Jenny Wilson, Utah's Democratic Senate nominee and daughter of former Mayor Jim Wilson, details her fifth-generation roots tracing back to Orson Pratt. She advocates for fiscal discipline via balanced budgets, supports federal education standards with state flexibility, and champions LGBTQ housing rights alongside pro-choice autonomy. Wilson critiques the Republican primary between Romney and Kennedy, arguing local roots matter more than national profiles, while addressing Utah's 5-to-10-point Trump lean and the LDS Church's evolving social stances. Ultimately, she emphasizes diversifying government voices to reflect the community, challenging the state's entrenched political dynamics. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, that's why I thought, I was like, all right, well, Utah-hun, or something just didn't, but you are a fifth generation Utahn.
I said to you right before we started, I've actually never been to Utah, so I only know the things of Utah that sort of get out there, like John Stockton, Karl Malone, the jazz.
Well, my ancestors go back to the first person to even make it into the valley ahead of Brigham Young.
He was a scout for Brigham Young.
His name's Orson Pratt.
And he was head of the Pioneer Trail and looked into the valley and said, this is the place, even before officially Brigham Young said, this is the place.
So he'd actually started planting and irrigating before Brigham Young and the rest of them came in.
Yeah, so I kind of fell into politics not by choice.
My dad was the mayor of Salt Lake City in the 70s and 80s, and I was the kid of the mayor that would go with him around town and to visit the banker and, you know, the local religious leader, whomever.
And I guess I, of the five kids, ended up being the one, you know, stuck with this affliction.
Because obviously we're gonna talk about your politics and I did a little dig in here and I think there's some stuff, there's some points of agreement that we have for sure.
What I wish out of the Democrats is that the old school Democrats still existed.
What I've seen consistently is that as the progressives have gone further left, and I would say it's really out there now, they've sort of taken the whole party and any of the moderates or the blue dogs or whatever you wanna call that wing, I don't know, they're either silent or they're gone altogether.
Do you think that's a fair estimation, or how would you even define some of these things, like a blue dog Democrat versus a progressive?
Well, what, in the 90s, my memories of Bill Orton, and unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, but he's a pretty young congressman in the day, and I worked with him for about four years, and he was on the Budget Committee and the Banking Committee, and very concerned about the deficit.
So that had a great impression on me.
I learned a lot about entitlement reform, about discretionary spending, about our choices.
And I do think that as we see the deficit and the debt go up and up, The deficit, as you know, is tied to economic prosperity.
When we do well, our deficits are not as high.
Our overall debt keeps increasing.
So I really feel that we need to get back to some discipline.
And I think that that has been missed in recent years.
And I work on a Salt Lake County Council.
I'm elected now.
And we do balance the budget every year, and it's much tougher in years where we have economic decline.
And those are the years we can't do maybe some of the nice-to-haves.
So I think we need to get back to more of a fluid budget process where Congress recognizes, hey, this isn't such a good year.
Can we find a different way of budgeting so that we don't always, you know, give away things that we can't afford?
I feel really good about the role that I have at the local level.
I do think that there are certain things that really matter to us as a nation that we have to have in place.
One, of course, being defense.
Our interstate system and our highways and our connectivity and commerce.
There's so many things that if we were to be isolationist state to state really jeopardize our ability to act as a superpower, the one that we are, to be really, I think, the best of our nation.
But there are a lot of things that we should do locally.
You know, I worry a little about too much diversion when you look at education.
I don't want there to be a decision that we would go four days a week in one state
and not have basic standards.
So I think a basic level of standards, but then let states decide.
I mean, we've got California here being very different than Utah,
To me, I always say now, I would wanna kick all of education back to the states,
but then people ask a totally legit question, which I think is what you're saying.
or what if states start really doing very drastically different things.
What I would say is that maximum freedom, the ability to leave a state you don't like if you don't like what they're doing, I think that that's the better answer.
But I guess getting some, some baseline, I think is a sound.
And I do think, though, we look at the unique character of each of our states, and we need to foster that and find a way to, you know, really enable a state to do well on its own.
And, you know, we could start over.
We'd do it differently, wouldn't we?
But we have to understand that in 2018 there are certain things that are in place that, you know, the conversation needs to be how do we reform, maybe not dismantle.
That's one of the reasons I like what I do, is I have the opportunity to step in, look at how to make something better, and try and figure out a way to enact change.
Do you worry, as someone that you're saying you're pretty content with the work that you're doing now, and you've been able to say, no, we can't do this if we can't budget it, and it all kind of makes sense, and you let the chips fall where they may, that you could end up going to the swamp?
Where it seems like nothing changes and that it doesn't sound that fun to me.
