There have been many charges that the LDS Church controls Utah politics. Rod Decker says the Church is involved in state politics but doesn’t wield as much influence as it could. I was really surprised at his answer.
Rod: The church is somewhat involved in state politics, but it depends on what you mean by involved. Utah politics are essentially what Latter-day Saints want. Mostly that’s what it is. They elect the Republicans and they control the governor and they control the legislature, and they decide what happens in Utah politics, but the church as an institution doesn’t do a lot. It does some, but not a lot in Utah politics. There are two polls…
GT: Would you say the church is less involved than the critics claim?
Rod: Yeah. Now if you talk to conservative Latter-day Saint Republicans, real conservatives, they say they teach them correct principles and let them decide on their own. That’s sort of what happens. The Latter-day Saints are conservative. They don’t like Washington. They’re conservative economically, and giving rise to everything else, they’re conservative on moral issues. They are conservative about sex and families and morals, and that’s the way they vote. That’s what determines Utah politics and that’s what has determined it since 1976. So Utah politics are Latter-day Saint politics. The church hires a permanent staff of lobbyists. They go up the legislature, tell lawmakers what they want–the lawmakers refer to them privately as the home teachers. The home teachers came by and talked to me.
But the church doesn’t get what it wants all the time. They wanted a rule to make it illegal to secretly tape an interview with your Bishop. The people said, what’s this? Or secretly tape a phone call with your bishop. No, they didn’t get that. They’ve had other things they don’t they don’t get, but mostly on moral issues they get what they want. Sometimes they speak. They say they only talk on moral issues. They get to say what a moral issue is. They try to speak mostly on moral issues. They don’t want to appear bossy and powerful and running things. Utah legislators don’t want the Church telling them what to do. Utah voters, the Latter-day Saints vote Republican. Non-Mormons vote Democratic. There are more Latter-day Saint voters than non-Mormon voters, so they win. But by and large, bishops, etc don’t tell them what to do. There are two polls. Both of them polled people of various religions. Latter-day Saints was the one that said they are least likely to hear politics from their pulpit of any religion. They say no.
GT: So compared to evangelicals, the LDS Church does stay out of politics more than say evangelicals.
Rod: That’s what [LDS members] say.
We also talk about some recent political issues in Utah, and the LDS Church’s influence, including medical marijuana, Medicaid for the poor, and even how gerrymandering affects non-LDS voters.
Utah politics are different than national politics in a few different ways. For example, Utah governors enjoy the highest ratings of governors in any state! Does LDS Church culture play a role in this?
Rod: The best explanation I’ve heard was [former Utah Governor] Mike Leavitt. I asked him about it. He said, “If you do an okay job, they sort of sustain you.” Sustain is a Latter-day Saint word. The Latter-day Saints sustain people in their congregations and they always do it unanimously. There is a Latter-day Saint tradition of supporting leaders, and it extends to governors, if you do an okay job. So Utah has popular governors, more popular than maybe any other state. They’re certainly contenders and Utah has long serving governors.
And state politicians are more concerned with balance budgets than cutting taxes.
Rod: Utah Republicans are tax-cutters in Washington and budget-balancers in Utah. The Utah legislature and Utah governors are scrupulous about balancing the budget. They’re careful. Occasionally, there might be a very small deficit that slips in and they immediately pay it off the next year. They’re careful, and they’ve been that way for decades. They weren’t always that way. But they’ve been that way for decades. But in Washington, all the Utah Republicans voted for Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, voted for Donald Trump’s tax cuts, voted for George W. Bush’s tax cuts. Now, they say we should cut spending to balance the budget, but they know that’s not going to happen. They voted for tax cuts, even though it increased the deficit.
