Marty (00:00:25): Uh I don’t know what we say, I guess we still go with Senator, that’s your elected title but it’s President and CEO now.

Todd Weiler (00:00:32): Or Todd, or Todd.

Marty (00:00:34): Yeah Todd, well uh appreciate you being here. Let’s start the same place we tend to start with all of our guests because I think there are a lot of people in the Utah political sphere who may know you but don’t necessarily know you well. So let’s start with the bio stuff. Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where did you go to school?

Todd Weiler (00:00:53): Ironically enough for Utah, this is unusual. I was born in Georgia, grew up in Illinois in the Chicago suburbs, kind of distant suburbs. Um, and uh but not too far from where Kurt Bramble grew up ironically enough and Stewart Reid went to my same elementary school. I served in the Senate with him for two years. And uh I came out to Utah for BYU and I married a girl from Spanish Fork and been living happily ever after ever since, so.

Marty (00:01:21): You know you say it might be odd, I think I would have to do the math but probably of the 15 guests we’ve had before you on this show, I bet at least half I was like, “Well where in Utah are you from?” and they go, “Oh I actually was born somewhere else.” So we actually have a lot of transplants.

Todd Weiler (00:01:38): I do think, if you look at uh legislators like Kurt Bramble and Greg Hughes and me who all grew up outside of Utah, we don’t have that Utah passive-aggressive, Utah nice. We’re a little bit more blunt and sometimes I think people find that offensive although I don’t think that’s how it’s intended by any of us. So.

Marty (00:01:58): Have you learned to speak the Utah dialect of passive aggression at all? Even to strategically deploy it?

Todd Weiler (00:02:04): Not really. Not really. I think that window closed at some point.

Marty (00:02:09): Fair enough. Uh okay, so you get here, you marry a Spanish Fork girl, you end up staying here, you go to BYU law. What do you do after school?

Todd Weiler (00:02:18): Uh I’ve been working up until well, last month, I’ve been working for Salt Lake based law firms um since 1995, although I did work in-house for a uh consulting company in Layton for about seven years. I was their in-house general counsel.

Marty (00:02:34): What do you like about practicing law?

Todd Weiler (00:02:36): I like helping people solve problems that they can’t solve on their own. And I like, I like going to court and giving, you know, making arguments and crossing—I love everything about being a courtroom litigator. And I get to take some of those skills with me into the Senate because, you know, I give speeches on the Senate floor and sometimes I cross-examine people in committee which they don’t like it when I dig in, they don’t always like that. But um, that’s kind of fun for me. And I you know, um, I grew up with a father who dropped out of high school and was worked as a custodian most of his life, he’s passed on now. So like I didn’t, some people have like accused me of like growing up with this privileged silver spoon. I grew up mopping floors and cleaning toilets because my dad would pick me up from school and take me to work with him. So, and that was one of the best things for me because A, I learned how to work and B, I got to spend a lot of time with my dad. So.

Marty (00:03:36): Was your dad a big advocate for you to go to college, get a terminal degree?

Todd Weiler (00:03:41): I think yes and no. I think um, I’m not sure he valued it as much as I did at the time because watching him it’s like, I want another path. But once I graduated from college, once I graduated from law school, and even when I became a legislator, he was so proud. I’d go to South Carolina—cause I grew up in Illinois but then my parents moved back to the South—and like we’d go in the gas station and say, “Hey my son’s a lawyer,” and I’m like, “Dad, they don’t care,” you know, but he was so proud of me, which you know that’s nice to have a, to know that your father’s proud of you. So.

Marty (00:04:16): Tell me about your mom, did she have a career or what was she—?

Todd Weiler (00:04:20): She was kind of your typical stay-at-home mom. Sometimes she helped clean other people’s houses to make ends meet. I didn’t grow up wealthy. We were middle class, we had food on the table and things. Um, she was, my dad always said she was really, he married this little quiet girl and then she changed, so she uh she stood up for herself and that was a good role model for me and I think my dad sometimes just wished she would do whatever he wanted her to.

Marty (00:04:47): Do you come from a big family or?

Todd Weiler (00:04:49): Six kids, yeah. I’m Peter in the Brady Bunch, I’m third out of six. Three boys, three girls. So.

Marty (00:04:55): So you’re kind of in the middle then. Are you the youngest?

Todd Weiler (00:05:00): Third out of six. Yeah, three younger siblings, yeah.

Marty (00:05:03): How does being a middle child impact who you are today?

Todd Weiler (00:05:06): I loved being a middle child. And I think middle children are the best negotiators because you kind of have to work with the older siblings who are bigger and stronger than you, and then you have the younger siblings that you you could dominate physically if you wanted to, but I think it made me a better negotiator and maybe a uh learn how to kind of please people and get along. So.