You know what I mean?
There might be, you know, it's nice to maybe be on the national stage and playing with more high rollers and that kind of thing, but that you lose the real sort of ability to govern the way you would want to.
Yeah, I mean, we tend to be, to 5 to 10 points, the president's numbers and profile and polling tends to be about 10% higher in favor in Utah, so we still have a lot of people who are pro-Trump.
The core downtown Salt Lake, which is our kind of more progressive area, you're going to see the reverse of that.
And our urban area is probably 50-50.
So we're like a lot of states where you have a very progressive kind of core city and suburban area, 50-50, and then you get to a very conservative area in our state.
So as a state that generally runs red and that leans more conservative, for sure, as someone that's running as a Democrat, what's the primary process like first as a Democrat?
And we also, like every state, we have our own nomination process.
And the Republicans have a closed Republican system, so you have to affiliate with a Republican with an R on the voter file.
And so therefore, there actually are a lot of independents who are actually filing as Republicans because they want to vote that way and with that party.
We've debated it on the Democratic side, and because the Democrats are few and far between in my state, we register at 20-25%, but we do poll independents, as I mentioned.
You know, we're not in the driver's seat on some of those policies, so we just sort of work with whatever makes sense, because we're not in the We're not able to do anything about that.
Yeah, it always strikes me as one of those things where it's like, the closed primary does make sense to me because that's to nominate who you want out of that party, and if you just have an open primary, well, you could get all sorts of people who will never vote for any of those candidates purposely getting in to help candidates that they think are gonna be more handicapped, ultimately.
So I don't have, I know a lot of people think that the closed primary thing is somehow a conspiracy or anti-democratic or something, but I don't have a problem with that.
Because most people tend to affiliate independent.
I mean, people I know.
I mean, there are people like you and me, elected or in the media or whatever, that tend to be the insiders who obviously follow this and get very deeply entrenched in every step of the way.
And I think most Utahns are sort of in the middle.
And so, I don't know, that gets a little confusing, because if we close both, then where does an independent go?
Yeah, our big battle in the Republican Party right now is whether or not we're gonna do away with the caucus system and go to the conventions, rather, and go to a direct primary.
Is there anything else in Utah that you just see as like, just like the technical stuff, the technical problems related to voting or districting, gerrymandering, that sort of thing?
One is a redistricting commission ballot initiative that should likely pass.
They got the required signatures to get on, it seems, so that would require that the legislature listen to a redistricting commission that makes a recommendation.
But the decision does lie in the hands of the legislature in our state.
I've affiliated with the Democratic Party because I think the party's been the party that has battled for fairness and compassion over the years.
I mean, I have been pro-LGBTQ rights from day one.
I was the first on my council to move forward local policies.
We did, even before my election to the county council years ago, housing non-discrimination, but we didn't have medical fairness in terms of our health care plans at Salt Lake County.
So when I was first elected in 2004, I moved that and I couldn't get a Republican vote.
So it took several takes trying to redefine the benefits and ultimately we ended up passing it 6-3 with a Republican supporting us.
So I think issues like that have been key.
I think we have a very, one of the reasons I think I'm so active in politics in my state is that we don't have balance.
Back in my dad's era in the 70s, we did have a Republican governor, or we had a Democratic
governor rather.
It's been since the 70s since we had a Democrat in the U.S.
Senate from the state of Utah, and that's the person that Orrin Hatch defeated.
So I really believe that good government is a balanced government, and we live it and
see it on my county council, again with that 5-4.
We have a Democratic county executive.
We call it a mayor.
And so I feel like we're in a really good position in my day job now to bring about fairness and balance.
Yeah, it's interesting to stake out positions that you know are not the popular ones there just so that the system doesn't become too corroded or too stiff.
So it sounds to me sort of like you're socially liberal and fiscally conservative, basically.
I believe that women should have that right to choose.
One of the reasons I really, the more I've learned about younger women, you know, my own years with friends growing up, I see at times women who don't have the security that I've had my entire life with good parents and support are often Pray to being victimized, and so I think that a woman's right to choose is very much critical because of that.
And I know that, you know, in a very conservative state, I've had situations to support my sister who carried her child.
I've been friends with people who've made different decisions, and I just fundamentally believe that women need to be in the driver's seat on that decision, and we can't go back to the days of Real tragedies prior to Roe vs. Wade.
Well, I think that that's a decision for science and I think the courts have landed through Roe vs. Wade and so that's the best I can do but follow what we have in place now and I just don't think in 2018 we can go back in time.