Now here, they like tax cuts too. They cut taxes, but they don’t cut taxes, if it’ll make a deficit ever. And they’ll raise taxes if they need to, to balance the budget. In Utah, a balanced-budget comes first. In Washington, tax cuts come first. The difference is that Utah Republicans own Utah State Government. They want it to be strong and properly run. Whatever strength Washington has, it’s eventually going to be used against us. Put them in deficit. Cut the taxes. Starve the beast. Do everything you can to beat up on them, because even so, even after you’ve done everything you can, they’re going to come out here and run you off federal land or declare a monument or make you allow abortions. I mean, they’re going to do bad stuff to you out here. So you don’t want them any stronger than you have to have them.
We’ll also talk about the national monument controversies among Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Trump. Rod Decker tells more about how Utah politics are different from the nation.
Up to this point, Rod Decker and I have discussed mostly Utah political history, but I also talked to BYU professor Dr. Alex Baugh. Of course you all know that Joseph Smith had a revelation that Jackson County, Missouri was the promised land. It turns out that the Jackson Country residents weren’t on board with that revelation. It was a very tumultuous time when Mormons and Missourians both wanted to control the local politics. Dr. Baugh describes many of the reasons the two groups didn’t get along.
Alex: So, politically, we’re basically Democrats now in Jackson County.
GT: Mormons were Democrats. Did you just say that?
Alex: No question. Yeah. Yeah.
GT: What happened?
Alex: So politically, we were Democrats. Jackson County is named after Andrew Jackson. I mean, the Jacksonian Democracy, Jackson. So politically, we we’re a little more aligned that way, but that pans out differently depending on where we were, and so on. But there were definitely not many Whigs[1] in the church. So there’s the political issue, although, again, I think what Missourians were more worried about, Rick, was not so much that Mormons were Democrats, but that the Mormons would hold office and be the ones who would govern. They kicked us out of Jackson County in 1833, at the right time if you want to say it that way. Had Mormons continue to immigrate, they would have outnumbered the local citizenry. There’s no question. So the political aspect was more numbers than the difference in political power.
GT: Okay.
Alex: They just didn’t want the Mormons being the the ones who are making the laws and carrying out the edicts, whatever.
GT: So was it religion, or was it politics that was the bigger issue?
Alex: Yeah, well, it’s always religion, and, that was my point. You can look at the slave issue. You can look at Northerners versus Southerners. You can look at the social. I think we can safely say that at least in Jackson County, the Mormons were a little bit of a cut above some of the frontier Missourians. That doesn’t mean that some of the Missourians were not well educated and not sophisticated, but at least bright people. I think the Mormons were probably a little bit of a cut above, at least in, like I say, Jackson County, maybe not as much in Clay [County.] There are some bright people in Clay County. Oh, my gosh. We’ve got a future U.S. senator in David Rice Atchison. There were just some bright political figures in Clay County.
But the point is political, social, economic, the Mormons were rather clannish. We traded among ourselves. That doesn’t mean we didn’t help support the local economy and local merchants, but we were trying to implement consecration. But the underlying thing, Rick, was we were seen as religious radicals. I mean, we went against the Christian elements of the day. We believed in strong prophetic leadership. We didn’t believe in the Trinity. We claimed visions. I’m just trying to think here, again, we practiced Consecration. That was part of our economic element that we combined together to support each other. We believed in additional scripture. Oh my gosh, that went against [everything.] “A Bible, a Bible.” So we were seen as on the religious fringe. If we would have been any other faith, there would have been no problem and we could have still had some of those differences, and probably lived peacefully. But it was oil and water, and we just didn’t mix. So it was a lot of things.
What are your thoughts regarding the LDS Church, Utah, & Missouri politics? Did you know Joseph Smith was a supporter of Democrats and Andrew Jackson?
[1] The Republican Party was founded in 1854. The Whig Party were essentially replaced by the Republican Party.
Its inevitable that LDS culture is going to influence politics in Utah, for better or worse. But the institutional Church wades into political issues far more often than I’m comfortable with.
I grew up in California, where the Church knew its place as tiny religious minority and stayed out of politics completely. That is, until Prop 8. And the blowback from that debacle did permanent damage to the Church’s credibility in that state. I hope they learned their lesson.
