling code. We just wanna make sure we're not inadvertently opening up to third party legal challenges for, uh, run of the mill ordinances. So, um, I think these, uh, concerns are surmountable and we'll keep working with the sponsor. Um, and I'm open to any questions you may have.

Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, my name is Seth Stewart, um, representing myself and my family, I guess, from American Fork. Um, and I appreciate this bill. It's almost every bill in this session could be titled Regulatory Impacts on Families. So I appreciate the, the candor there. Um, I have noted that this bill seems to be an answer to Elder Neil a Maxwell's 1993 talk, in which he said that why not require impact family impact studies before proceeding with this program or that remedy and, and sense of all the environmental concerns the family should be. First, hundreds of governmental departments and programs, programs protect various interests, but which one protects the family? And so I, I love the ethic behind that. Um, maybe it took us 33 years to, uh, begin promoting or pushing legislation to, to do that. I, I don't know the full history of that. So, um, I do wish to commend that effort. Um, I, I, I will submit though that, uh, I, I do have a concern about how structured, and that is that the language of the bill defers to the, the boards or the agencies involved to make that determination for themselves. I would just submit and suggest, um, that a rotating citizen panel that can conduct public hearings and so on might provide a better alternative. Because if you, if you invite the input from the families themselves as opposed to the, the, the, the board agency or, or, uh, regulatory, uh, uh, body, then you'll likely get much better input. And, uh, so I would just recommend, uh, soliciting that and having, having some kind of a rotating panel that's just randomly chosen from the citizenry themselves to, to opine on those subjects and to help, uh, contribute to those reports. Thank you very much. And, uh, again, I really do appreciate the, uh, the impetus behind this. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm looking at the fiscal note, and it has a fiscal note of zero. It's not gonna cost anybody anything to do this. To think about the impact on families.

Yeah, there would be no, no expenses to do that. Well, You have to actually, uh, consider the impact of the proposed ordinance. So you're just gonna all think about it separately in random rooms and think about it, and not have any kind of output or no extra meetings for it. Uh, nope. No extra meetings are required, Mr. Chair. Okay.

And my second question is, how would you, in, after you came up with your idea, how would you enforce it? What would be the penalty if they decided that it was bad,

Obviously we would put in Seth's citizen review panel. Oh, okay. No, this bill does not. We direct them to consider the impacts on families. Okay. It's something that would need to be, uh, enforced through the people, the, you know, that, that, that they elect, that are, that elect them to that office. So this would apply to cities, counties, uh, school district boards, things like that.

And how Would they, there is no enforcement mechanism. How Would they publish what their opinions are?

They don't need to publish what their opinions are. Mr. Chair.

Oh, I, uh, Senator Riebe asked the same question I had.

Uh, I will make a motion. And, and then I'll speak to, by way of summation, I would move that we favorably recommend Senate Bill 2 32 Regulatory Impacts on Families Case. The motion is to, uh, send out, uh, SB 2 32 with a favorable recommendation.

Two things. I'd say one in, in response to the cities that came up here. So there's nothing in this bill that creates a cause of action. However, I'd say both the cities and the state are familiar with courts that do not interpret the law as it's very clearly written. So I'm happy to, you know, make, uh, make it even more clear that this does not create a cause, a cause of action. Uh, cities could not be sued for doing something that, uh, somebody thought didn't, wasn't the best thing for families. It's completely still up to elected officials and departments to, uh, you know, to determine how that works. We just ask them to make sure that it's part of their consideration. And secondly, I just wanna state how offended I am that the Sutherland Institute sent a message supporting this bill, and yet Stan Rasmussen is in the room and didn't even come up here to testify in favor of it. So, uh, does that that, Yep, that's my summation. OO

Thank you. Uh, Mr. President State agencies, cities, counties, uh, political subdivisions are, are all empowered to make rules pass ordinances. And when they do, they typically approach those fairly narrowly. And I don't mean that as a criticism, I just mean that the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Natural Resources, uh, have statutorily defined focus and, and when they're considering rules and uh, and regulations, they typically consider, uh, appropriately what's in their lane. Senate Bill 2 32 is about making sure that government decisions strengthen families instead of unintentionally harming them. So before a state agency or a political subdivision adopts a new rule or ordinance, they should pause and evaluate how its knock on effects may impact family stability and formation. That concludes my presentation on the bill.

You Mr. President ProAm. Uh, just by way of disclosure, I am in talks with the League of Cities and Towns on some suggested amendments they hope to have to me by today. Uh, uh, but I heard from them earlier that they didn't. So they promise me that they will have them before this moves on third, uh, on Monday. So with that, I'll move that Senate Bill 2 32. Be read a third time.

Mr. President, the League of Cities and Towns promised to have me language over the weekend for some changes they would like made here. I haven't seen them yet, but I'm willing to give them until after lunch. So I hope they're listening before I, uh, pass this bill out of the Senate. Thank you. I'll move to circle.