Marty (00:05:27): You live in the North Salt Lake, Bountiful area now?

Todd Weiler (00:05:30): I live in Woods Cross, which is right in that area. Nobody knows where the boundaries are so.

Marty (00:05:36): Yeah. Uh, how many uh how many kids do you have and how many are still at home?

Todd Weiler (00:05:40): I have four kids, they’re all married, I have four grandkids. Um, weirdly, all of my kids grew up in Davis County um and all of them now own homes in Utah County. So I don’t know where I failed as a parent, but they all live between um North Orem and Lehi. So.

Marty (00:05:58): So you get to deal with the traffic of driving across Salt Lake County decently often?

Todd Weiler (00:06:02): Oh yeah. And two of my kids live right by that Primary Children’s Hospital, the new one in Lehi, so I’m down there a lot.

Marty (00:06:10): Was your game plan always to go into law, was that something you decided pretty early on or how did you land on that?

Todd Weiler (00:06:16): You know, when I was a little kid I had this little booklet and every year I’d paste my school picture in there and I’d answer questions. And in first and second grade I wanted to be an ice cream man. And third grade it said lawyer. And lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. So starting in third grade I wanted to be a lawyer and, and here I am.

Marty (00:06:34): I guess in fairness I asked you what do you like about being a lawyer. What will you like about notbeing a lawyer?

Todd Weiler (00:06:40): I will love not having to track my time and send invoices to my clients for every time they call me or email me or I write a motion for them. Because I really love helping people and I really love dealing with people, I’m a people person. I hated tracking my time with billable hours, and I hated sending them an invoice. And I often cut my, I wasn’t a very good lawyer because I’d often cut my own time because I’m like “Ah, that’s too much for them.” Um, my law firm’s like “Why are you doing that?” So anyway they were nice but you know it’s hard. Yeah.

Marty (00:07:11): That balance, that push and tug of the billable hours. Um, how long have you been in the Senate now? It feels like for a long time.

Todd Weiler (00:07:19): Since June of 2012. So 14 and a half years.

Marty (00:07:23): So you got in in June, did you come in as a midterm…

Todd Weiler (00:07:26): I’m sorry, January 2012. I did come in midterm but it was off-year. So I replaced Dan Liljenquist when he resigned to run against Orrin Hatch. And at the same time Carl Wimmer resigned to run for Congress and Dan McCay replaced him, and then Dave Clark resigned to run for Congress and Lowry Snow replaced him. So we, the three of us all came in as an off-year election cycle but the same week in January 2012.

Marty (00:07:53): Starting to feel like an elder statesman there, you look around saying, “I remember when all of you weren’t here.”

Todd Weiler (00:08:00): Yes, yeah, yeah. In fact come January I’ll be the Senator with the third most seniority in the Senate. We don’t count House seniority in the Senate. So I’ll be behind Luz Escamilla and David Hinkins and I’ll be number three. Now Evan Vickers and Wayne Harper, they’ve been in the legislature longer than I have, but not in the Senate. And that’s a little interesting tidbit, when if you’re in the House for 16 years like Wayne Harper was, you come to the Senate, you’re a freshman. We put you on the front row, you get no… you get no carryover. So a lot of people are amazed to find that out. Now you still have all the knowledge, so it’s going to help you, but you’re on the front row, that’s where freshmen sit is on the front row.

Marty (00:08:44): How have you seen the Senate change in the time you’ve been there?

Todd Weiler (00:08:48): Well I think the Senate, you know, it’s a smaller body, it’s just a little bigger than a third of the House. And so it’s very personality driven. And you know, I mentioned him twice already but Curt Bramble was larger than life, you know, in the Senate. And so a big change for me was just two and a half years ago when when he left um, and he’s still around the Capitol uh, but you know he’s not a committee chair and and what not. Um, my first Senate session um Michael… I’m trying to, I just spaced his name. Um, he went on a mission to uh Italy. Um, anyways we had a Senate President who he was kind of a “if you cross me I’m going to punish you” sort of guy. And then he got replaced with Niederhauser who’s just just as nice as a puppy dog. And then we have had Adams who’s very strategic and kind of keeps his cards held uh close to the vest. So I’ve been able to work under three Senate Presidents, all of them very smart, talented leaders, and I’ve been able to learn and watch from all of them and they’ve all different styles. So I think the Senate um is slightly more conservative today than maybe when I joined. Um, the House I think is a lot more conservative than when I joined. Um, so.