But in Utah, the Church continues to meddle in political affairs. I’m not OK with tithing funds being used to keep lobbyists on the payroll. The vast majority of Church members live outside of Utah and will not benefit from any of the Church’s political invovlement there.
Not too long ago, the Church was behind a resolution to declare pornography a public health crisis in Utah. The resolution had no teeth to actually accomplish anything. Meanwhile, the mostly-LDS legislators were willfully ignorant of the very real health crises that affect Utah (opioid abuse, youth suicide, poor air quality, toxic waste, etc.). Why can’t the Church use its considerable influence to affect change in those areas?
The Church publicly supported LGBTQ protection initiatives in Utah, but only so they could maintain their own right to continue quietly discriminating against those groups.
In public education, Utah consistently ranks last in per-pupil spending. Teacher salaries are below the national average, and barely livable. Why can’t the Church throw its weight around to move the needle on this, especially when it claims to place such a high value on education?
Before every major election, a non-partisan statement from the FP is read over the pulpit in wards across the U.S. encouraging members to vote and be active participants in political processes. On the face of it, this seems pretty innocuous. But from an outside perspective, this has the appearance of encouraging voter turnout among a reliably conservative voting bloc–essentially an attempt to swing an election by a religious institution. I’m told they have done this also for special elections in Utah (with a letter that is read to Utah wards only).
Rod Decker has remarkable insights.
Sorry, I had not yet seen your request for me not to comment on your posts.
Having lived in Utah for 5 years and my wife lived there until she was 26 – I’d say the LDS church directly and indirectly controls politics there. Any time there is a group that reliably votes a certain way, whoever sways that group is making the shots. Salt Lake City mayors sometimes act contrary to church positions but that’s the only place in Utah that I’m aware of that consistently votes against the church.
Church control over politics – and seemingly everything- means that my family will never live there, even though it’s a beautiful state with much to offer.
Michael, if you avoid the trollish comments and trying to pick fights, feel free. But please quit picking fights just to get a rise out of people.
Jack, “the Church was behind a resolution to declare pornography a public health crisis in Utah.” Do you have evidence of this? I know some conservative lawmakers were behind this resolution, but I doubt the Church was behind this. I know the Church has told lawmakers to quit picking abortion fights, so I think you should be more careful in making statements like this. The Church can be a punching bag, but they are not behind all conservative positions.
On the other issues you mentioned (opioids, education spending), I asked Rod that exact question and he said “The Church gets to decide what a moral issue is.” He noted the Catholic Church supports Medicaid funding, but the LDS Church doesn’t want to dictate to legislators on everything. Could they? Yes. But they are already seen as too powerful, and tipping the scales on these issues opens them up to further accusations of tipping the scales. So they pick their battles.
On your last point about the church encouraging voting, once again, I think you make an unfair inference. The fact of the matter is that Utahns were once the highest voters, and now aren’t. Many of the Republican seats have been hijacked by ultra-conservatives, such as when Bob Bennett (moderate) was ousted by Mike Lee (tea Party.) The fact is the church was alarmed at the low voter turnout, and started reading letters to get more people to participate so right wingers like Lee would have a harder time getting elected, and it worked. So I think your inference is exactly backwards. The Church wants more moderate voters, not more conservative voters.
Bennett was ousted at the Utah GOP convention by 2 tea partiers. He wasn’t on the subsequent ballot. Many tried to get Bennett to run as a write-in but he declined. Bennett was well respected in Washington, Lee not so much. He has acted like a minion of Cruz. But even more of an ideologue.
If my memory is correct, 80% of the Utah legislators are Church members. As is the governor. So even when the Church isn’t directly involved, its opinions on most issues are well known. The only Rep. governor willing to disagree with the Church was Huntsman.
The Church has been involved in several recent issues including medical marijuana, equal rights (they killed the latest iteration, and liquor laws to name a few.
