During this season of gratitude and celebration, I want to express my appreciation to you for the positive impact you are having in our community and state, and for the opportunity you’ve given me to represent you on Capitol Hill. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration last week.

Residents of House District 63 in Mapleton, Springville and Spanish Fork are invited to my 2025 Pre-Legislative Session Community Information Meetings. I will provide an overview of the upcoming Utah Legislative Session and will listen to your input on issues of importance to YOU!

Here are the details for each of the meetings. Please come to the one that is most convenient for you.

It was an honor for me to talk with the children at Brookside Elementary a few weeks ago and to also host Maple Grove Middle School students at the Capitol. It was a great educational experience to interact with these students as we talked about Utah’s history, the freedoms we enjoy, and how the Legislature and state government runs. After spending the afternoon with these bright children and their teachers, I have a bright hope for our future.

Legislative Committee Assignments have been made for 2025-2026. As I represent our local communities on the Hill, I’m looking forward to serving on the following legislative committees:

• Chair of the House Ethics Committee
• Vice Chair of Business, Labor & Commerce Committee
• Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee
• Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee
• Co-Chair of the Commission on Housing Affordability
• Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zone Committee

I thought you might be interested in the recent Podcast interview I participated in about Utah’s Housing Crisis. Here is what was sent throughout the state:

In the latest episode of Majority Report, House Majority Leader Rep. Jeff Moss talks with Rep. Stephen Whyte, a leading voice on housing policy and co-chair of the Commission on Housing Affordability. Representing House District 63 in Utah County, Rep. Whyte discusses his journey into public service, the root causes of Utah’s housing shortage, and how policymakers are working together to make homeownership more affordable.

My colleagues and I met for our last interim meetings of the year in November. You can watch the full recordings of the meetings at le.utah.gov or click here to read the highlights. Topics discussed included state budgets, taxes, housing, energy, infrastructure, education, elections, deregulation, crime, health and human services, and dozens of more issues impacting all aspects of the state.

I look forward to taking what I have learned throughout the interim process to help pass meaningful legislation for our communities in the upcoming 2025 general legislative session that starts January 21, 2025.

To report back to you, a few items of note in relation to questions I’ve received from you in our House District:

Artificial Intelligence (AI): The Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy, created by the Legislature and opened in May 2024, shared a presentation of groundbreaking work being done in the state to provide consumer protections while allowing responsible use, especially in the areas of mental health counseling. Details can be found here.

Water Infrastructure Funding: We received a presentation on a study of the use of property tax to fund water infrastructure, treatment, and delivery. The presentation can be found here and the study can be found here.

Consumer Protection: The Business and Labor Committee approved a committee bill for the 2025 General Session titled “Consumer Protection Amendments” which will amend provisions relating to consumer protection and deceptive sales practices.

Residential Solar Panel Disclosures: The Business and Labor Committee approved a committee bill for the 2025 General Session titled “Residential Solar Panel Consumer Protection Amendments” which would establish additional protections for customers who purchase solar panels for their homes.

Our Beehive State is nationally recognized for comprehensive and sustainable budget practices, including the deployment of long-term budget assessments and budget stress tests.

An early adopter to budget sustainability tools, Utah is one of only eight states to harness both practices and one of two states in the nation to boast a AAA credit rating. These assessments help the Utah Legislature craft a balanced budget year after year.

Long-term budget assessments project revenue and spending several years into the future to determine where the state of Utah is likely to face chronic budget deficits. Stress tests estimate the size of budget shortfalls from potential recessions or other economic events to gauge preparedness. The strategies paid off during the pandemic, allowing the Legislature to balance the budget while minimizing harm to residents and the economy.

Pew Research has recommended other states follow Utah’s lead. “States could implement Utah’s strategy of paying for infrastructure with cash in most years to retain borrowing capacity for downturns,” says the report. “One advantage of Utah’s approach is that the state avoids some of the trade-offs between saving and spending, instead putting its dollars to work through the economic cycle rather than having them sit unused in an account potentially for years.”

Utahns deserve to know how the state spends their tax dollars. A decade ago, the Legislature authorized the creation of the tool that reasonably estimates how much you paid in taxes and what those dollars fund in state government.

The Taxpayer Receipt is an easy-to-use online tool. Get an estimate for your household here.

This past week as we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving and turned our minds and hearts in gratitude to God, family, friends, and the freedoms we enjoy, I read the following Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations shared in the Deseret News (Nov. 30, 2024) and I thought you would enjoy these inspiring words.

Abraham Lincoln:

In the summer of 1863 amidst the carnage and uncertainty of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln shared the following Thanksgiving Proclamation. Noting recent military victories, Lincoln said, “But these victories have been accorded not without sacrifices of life, limb, health and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal and patriotic citizens. Domestic affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fearful bereavements…. It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father and the power of His hand equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows.” Lincoln set aside August 6 as a day “for national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer” and invited “the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship and in the forms approved by their own consciences render the homage due to the Divine Majority for the wonderful things He has done in the nation’s behalf and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion…” Later in the fall, Lincoln issued a better-known proclamation in which he enumerated the good things of the nation despite the war. “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things… They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

Franklin Roosevelt:

In 1944, as World War II raged, Franklin D. Roosevelt told the nation, “I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas. Let every man of every creed go to his own version of the Scriptures for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.”

George Washington:

On November 26, 1789, George Washington proclaimed the first presidentially denoted Thanksgiving after ratification of the Constitution. It was to be a day, he said, “devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be – for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation – for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence…”

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