Marty (00:10:04): In what way do you find the House to be most conservative? Like I don’t think you’d find many people who would disagree with you there. I just wonder like specifically when you say, “Hey just generally they’ve shifted conservative,” can you maybe point to a couple things where you’d say maybe the House, maybe the Senate as well, has shifted?

Todd Weiler (00:10:19): Well, and I’m not trying to pick fights because I really admire and respect most of my House colleagues. But I would also say the House has probably, I said more conservative, I would say the House has become a lot more populist um under Trump. Um, especially Trump 2, his second term. Um, and the Senate um I think has moved in that direction but less so than the House. So I’m not trying to pick fights with anybody, it’s just kind of what I’m seeing from the sidelines.

Marty (00:10:47): You’ve been there long enough that you’ve seen a lot of issues come and go and some stay there the whole time but evolve. I wonder as you look back, not to make this too much of an obituary, a retrospective here, but like as you look back on your time there so far. Can you look at something and say this is a decision that really defined who I was as a Senator, and maybe something where you’d say man I wish I had a second go at that issue?

Todd Weiler (00:11:11): Well, um, I’m going to answer this way, Marty. I was on a City Council for four years and you have to learn to grow a spine. And City Council, man, my heart goes out to those people because they’re making decisions that directly impact their neighbors. And you know you sometimes you’re afraid to go to church after a City Council meeting. At the state legislature we’re kind of insulated, so I may have somebody mad at me but they might be in St. George, they might be in Logan, but it’s usually not my next-door neighbor, sometimes it is. Um, and so I think uh you have to grow a spine uh if you’re gonna last in an elected- in any elected office. But um, more importantly, I think I’ve learned most from the votes that uh I know I got wrong. And so I’ll give you one example, and Margaret Dayton won’t like that but she probably won’t watch this. But she ran a bill uh to to only, there’s there’s three levels of sex ed in schools nationwide. There’s abstinence-based which is like Goldilocks, it’s in the middle, there’s abstinence-only, and then there’s uh comprehensive sex ed. And Utah, and this will be a shock to most people and people don’t believe me but trust me I’ve done my research, Utah is abstinence-based which puts us in the majority of states. So there’s very few states that are not abstinence-based. Some of them are comprehensive and that like California, so that’s where you’re gonna get the sex, you’re gonna get the um I’m sorry the protection, the birth control, and you’re gonna get STD stuff like that. That’s the only difference uh between abstinence-based and that. And then abstinence-only just says don’t have sex, period. Um, and so Margaret had run a bill uh to move us to abstinence-only. Um, which you know uh I you know I can defend that. But I don’t know, with you know, Salt Lake County, with I you know I don’t know, not all parents are sitting down and talking to their kids about the birds and the bees, and they’re not always have two parents in the home. And so I voted for that, I felt a little bit pressured to vote for that. Um, and and and and the Governor, Governor Herbert vetoed that and I’m kind of glad he did. So I’m glad that we are in the majority of states that we’re giving our kids the tools that I think they need. Um, so that I learned a lot. I learned that I need to trust my instincts and I’m not going to get I’m not going to get bullied into voting for bad policy, what I think is the wrong policy. Yeah.

Marty (00:13:41): Mentioning that you’re sort of an elder statesman there in the Senate, you get these freshmen who come in, maybe not so much the ones that make that transition from the House, you’ve got uh Fia Fia going to make that transition most likely this year. Maybe some others. Jill Koford in the same position. So maybe not someone who’s been in the legislature, but if you get like a true freshman, “This is my first, I ran for the Senate first, this is where I am, it’s my first session.” What’s some of the advice that you find yourself either giving or wanting to give to someone in that position?

Todd Weiler (00:14:14): Oh I give this advice all the time and it’s probably too long for your show, but I’m going to tell you two things that I always tell people, whether they ask me or not. Number one, if you tell a stakeholder, and that’s a nice word for lobbyist, and there’s by the way, we’re outnumbered at the legislature 5-to-1. There’s 500 lobbyists, there’s 100 legislators. If you tell a lobbyist that you’re with them or you’re, if you tell a lobbyist “I’m a no on this,” you know, or “I’m a yes on this,” and you change your mind, you need to go back and tell the lobbyist. And and you might say why, you know those people are scum. Because lobbyists play a very important role. I cannot be an expert on 200 issues at one time. And the lobbyists on one issue can educate me, and a good lobbyist, if I say “Well tell me the other side,” they’ll tell me the other side. And because they they value their relationship with me more than one vote for any one client and one bill. Uh, the second thing I tell them is, anything you say in the Capitol will get back to the person you’re saying it about. So there are no secrets. And faster than you think. Yes, yes, there are no secrets. And so if you’re if you’re trash talking another legislator, they’re going to find out about it. Um, and so either don’t do it or just know they will hear about it. So those are the probably my two best pieces of advice.