The Utah government often turns a blind eye to polygamists, and refuses to prosecute them. I wonder if this is because the Church has failed to put pressure on them, or if the Church actively advised the government to back off. Either way, I wouldn’t mind if the Brethren would put their thumbs on the scale to get the state to finally crack down on polygamy and shut down their semi-legal business operations.
I haven’t watched the videos yet. Hopefully I will soon.
And I have tons of respect for Rod Decker.
But I don’t buy into this idea that the church loss on the issue if two party consent for recording (Bishop’s interviews) is any kind of evidence that the church doesn’t use a heavy hand in Utah politics. Neither do I think the fact that the church only gets involved in a few issues supports an assertion that the church doesn’t get involved.
The state is conservative, and so is the church. So the fact that the church saves its political capital for certain issues means merely that it is being judicious. I would agree one hundred percent that the church does not want to be perceived as having a heavy hand in legislation.
I have heard about the church having a great deal of influence on certain key issues: ERA, liquor laws, hate crimes, anti-discrimination, and medical marijuana. In some cases (ERA, anti-discrimination), the church influence seems to have changed entirely the direction of the legislature vote.
I look forward to watching the interview to see if I’m missing something or jumping to conclusions.
Okay, I think I should say more on the two party consent for recording Bishop’s interviews. If memory serves, The church had THE WORST timing to propose that. With the initial that started Mormon Leaks, and then some additional recordings people made in temple recommend interviews and disciplinary courts, the exmo community was alive and jumping on each new recording, but the one that really got people going was when McKenna Denson recorded Joseph Bishop and accused him off sexually assaulting her when he was the mission president in the MTC. This was big news, right when the legislators proposed this two party consent for recording bill, and it put the exmo community up in arms right a away.
The legislators got a sudden, huge pushback, probably a lot bigger response than they normally get, and probably most of it from the exmo community as a result of these recordings. If legislators had proposed the same bill a year earlier it likely wouldn’t have gotten any attention from exmos.
So the point being, maybe the church doesn’t always get what it wants, but this is a pretty extreme case where coincidentally events lined up to the church’s disadvantage. It isn’t really an example of the church being a weak force in politics.
Re: Jack Hughes’ question about why state authorities do not more aggressively move against polygamists, and does the Church contribute to that reluctance.
The 1953 Short Creek raid backfired tremendously against the State of Arizona, and, secondarily, the Mormon Church. Ever since, state and Church leaders have generally left polygamy alone. The affair really changed attitudes about prosecuting polygamy. And the Church has very long memories about bad publicity!
(The much more recent Warren Jeffs affair being an obvious exception, but that was so blatant and obvious, and included repeated sexual and physical abuse against minors, and Warren Jeffs is thankfully now cooling his heels in the slammer. Or, another example: when rival polygamist clan leaders started bumping each other off in the late 70s and early 80s.)
Short Creek, now named Colorado City, is the notorious polygamist town on the Utah-Arizona border. In 1953, there was a massive raid by Arizona authorities in a massive show of force, in which hundreds of polygamists were rounded up and arrested. It made the national news big-time, with pictures of the front pages of newspapers of distraught and crying polygamous children being forcibly removed from their mothers’ arms by authorities. The Deseret News had vociferously supported the raid, and, by implication, the Church. But there was a huge national outcry against excessive force and the heavy hand of the State, and the Church took a big black eye, because it was perceived as having supported the raid.
I myself am not familiar with semi-legal business operations run by polygamists, but would welcome some more info. Utah is such an interesting place!
For now, I think the unwritten rule for state authorities (and tacitly supported by the Church) boils down to: be quiet, behave yourselves, and we’ll leave you alone. If you go Warren Jeffs on us, then action will be taken against you.
I agree completely with Taiwan Missionary. The Short Creek raids backfired on Church leaders. Yes, Church leaders did push for those raids, but I think cooler heads have prevailed since that time.