Yeah, it's interesting because that's one of the ones where I've heard, you know, obviously there's a lot of Mormons in Utah, but I hear a lot of people that, you know, talk about the flyover states and they say that, you know, a lot of the Christian conservatives are just voting on that no matter what.
So again, it's a position where as someone not towing the conservative line on that, that's a serious uphill battle.
Well, you know, I'm baptized LDS and I have a great relationship with my friends who are still going to church regularly and my family members who are.
And I think it's a, I love any religion that lifts people up.
And there are times where I disagree with the church's politics.
I would very much defend separation of church and state.
And there are times where I might raise an eyebrow and go, wait a minute, this seems like it's overstepping a little bit.
But I do appreciate the LDS Church's incredible force for good in the Utah community by services and by creating a lot of support within our Salt Lake City area with You know, there's a food bank for members, and they make it open to people who are in general need.
And I think there's, again, at times I would have some differences certainly, but I support the role and the commitment.
And anybody who chooses to practice religion and it lifts up their life, that's a good thing.
Yeah, so because you're talking about all the good things that the church does, would you kick some of those social services back to churches and synagogues and mosques and everything else if you had the power to do so?
Because to me, again, as a small government guy, that's what I would love to see, and it sounds like some of that's happening.
I mean, I love the work that I'm able to do on the Salt Lake County Council when we have a business leader step up and support something, a little bit of county dollars as well, and we have, you know, public-private partnerships.
So, I think we see a lot of that now.
Could we take it further, perhaps?
But I think we then get into, you know, incentives and benefits.
And what I want to see in the community and what drives me is problem solving.
And I don't think that government is always the best vehicle for solving those problems.
I mean, we do have businesses, individuals, government, the web of all of that to solve
a problem and do it creatively.
I enjoy doing that at the local level and I think the federal level we can do that better and do more of that.
I've been invited to tour this city here in LA and San Francisco and Seattle with some of the U.S.
Senators, women.
And that was very educational for me and a great benefit to have some time with our three or four, maybe five of our U.S.
Senators on the Democratic side of the aisle.
And so I think just the conversations, the connection, I mean, fundamentally, I think the Democrats are trying to take back the Senate, and we'll see how things play out over the next six months or so in my race.
And I'm hopeful that we'll get some significant national support.
I think, I feel though my support should come from Utah and it is and I just get up every day and see what I can do to bring a check in and get low dollar contributors to give what they can and day to day and we'll see what happens.
Yeah, it's interesting to me because it seems like you're really in a unique position where you really seem to be fighting both sides.
Maybe you don't want me to totally present it that way, but you're obviously fighting the Republican side as a Democrat in a red state.
But also, what I mentioned earlier about, it seems to me that the DNC and the entire leadership from, you know, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and Keith Ellison and Tom Perez, like those guys seem way more left than some of the things you've talked about here.
So I don't, it's almost like, why would they want to support you?
Like, they're sort of against the stuff that they're kind of...
Well, actually, Tom Perez has visited Utah a couple of times.
He's pretty committed to playing in every zip code, and I think he's building towards that.
I mean, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have different influences within its governance structure.
So, I haven't given up on the DNC paying attention to Utah.
I think they've done a good job in the past year in really engaging and listening.
What's most important to me is that we get to the point where both parties actually recognize that there are cities and there are communities and they're all small towns aside from, you know, Los Angeles.
New York City, big cities in Florida, etc., Chicago, where, I mean, there are people on the ground in my state in need with, you know, that need government to lift them up or need some support in some way from community-based networks.
And I think that we have become both, and this isn't just the parties, this is Washington and how we govern, you know, a little too focused, I think, on urban centers.
Do you think we're just too reliant on government in general?
That the answer always seems, for both parties at this point, I mean, there's a couple outliers.
I think Rand Paul, I always bring him up, he's trying.
You obviously have disagreements with him on the amount of government, but I see him as someone that's earnestly trying to fight for what he believes in and usually falls short because the system doesn't allow it that much.
But that argument of how much government, the answer seems to always be more, unfortunately.
So it's funny, right, so that is the question, because the latter part of that, of course I believe all of those things, and I don't, I really try not to impugn the motives of the people that I disagree with in general, I'm not talking about you, but just in general.
But to me, the answer to solve those problems would be you just, the government keeps scaling back, keeps scaling back, keeps scaling back, hopefully private enterprise comes in, and you give people more self-reliance as opposed to creating a system that they kinda can't move out of, because I think there's a lot of evidence for that.
And then there's a lot of businesses that receive benefits and support, small businesses on up.
You know, we just allowed for a $1.5 trillion corporate tax cut without any requirement that people return it to wages and to growing companies.
And I see a lot of federal policies that have overly supported business.