Marty (00:15:28): We’re coming up on Labor Day which I always feel is when things start to ramp up. I mean stuff kind of gets done in the summer, but July is kind of dead, August a little bit, but we’re sort of like the unofficial end of summer. Yeah, but we’re sort of like, you know by the time we get to the 8th of September, we’re starting to ramp up on what’s what’s coming up this session. Um, so I guess I’ll start with that question. What’s coming up this session either for you or what kind of session do you think we’re looking at?

Todd Weiler (00:15:58): So um, everybody tends to focus on policy, but the most important thing that we do every session is the budget. And um, and what we found out last month, and this was certainly a surprise to me, was that we had underfunded our Medicaid by $150 million and we have to fund all of that out of next fiscal year’s budget. So I think we’re, you know we’ve kind of had a tight budget the last two years, I’m expecting it’s going to be even tighter um, this go around. And so, and that does affect the policy, because if you run a policy bill and it’s gonna uh, we evaluate that our fiscal analysts say “Well this is gonna cost the state 3 million dollars in lost revenue.” So for instance, when we cut your taxes a quarter or two, you know, two-tenths of a percent, that cost about 80 million dollars or 60 million dollars. So we have to fund that. So I think it’s less likely we’re going to get a sixth tax cut in a row in in income tax next year. It’s possible, but it’s less likely. Um, policy-wise I think there’s going to be a lot of discussion about data centers, I think there’s going to be a lot of discussion about MIDA. Because every legislative body in the world, including Utah’s, we are we are reactive. We’re not great at being proactive, but we are reactive. And while we’re while I’m talking about data centers, we passed a very good data center bill last session. And it went into effect on May 6th. Which is why there was so much pressure to approve the STRATOS project by May 4th, so the new law would not go into effect. And the reason I say that, and I’m not defending the STRATOS process—it was horrible, um, and we’ve all learned that. But the problem is, is we already fixed some of the problems with with approval of data centers, but we’re not going to get any credit for that because people are just going to point to STRATOS and say you need to do more. And so my fear is maybe that pendulum is going to go swing too far and become anti-business um, because we actually do need um AI uh in the future.

Marty (00:18:14): How do you balance that as a legislator, uh knowing that like, take that exact example with the STRATOS project. That, hey this is one that wasn’t handled appropriately, wasn’t processed the right way, even just the public outreach wasn’t wasn’t done appropriately. But there are a lot of other projects that are similar that are taking a much better process to get there. How I guess, my question would be how do you balance between, “I need to be representative of the feelings of my constituents,” but also you’re in a leadership role to say, “Hey we need to pump the brakes, not this one bad apple maybe didn’t spoil the whole bunch.”

Todd Weiler (00:18:50): So I’m gonna say this, I do not believe I’m smarter than my constituents. But I do believe on many issues I have easier access to relevant information than most of my constituents. So I represent 130,000 people. It’s impossible for me to call everyone of them on every issue and ask their input. I do get emails but a lot of them are cut and pasted from special interests that they get other people to push out. So what I try to do, and look at, I have some very liberal constituents, I have some very conservative constituents. Most of my constituents are in between those those extremes. Um, but what I try to do is I think if my constituents had the same in- information that I do, because I I am privileged in the sense that I get all kinds of information flowing to me. What would the majority of them decide? Uh so that’s kind of how I try to to decide it. Um, and it’s interesting to me because I’ll be sometimes I’m in a committee hearing and uh it’s a two hours long, and there’s something that happens for two minutes. And then the next day the Salt Lake Tribune, they’ll have a story on those two minutes at all. And then I’ll get 15 emails from people who read the story, and they’re regurgitating to me what the reporter said. And I want to say, “You know what, I read the story too. But I also was in the whole meeting and there’s actually some missing context here.” Not that the reporter lied, they just didn’t, you know, they just didn’t tell you about the 60 minutes before and the 58 minutes after.

Marty (00:20:25): Do you find that the outreach, whether it’s an email or a phone call, um, that it always leads—now, and has it always been this way, would be my question—with “I don’t like this and I think this is wrong,” like they come with an opinion rather than, “Hey, I may not know everything about this, but based on this, I don’t like this.” Is it, which way is it now and has it always been that way?