As to the issue of lack of prosecution of current polygamists, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff sat down with Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group started by Anne Wilde (and a few others.) Anne’s group helped convince Shurtleff that so long as polygamists weren’t doing serious crimes like welfare fraud, underage marriages, physical abuse, then they should be left alone. (She told me this in the interview as well as privately.) So I think Principle Voices has more to do with relaxing government policy on polygamists than anything the LDS Church has done, and I also think memory of Short Creek has made LDS leaders more wary of pushing law enforcement for prosecution. Anne and groups like the AUB are as critical of the FLDS Church and specifically Warren Jeffs as mainstream LDS.
The Church claims to be a global enterprise, but yet it expends so much of its resources (lawyers, lobbyists, etc.) on Utah politics. The leaders need a less provincial view and more of a worldwide view.
I don’t think that is a fair characterization Roger. Catholics, Baptists, the Christian Coalition, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, the NFL, Silicon Valley, LGBT, Pro-choice, Pro-Life, etc all spend money of lawyers, lobbyists, etc. spend money on Congressmen and state politicians in pretty much every state. Yet we don’t call them provincial, do we?
Why didn’t Rick mention why the Republican party was created? To abolish slavery and polygamy. I get a kick out of the fact that the majority of Mormons in the West belong to the party created to get rid of Mormons. ha ha ha ha.
Also, plenty of Mormons are Dems, thank you. Outside of Utah and Idaho, there are a plethora of members who belong to all sorts of different political parties,
It’s provincial because it is over involved and overspends in Utah.
So the Catholics are provincial because they not only spend in Rome, but in support Medicaid expansion in Utah? Baptists and evangelicals are provincial because they supported all the same-sex marriage prohibitions in Alabama, Mississippi, and the US Congress in the 1990s?
Okay, I have watched the video now, and I enjoyed it, but I have something to add.
I think he is missing a lot of information about the medical marijuana issue. To his credit, I think he short of admitted as much.
After years of no action from the legislature, a citizens proposition was put on the ballot and based on polling was pretty much guaranteed to pass until the church’s law firm, Kirton McConkie, made a press release opposing it, after which the issue polled nearly dead even. There was also an email sent to all members living in the area, which really surprised me. Google results show a salt lake Tribune article saying the measure dropped 15 points after this, but I can’t access the actual article right now to verify.
The point being, the church nearly prevented medical marijuana from passing. It won with a mere 52 percent of the vote, a very close call, after suddenly dropping significantly in the polls a few weeks prior to the election.
After the election, the legislature basically repealed and rewrote the whole initiative. Decker opines that this doesn’t seem like a big deal, as folks can still get their medical marijuana. I think most Republicans/church members will agree with him. I don’t know about moderates. But those that fought hard and lobbied this proposition to pass definitely do not see it that way.
So did the church play a heavy hand here and get what it wanted? The answer probably depends on your politics. With a press release and an email the election results went from a landslide down basically to dead even, perhaps giving the legislature the breathing room they needed to rewrite.
If you agree with the church, you might say that nothing really changed.
If you don’t, you might argue the church basically rewrote the law without breaking a sweat.
Taiwan Missionary, when one talks about semi-legal businesses run by polygamist groups in Utah, the name that always comes up is Kingston. I was handed a list of supposedly Kingston-run businesses on a visit to Short Creek and it ran north of 50 separate entries. Short Creek was in full transition at that time, and John Daniel Kingston was visiting, ostensibly to participate in a brief Sunstone symposium on polygamy but, according to others, in reality to offer the suddenly impoverished residents his “support.” There is this news report from 2016. Take it for what it’s worth.
https://kutv.com/news/local/inside-the-kingston-kingdom-former-employee-reveals-clans-secrets
Rick B, the Church just came out against a Utah bill to ban “conversion therapy.” More tithing money for the Church lawyers. More billable hours.
Roger, I think conversion therapy is wrong, but why won’t you respond to my questions?
By provincial, I meant, that for a global Church, the leadership is overly involved in Utah politics. That’s all.