Thank you Mr. President. Uh, we talked about this a bit on second. You know, uh, when government agencies go political subdivisions make rules, those sometimes have an impact on families. And because we task these agencies, you know, each one has a pretty narrow lane, uh, they don't always, you know, look outside that lane. So this would just, uh, require them to consider whether or not a proposed rule or ordinance would have an impact on the stability, stability and formation of families, uh, in the state. So that's what the bill does. There's a substitute that I'd like to move. This just makes some, some changes that the League of Cities and towns requested, uh, that would ensure that this does not, it, it doesn't invalidate an ordinance, uh, and it doesn't create a cause of action, you know, if they adopt a policy that somebody else feels like you should have considered families more or something like that. So, uh, this is a nice prophylactic language that exists there to prevent, uh, litigation on this issue. So, I'd like to move to delete init and Body Senate Bill 2 32. Replace it with first substitute Senate Bill 2 32.

It's, it's a motion to substitute. I'd be, I would appreciate everyone's support.

Uh, thank you. I think I spoke to the substitute when I presented the bill. Uh, look forward to, I hope I can get everyone's support, but happy to answer questions.

Thank you Mr. President. Um, the sponsors yield to questions,

Thank you. On line 5 99, it says a measurable negative impact. Um, I understand what's going on in this bill, but when I think about regulatory impacts on families and what each different district and county has in their population, I, I struggle with what one person might think is negative and another person might not find negative. So I find that this is a subjective language about a negative impact. Um, what kind of policies would we be considering that we would stop and once we decided they were negative, what's, what are the steps that we take in this bill that stops that behavior or that stops that impact?

Thank you Mr. President. I appreciate that question. There's nothing like that in the bill. This bill requires them to consider family impacts, but not to prioritize family impact or not to automatically assume that if we have found that this, uh, that this might have some knock on effects that that's more important than what we're trying to accomplish. It simply directs the government agencies to consider the fact that that might happen. And even looking at the lines that she's pointing to, all this says is they should consider reasonable alternatives. It doesn't mean they need to adopt reasonable alternatives. There's no accountability if they don't adopt reasonable alternatives. And she's right that this is subjective language, but that's subjective because these are largely either elected officials we're talking about or people who've been appointed to government positions and they should be using their judgment about these kinds of things. We simply ask that their judgment include, uh, um, thought about how this would impact families.

Thank you Mr. President Pro Tem. You know, when I think, when I think about how many bills we pass and how many conversations we have on this floor about really weighty subjects, this bill seems like it should have been a resolution since it has no impact on people's daily life. And there's really nothing you can do if you decide that it is a negative impact. So when we think about a body that was running 1500 bills and passes, maybe 600, I think we all need to start looking at what we're working on and whether it's really a benefit to our community and is providing help. So, uh, I I ran for office to help people and to actually solve problems and I don't really think this is something that's worthy of, um, a bill. Thank you.

Thank you President Pro Tem. Uh, wondering if the sponsor would answer a question. Um, I'm wondering, and I didn't see this in there, uh, is there a definition of family health

President? No, there is not. Again, the language here is subjective on purpose because what we want to do is empower those local officials to be able to make such as, such a decision. But that as in the process of making that decision, they would consider what unanticipated consequences might this impact on families. And so it really is just asking 'em to try to anticipate those things in advance when they're adopting the policy. Thank

You, Senator. So could this include, uh, you know, environmental health factors, public health factors, things of that nature? Uh, I'm thinking about, I don't know, like radon in, in homes, things of that, uh, sort of policy area that, uh, that we have, I don't think focused on quite enough in, in other areas, uh, of legislation that we have run this year.

Uh, Mr. President if a, a government agency or a a a governmental subdivision elected board thought that, uh, a policy on radon might have good impacts on family health, uh, yes they could consider that and use that as a reason to pass it.

to you first motion. Thank I appreciate It. The fiscal note has cut up to this so I'll move that First substitute Senate Bill 2 32 pass.

Thank you Mr. President Pro Tem. Having voted on the prevailing side, I move that we reconsider our actions on Senate bill 2 0 5 And the motion is to having v having voted on the prevailing site recon reconsider our actions on first substitute Senate bill 2 0 5 law enforcement artificial intelligence amendments.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Motion to un enc circle SB 2 32.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Um, the legislation that we do in this body really affects the families and neighborhoods all across the state. And so this, uh, bill titled Regulatory Impacts on Families literally addresses state agency rulemaking, county or municipal Legislative Body ordinances, um, or local school board adopting policies to ask them to consider the impact that their rulemaking, ordinance, or policy will have on the health, uh, of the family, the stability and the formation of, of their families. Let me give you some examples of this. One of them may be if a city's wanting to pass a noise ordinance, or it could be a housing or zoning laws that could have positive or negative impacts on families or deciding where to place a city park that could have a positive impact on families. So it puts that requirement in there, but there is nothing that prohibits a body from, um, from failing to do this or any action against the county or the legislative body if they, if they do not adhere to it. But I think it's good policy to help make sure that any regulation or ordinances consider the impact on our families.