Todd Weiler (00:20:47): I think it depends um who they are. Because if it’s somebody I know and somebody who I who has kind of established a relationship of trust with me, I’m going to take it more seriously. Um, but I will tell you this, that and I speak to a lot of lawyer groups. I’ll say, if you’ll send me a bill, or if you’ll send me an email and say, “On line 58, I think you should change ‘and’ to ‘or’. On line 67, I think you should re- eliminate the word ‘not'” or something like that. I said 100% of the time, I am going to print out that email, I am going to show it to the bill sponsor, I am going to take it to committee and I am going to, you know, I’m going to evaluate each one of these changes. But if you just send me a bill that says “Data centers are bad, vote no on all data center bills,” that’s not necessarily as helpful. You can see the difference.

Marty (00:21:32): Yeah, it feels like a more of an emotional versus a logical, and logical plays better for you. Do you think that’s the case for a lot of legislators?

Todd Weiler (00:21:40): I I I can’t say for them. I would guess so. Uh I don’t think they all think the same way I do. Some of them are probably smarter than I am. Um, the other thing I’m going to say is sometimes a bill might have, let’s say 10 different parts, and somebody is opposing one of the parts, and I’ll say something like, “Well if we amend out that part are you okay with the other nine?” and then people are like, “Just vote no,” you know, because maybe they went to a meeting or maybe they got an email that just said oppose this bill. And a lot of times it’s more layered than that. And and and sometimes people will text me on the last day of the session. I say, “Well did you see the latest sub?” “No, what did it do?” You know, and so it’s hard, and look at, I I sympathize with these people. It’s hard to keep up, especially that last week of the session, things are happening so fast. So I do try to try to take all of that and and weigh it out. Yeah. But I’m not just counting noses. If I get 30 emails that say vote yes and 29 emails that vote no, I’m not gonna vote yes every time. Not every email is created equal in that case, yeah.

Marty (00:22:50): Um, so you’ve got two more years left on your current term. Uh but you also just took a new job as the head of the Sutherland Institute. Uh how challenging will that be to sort of do both at the same time?

Todd Weiler (00:23:03): I don’t think it’ll be challenging at all because every, I mean with the exception of a few retirees, um we all have full-time jobs. I think it’ll be much easier for me uh in I’m gonna address two respects. Um, being a full-time lawyer, I’ve had several times when I had to choose between a court hearing for my client or a committee hearing, maybe even when I’m chairing. Now, I have other attorneys in my firm…

Marty (00:23:28): And all those clients are in jail now?

Todd Weiler (00:23:29): No, they’re not. I didn’t do… I didn’t do criminal law. So if I have a court hearing, I could A, maybe ask for a continuance, which the judges were usually more than happy, but a lot of my clients didn’t want to put their cases on hold. Or B, I could send another attorney, or C, I could try to juggle them. And usually I did C. Um, so I think being at Sutherland will be much less distracting during the session than my my uh law practice. And for those people that don’t know Sutherland, we’re all about faith, family, and freedom. And I don’t think there’s more than one or two votes in my whole career that Sutherland would have disagreed with. Not because I was trying to conform to Sutherland, just because uh we’re kind of singing from the same hymn book if you will. Um, but so let me say this, some people like Nate Blouin have said “Well that’s a conflict of interest.” I think it’s a much less conflict of interest where I’m at a think tank and not lobbying, and I’m I’m pushing faith, family, freedom, than at a law firm where anybody in the world could hire my law firm and start paying me as a lawyer and say, “Oh by the way, I want you to vote no on this.” And that has happened before, and I’m not saying I’ve done it, but if you want to talk about conflicts of interest, they’re there with every profession, but I think they’re especially there with law firms where anybody could hire me and and start pushing me on a policy.

Marty (00:24:55): I think a lot of people are familiar with the Sutherland Institute sort of the name. I don’t know if that many people who uh are in our audience would necessarily say I know exactly what a think tank does or what Sutherland does. So maybe you could just tell us a little bit about that, what what that is now and and where do you hope to take it, like continue on that path or make some changes along the way?

Todd Weiler (00:25:16): Yeah, so primarily we’re a research organization. And um, when I joined I said, “You guys are the ‘think’, I’ll be the ‘tank’.” Uh cause I’m not a, I’m not like a a scholarly academic researcher. I mean, you know, I have a law degree and I’m not stupid. But we put out white papers and we’ve been doing this for 30 years on issues like immigration reform and uh school choice and religious freedom and federalism. And then we do public opinion polling and we’ll share that with um, you know, the public and with legislators. We file a tremendous amount of amicus briefs, friend of the court briefs, with the Utah Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. And we’re often invited to do that by different attorneys like Gene Schaerr who you might be familiar with. And then um we do try to support good bills um, and good policies that we think will help families or will prosper our freedom or um um allow people to practice their faith um, you know, without government interference.