Roger, I don’t want to hear what you think of the LDS Church again. (You’ve repeated yourself many times and you keep calling the LDS Church provincial. Got it.) I want to hear what you think of the following groups, and whether these groups are provincial.
1-So the Catholics are provincial because they not only spend [money on lawyers and lobbyists] in Rome, but in support Medicaid expansion in Utah?
2-Baptists and evangelicals are provincial because they supported all the same-sex marriage prohibitions in Alabama, Mississippi, and the US Congress in the 1990s?
3-Catholics, Baptists, the Christian Coalition, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, the NFL, Silicon Valley, LGBT, Pro-choice, Pro-Life, etc all spend money of lawyers, lobbyists, etc. spend money on Congressmen and state politicians in pretty much every state. Yet we don’t call them provincial, do we?
Sorry, I don’t know how to make my comment any clearer. But here goes.
Global issues: Poverty, income disparity, sex slaves, lack of equal opportunity, etc.
Provincial issues: Utah liquor laws (ie. Zion’s shield), medical pot, conversion therapy, etc.
I prefer the global issues. Christ’s teachings have little to do with Utah politics. That’s all I’m saying.
1. I don’t care what the Catholics and Evangelicals are doing. I don’t consider them a model to emulate. The Evangelicals’ unqualified support for Trump. Do you want the Church to support political candidates? At least the current Pope has moved global poverty to the top of his list.
2. Do you think the Church should be lobbying against the LBGTQ+ community. Despite the recent pathetic op-ed defense of the Church’s actions in the sltrib. Again, I don’t care what the Baptist and Evangelicals are doing.
3. So you think the Church should emulate the actions of the NFL, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma? These are businesses, not religions. You can argue that the Church is a big business but that’s another issue.
The Church is being poorly served by its lawyers, lobbyists, and PR staff. And there seems to be some evidence that Kirsten is running up its billable hours. But without financial disclosure we will never know.
Well, I’m glad you defined what you thought were so-called provincial issues. But I think it bears repeating what Rod said: “The Church is too involved in politics, unless they’re on my side.” That’s pretty much what you said.
1-Utah Liquor laws aren’t provincial, and in fact are more liberal than many areas of the south in which alcohol is banned in ENTIRE COUNTIES. Utah doesn’t have a single dry county.
2-medical pot–hardly a provincial topic. This is certainly not unique to Utah, and in fact many states are grappling with this issue.
3-conversion therapy–hardly a provincial topic. I agree with you that I wish the church didn’t get involved in this, but this is a problem nationwide. Less than a quarter of states have banned the practice.
Now let’s look at global issues:
A-poverty–The church has one of the most organized fast offering programs anywhere. Could they do more? Yes. But I suspect you aren’t bothered when the church helps out after hurricanes or earthquakes, with one of the most well-organized disaster relief organizations in the world.
B-sex slaves–Ok, you got me. What organization out there besides Amnesty International and Ed Smart’s Underground Railroad organization is doing better with regards to this? Are the Christian Coalition, Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc addressing this as a global issue? Or do we leave it up to law enforcement? Are you a member of an organization that frees sex slaves?
C-Lack of equal opportunity–what does this even mean? Jesus said the poor will be with us always. The Church and Salt Lake City were lauded with helping cure homelessness. Or did you miss that? See this news report from Portland, Oregon that said SLC dropped homelessness by 90%: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a55BpmfX6EI
So it seems to me that your provincial tag is just a club to say “I don’t agree with the church’s priorities, and I wish they were closer to mine.” Welcome to the club. Start your own church and address these issues better. My guess is you’ll hire lawyers and lobbyists to help cure these problems you cherish.
With my upcoming series on the Missouri persecutions, the Church has well realized that it needs lawyers and lobbyists to help or it will get trampled.
You’re right I wish the Church’s priorities were different, similar to mine. I won’t be starting a new Church, but I did start an ngo.