And I think especially now in this era with that, I mean, I looked at and did a back of the napkin on our own taxes.
I did quite a bit of assessment when the tax bill came out at the end of the year to see what it would do for a family of four, a family of six, a larger Utah family.
And there are not many of us who are going to get a big benefit from that.
Now, the Mitt Romneys and a few others will.
And I think why in this era we've got to find a way to, if we are going to do tax Reform, tax simplification, that was a principle we talked about forever.
Yeah, is there any reason, though, to believe that the government can do these things?
Like, if you take just the general stagnation we talked about in Washington, and most of the congressmen who do nothing, and the senators who've been there forever and accomplished nothing, or it's just endless fighting, or all that, the idea That these people who often have never created any jobs and have never really made anything happen, I mean, I include Bernie in this for sure, the idea that they are the ones that are gonna figure out how to get the economy going when it really comes from the people, it comes from the local businesses, the small businesses, et cetera.
We should have specialists in, we should have debate, we shouldn't have lobbyists lined up, and we should actually have methods and systems to do what I do on the County Council, work with my colleagues, bring specialists in, listen to information, and make good decisions.
Yeah, I think you could probably draw a line from the Obamacare debate and how insane that got to everything that has led us to where we are at now.
Even during that, yeah, the Republicans wouldn't sit down and were going crazy the whole time, and Obama kept saying in the reelection campaign, we're gonna do it on C-SPAN, it's gonna be open-door C-SPAN, and it's like.
You're all just liars!
And the odd amount of congressmen and senators that were retiring in the middle of it after they would make a decision.
I mean, something just seemed very odd about the whole thing.
And I guess I feel maybe from going back, you know, maybe a full circle now to talking about my father again, I think in the 70s and the 80s, those things were more likely to happen.
And one of the things that led to my interest in this race was, like, I am a reformer.
I like you want to fix things.
So I want to go back and have a voice in the system wherever I can find an ally in doing some of the things you're suggesting, that we get down, we work through these things.
But I actually think that if that's too big a deal, initially at least, that I can serve my state.
And that was my major interest in running.
I think that we need a Democrat from our delegation.
We have six Rs.
We have 6-0 votes on everything.
And there are a lot of people in my community and in my state that aren't being served by that.
Yeah, just quickly to reverse back to something we talked about before, and you were saying about being able to sit down with people across the aisle and all that.
You mentioned right before we sat down that we have a mutual friend in Rick Grenell, who I think as we're taping this today, we think he just left for Germany.
He was finally confirmed after over a year of waiting to be the ambassador of Germany, so we're both thrilled.
You guys were old roommates, but he's a Trump-supporting Republican.
And I have enough sense of my own convictions that I'm not threatened by going to dinner with Republicans or working with them on my county council.
And I'll tell you, there are times when the four Democrats look over at the other side of the aisle and we're like, "We're
done. We're out."
But we have those conversations. We work through our budget together.
We have some votes that are cross-party lines and others that aren't. They typically are,
you know, some R's, some D's. And, you know, I think that's the reason that local people
or people who've worked at the local level like myself need to get to Congress.
We need to get more and more people who get government, who've worked in government, who've solved problems, and come in with that commitment to, you know, putting the time, effort, energy in to moving things forward.
Okay, so at the Republican convention, everyone thought, I think, or at least at the national level, everyone thought Mitt Romney was gonna walk in and clean this thing up, right?
The guy was the Republican nominee for president not too long ago and has all the media behind him and all the money and all that.
But Mike Kennedy won.
I don't know much about Mike Kennedy, so could you just briefly tell me a little bit about him and then we'll focus a little more on the Romney factor.
Right, and people would say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, didn't he kind of start Obamacare with Romneycare in Massachusetts and then was also running against it?
Yeah, and then we had the history with Trump where he was, I think delivered all would agree the most scathing speech against Trump, talking about his lack of values, his inability to govern, and was very much in the anybody but Trump camp.
Do you think when he had that moment, I remember when he gave that press conference, it was late, it looked like Trump was gonna win no matter what, but he gave that press conference.
I read it more as, and I think perhaps the electorate did too, that it was kind of like, ah, you lost this thing, so why would we listen to you?
Like the whole thing with Trump was about winning.
So it was like anyone that liked Trump wasn't gonna be like, oh, he is making a couple good points.
It's like, no, you were the loser.
They're trotting out the loser.
We tried it with McCain.
We tried it with Romney.
We tried it with more centrist people, even though I actually think Trump is sort of a centrist in his own bizarre way, but that's a whole other topic.
I mean, I look at Romney and I feel like, My biggest concern about a Romney in the Senate is, I think we just need somebody from Utah fighting for Utah.