Marty (00:26:17): Is your focus primarily in Utah, other states, or federally where…?

Todd Weiler (00:26:22): I would say it’s primarily in Utah but uh maybe 80% Utah and 20% DC um or maybe 90/10. Uh but we are looking at maybe branching out to other western states and that’s one of my objectives. So.

Marty (00:26:37): Um, I just throw out a a conservative question then for you. The question itself may not be conservative but the topic in conservatism. You know, we’re coming up on the midterm elections, uh which means you’ve got a Trump presidency that presumably is in its final two years, and who knows uh whether we, what direction it goes back Democrat…

Todd Weiler (00:26:56): I don’t know, I’ve seen some Trump 2028 hats.

Marty (00:26:59): Yeah, you just you just never know, I suppose. A few things…

Todd Weiler (00:27:01): I’m teasing, I’m teasing.

Marty (00:27:02): Nothing would surprise me, I’ve I’ve lived through the entire 2020s at this point, nothing shocks me.

Todd Weiler (00:27:07): It would surprise me if he tried to run again, I I would be generally surprised by that.

Marty (00:27:11): Where do you think conservatism and the Republican Party in particular are headed in a, as we wrap up the Trump presidency and and move into whatever the next chapter may be?

Todd Weiler (00:27:23): Well I will tell you this, I consider myself a Ronald Reagan Republican. I think Sutherland fits very well in the Ronald Reagan Republican lane, the center-right lane. Um, Donald Trump is a lot of things, he’s not a Ronald Reagan Republican. Um, especially on things like tariffs and um I could go on. But so I think that there’s going to be a little bit of an identity crisis, I think whoever becomes the nominee in 2028 for the GOP, whether it’s Marco Rubio or JD Vance or Nikki Haley or whoever. I think they’re gonna kind of have to reset and redefine the party. Because Trump is a bit of a, a personality of a cult, and I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. And there are people that voted for Trump that may never vote for another Republican. Um, including some Democrats. And and he’s really tapped in and appealed to the blue-collar workers and and they and he rewarded them with overtime and no tax on tips and things like that. So I I think it’s to be determined uh what the Republican, what the post-Trump party looks like.

Marty (00:28:34): I didn’t mean to set up these next questions with the Trump uh light hanging over it, shining on it, but I do want to talk just about some issues that that are clearly important to Sutherland Institute. And and how those fit into like what you would, where you think we are as a country right now and where you think we need to go and where you think realistically we can get. Um, you know you talk about religious liberty. I think that’s one that for a lot of Utah uh voters and people who live in this state, certainly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spoken out on religious liberty a lot more frequently in the say the past four or five years. Um, where do you think we are right now, are we probably in a pretty good spot as a state but nationally where are we and and is the trend sort of heading in the right direction, where do you think we need to be on religious liberty?

Todd Weiler (00:29:26): Um, so I think there’s still a lot of work to do. Um, there was a student in Bountiful, my district, who on Ash Wednesday went to junior high and had the, the priest had put the ashes on his head and his teacher made him wipe it off. Now that teacher uh was uneducated on Ash Wednesday and like a lot of us uh in Utah probably are, I know a similar thing happened at the Capitol but we didn’t make him. But people were texting like, “Why does that guy have dirt on his forehead?” Um, but so so it’s a learning experience and I think once that teacher found out uh she was very repentant and humble about it. Uh so I think part of religious liberty is just letting people learn uh from, you know, somebody else’s mistakes. Um, I you know and and likewise if a teacher forced hypothetically a Jehovah’s Witness to stand up and and give the Pledge of Allegiance, that would be equally wrong. You know, um so so there’s that. But I think as we have um you know there’s a lot of discussion in the media about um Muslims um and we just had a a prominent Muslim candidate for Congress um in in the new district. So I I think as we have more um Muslims entering our school systems and maybe wanting to pray um, you know, on a, you know five times a day or face East or whatever, um I’m guessing that we’re going to have probably more of this conflict. Not just with Muslims but any religion. Um, so I think there’s still a long way to go. I think that there’s a lot of traditions and cultures that uh people are going to have to maybe expand their thinking on to accommodate other people’s religious practices.

Marty (00:31:13): Feels like in Utah generally though, if you have a mistake like that, it’s not adversarial, it’s often more of an issue of ignorance it sounds like.

Todd Weiler (00:31:21): Generally, yeah. And I ran a mini-RFRA bill, I won’t go into details, but one of the things we wanted to cover, that’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act on a state level, is let’s say a group of Muslim women went to Salt Lake City and said, “We don’t our religion, we’re not we can’t be in a swimming suit if there’s men in the room like that we’re not married to. Um, and could we have a, could we have every Wednesday from 8 to 9 where it’s just women only?” And let’s say Salt Lake City said, “Sure, we’ll accommodate you with that.” But then let’s say some man says, “Well, you’re discriminating against me” and he files a lawsuit. So so we might also have people trying to do the right thing and then somebody says, “Well, I’m going to break up this party.” And so I actually passed a bill that tried to deal with, you know, anticipate something like that.

Marty (00:32:05): Religious liberty is one, uh parent choice in schools is another one where you uh the organization has been pretty active. Tell me a little bit about the position you guys take on that.

Todd Weiler (00:32:15): Well I, you know, I went to public schools Marty, my my kids all went to public schools. My grandkids are now in public schools and I think all of them will be in public schools. And when I say that, I mean district schools. And so, and that’s true probably for 95% or more of the legislature. Um, so I am not anti-public school, anti-district schools, but I will tell you, I’ve been in office long enough and talked with enough families that I am 100% convinced that district schools don’t work for everyone. And this was especially um, I think the light, the spotlight got shined on it during COVID when a lot of parents were standing over their kids’ shoulders watching the classroom and and what was going on. And some of them were horrified. And so Sutherland strongly believes that parents should have a choice uh, and and sometimes that means something like the Utah Fits All scholarship. And I just want to tell you uh, you know, we’re funding uh these scholarships now at about $80 million a year at the legislature. Whereas, you know, um district schools are getting over $2 billion a year, um, and so we’re talking about like less than one-half of one percent. So there are some people walking around Salt Lake right now that think we’ve taken half the money out of district schools and put it in this scholarship program and it’s it’s just a drop in the ocean right now.

Marty (00:33:38): That leads me to an interesting point I’d love to get your take on, which is, how do you balance that, like we’re in such an interesting media landscape. But when you started in the legislature, there were two newspapers still printing. And now we’re on like a totally online world, we don’t hardly have any of that, the traditional media outlets seem to have lost some of their ability to totally direct the conversation but not entirely. Uh, how do you right now go about educating the public on what you’re trying to accomplish in the legislature? And how big of a challenge has it become?

Todd Weiler (00:34:10): You’re kind of a communications guru. The legislature, one of our big blind spots, one of the things we’re not good at is communications. And um, and when we do try to, you know, shape the narrative, we’re often accused of being manipulative or um whatever. And you know what, there’s a, you know this, everybody knows this, there’s a lot of inherent distrust of politicians. We’re only in it for ourselves, we’re getting bribed, uh blah blah blah. And and I just want to say in my 15 years, 14.5 years at the Capitol, what I’ve seen with very few exceptions is good people trying to do their best with what they know and what they have. But with that said, uh I don’t know that Congress is any better at communicating than the state legislature is, but um I I think, you know, uh we try to do what’s right and sometimes you got to let the chips fall where they may. And and I’ll tell you, I mentioned the data centers earlier. Most of the emails and the opposition to the STRATOS project in early May, and again, the process was horrible, but it was based on misinformation. I mean, that project’s not going to take any water out of the Great Salt Lake, it’s not going to take any energy off the grid, but people kind of heard something and they just ran with it. And it seemed like a lot of people wanted to believe, wanted to believe whatever they heard.

Marty (00:35:28): Well in that specific situation just speaking of the communications strategy right, that the opposition was on offense. And suddenly that put the public officials on defense, and it’s quicker for an organization to get their message right against it than it was to get the facts straight and say, “Hey, you may be right in some instances, you may have some valid points, but it sort of snowballed on them very quickly.”

Todd Weiler (00:35:50): Yeah, and you have this small City Council that wasn’t really probably sufficiently trained or prepared for the deluge of opposition that came. Anyway, it was I mean you could probably write a case study on what went wrong with with all of that last May.

Marty (00:36:06): I’ll run a little short on time so I want to finish with the lightning round. Are you ready for the lightning round? Not all these are terribly serious questions. What’s your favorite food?

Todd Weiler (00:36:15): Oh. Oh I don’t know. Um, gosh, I pizza.

Marty (00:36:19): Pizza. That’s a pretty safe answer and one people default to a lot. What are your toppings on pizza? What’s your go-to pizza order?

Todd Weiler (00:36:26): Oh I I didn’t grow up with this but I like Canadian bacon and pineapple. And I know people are going to hate me for that, but I like that, that’s fine.

Marty (00:36:34): I think we’ve asked that question three times and all three have come back with Hawaiian. There’s no bad pizza.