And I think he's a national figure.
And I don't—I mean, if Romney does win the Senate race, people will notice.
Now, many have said, well, Romney's going to get a chairmanship.
Is that realistic?
I don't think so.
I mean, I can't imagine a Republican senator stepping aside for Romney to come and take—you know.
You know, when Romney got in, I actually thought Orrin Hatch would run again, because he loves the Senate, and he doesn't know anything else.
So I thought he might run again.
And when he didn't, it just didn't make sense to me, knowing Mitt.
Mitt's at the sunset of his career.
He's had a very successful career financially, and he's got kids and grandkids.
I figured, hey, at that point in my life, I'd be like looking to relax a little bit.
So it didn't seem to make sense.
And I think people went, I worried a little as a candidate, like, oh my goodness, is Mitt Romney, am I even going to keep the lights on in the campaign headquarters?
And what I found is that people are asking that question.
How long has he lived here?
People are even saying, does he meet residency?
Which he does.
He's been in Utah long enough now, again.
But I do think that there are people wondering, you know, what is, why?
Why the Mitt Romney candidacy?
And that may have been part of the reason that this division occurred within the Republican Party.
Yeah, it's an interesting place as a Democrat because he's so successful as a businessman and generally Democrats want to tax businessmen more, which is something you've already alluded to here, and yet at the same time you're also saying that he ran the Olympic I mean, going back to this tax bill, if we had the one chance at reform, I wanted it done differently.
By the way, I want to talk some more. I just don't want to give away more.
I mean, going back to this tax bill, if we had the one chance at reform, I wanted it done differently.
But I do think that, you know, we'll just see if the public, if Utah aligns with Mitt Romney candidacy.
I fundamentally believe in balance in my state, and that's what I've been fighting for.
And I, you know, in my day life as a county elected, I'll work on canyon protection or, you know, advancing a development or protecting our water and our air.
I'll do all of those things.
But I fundamentally am really fighting as a Democrat for balance.
Because I think it's really critical to a less corrupt system, a more even playing field, all voices heard in the system.
We don't have a lot of women in politics in Utah.
We don't have a lot of women in politics anywhere, including the U.S.
Senate.
So I think getting more diversity, more diverse voices in is really important.
Those are the things I care quite a bit about, and we'll see if my vision for the state resonates with people versus Romney's.
So I'm glad you mentioned that, because one of my biggest issues right now with the Democrats and with the left, and especially with the progressives, and my whole audience knows this, because I beat this thing endlessly, is identity politics.
That you shouldn't be voting for a woman just because she's a woman, you shouldn't be voting for a black person just because they're black, or a white person because they're white, or any of those ridiculous things.
When you talk about that sort of diversity, I think you sort of said it both ways there, like you want some more women, which in and of itself, of course, is not a bad thing.
But what I think always gets lost in that is diversity of thought.
And that's what I'm more concerned about.
And I don't see anyone talking about that on the left anymore.
Do you think some of that is not just that it's old, crusty white men doing it?
I just think it's sort of too easy to lay it on that, that perhaps also that women are interested in other things at some level.
The idea that we'd ever get it to 50-50, or that it should be 50-50, that seems like very strange engineering of things.
These women are qualified and have the right ideas and all that, and it ends up being 70% women and 30% men.
I think that's, I don't, I just don't care what it is other than the ideas, but there's something that when people talk about, well, we should, you know, it's like, we should have this represent, if they represent this amount of the population, if you're talking about an ethnicity, they should have this amount of representation in politics.
That seems incredibly dangerous and actually prejudiced to me.
Well, I just think that you have to look at barriers for participation.
I mean, the good news is we're seeing a lot of women graduate from college now for the first time, so maybe that will change over time, right?
But I do think there's something to be said for reform and change.
I think maybe we just disagree on this point, but I'd love to see more people reflecting the percentages of our community serving in government because I think we then end up having more, you know, voices for people who have lived a certain way or have some understanding of, you know, individual or kind of collective need within a given community.
Yeah, but I will say, like, I want it to be very clear that I don't, not every woman in the state of Utah needs to want to run for the U.S.
Senate, for goodness sakes, right?
I value women who choose to raise their children at home and have that option within their family.
And that, you know, I, my kids kind of tease me because I'm a sort of half a cook, I'm not a very good cook, and I look at these women who, like, are making like their home and their environment for their
family just incredibly rich and interesting through the commitment they make in that way.
And I don't for a minute take anything away from that because I'm taking a different path.
As we said, you've got an uphill battle here in a state that is not the color that you are, because everyone's obsessed with this silly blue and red stuff.