Todd Weiler (00:36:40): I disagree, I think there is bad, but that’s okay. I’ll eat pepperoni, but it’s not my favorite. Like, so.

Marty (00:36:47): You may have answered this one already but favorite political figure, current or historical?

Todd Weiler (00:36:51): Ronald Reagan, I’ll go with Reagan.

Marty (00:36:54): Uh alright give me a book, a podcast, a TV show, or a movie recommendation. Something you’ve seen and consumed lately that other people should know about.

Todd Weiler (00:37:02): I really liked uh this Apple TV series called Severance that came out last winter. It’s weird, I like weird stuff because when I’m watching like a show, I kind of want to escape reality for a minute.

Marty (00:37:13): What’s it about?

Todd Weiler (00:37:15): Uh, it’s kind of an end-of-the-world scenario. And I’ll just leave it at that. It’s created by Vince Gilligan who did Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, and it’s not a continuation of that story but some of the actors kind of show up and it’s all based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So.

Marty (00:37:32): Uh, you’ve been a lawyer, you’ve been a legislator, uh you’re gonna run the Sutherland Institute. Uh what’s one job you haven’t tried that you would like to try?

Todd Weiler (00:37:41): Hmm. Uh, I would I would love to be able to fly an airplane. It’ll never happen, I mean I fly onthem.

Marty (00:37:51): We got that earlier, I had to follow up with like, commercial airliner or would you rather fly a jet?

Todd Weiler (00:37:57): Um, I think it’d be cool if I just could have my own private plane. I live right next to the Skypark Airport in Bountiful, Woods Cross. I’d like to be able to go down there and fly to St. George on my own, that’d be cool.

Marty (00:38:09): Alright, fair enough. Um, what’s a job you would NOT want to try?

Todd Weiler (00:38:13): Well, I told you I’ve been a janitor when I was a kid so that wasn’t as fun as it sounds. Um, I would not want anything that’s tedious like engineering or or like if I’m doing people’s tax returns. Like, kill me now. Like, I like to be uh, I don’t know, I like to be talking, I like to be kind of on the move. So anything that trapped me at a desk behind a computer all day.

Marty (00:38:36): You’ve got a janitorial background, but what is your least favorite chore?

Todd Weiler (00:38:41): Oh my least favorite chore. Um, probably uh the toilet, cleaning the toilet. I did that at my church a couple weeks ago. I’m like “Don’t they have enough youth groups to do this?” but…

Marty (00:38:52): Are you naturally an early bird or a night owl?

Todd Weiler (00:38:55): Night owl. Pretty much. I mean, I can play early bird when necessary, but I’m a night owl.

Marty (00:39:01): Uh, guilty pleasure or topic on the internet, what rabbit hole do you go down?

Todd Weiler (00:39:06): Oh well, politics. I mean that’s probably not fair. Travel. Politics and travel are probably two of my greatest interests.

Marty (00:39:13): Where’s the best place you’ve traveled? Favorite place?

Todd Weiler (00:39:15): Oh, well that’s hard to say. I mean, it’s hard to beat Paris, but I’m headed to Greece and Istanbul tomorrow.

Marty (00:39:23): Oh. Good timing. Well, we’ll have you back and get a report on that. Um, biggest pet peeve in politics or media?

Todd Weiler (00:39:31): Hypocrisy. So, if Biden did something and you think it’s wrong, but if Trump or Bush did it and you think it’s okay, I don’t like that. So I, I’m not perfect and I fail every day, we’re all hypocritical at some level. But I really try to say, if I oppose this when Clinton did it, then I want to oppose it if Bush or Trump does it, and vice versa.

Marty (00:39:55): Last one. I asked you about the advice you would give new members of the Senate, but how about this, what’s the best piece of advice you would give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself at say age 17?

Todd Weiler (00:40:06): Oh at 17? Uh, study harder… I mean I got pretty good grades. Um, oh, um, relationships. You know, it never dawned on me until I applied to law school that maybe I’d need to get an undergraduate professor to write a letter of recommendation to me. So I got them but like I didn’t, and then in law school, like I went to law school with Mike Lee. I never knew that those other kids in law school were actually going to grow up and be something important. Now I was pretty friendly in law school, but I didn’t have that forethought, like I didn’t know I was talking to a U.S. Senator and several of my classmates have become judges and things like that. So it didn’t dawn on me. The best thing you get from a college education is the network of people. That’s why people go to Harvard, just so they can be networked with their classmates the rest of their careers. So.

Marty (00:41:04): Todd Weiler, thanks so much for the time and best of luck in the in the new job.

Todd Weiler (00:41:08): Great interview, thank you. Appreciate it.