Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room

by Rod Decker

Overview

From the tempestuous fight for statehood to the evolution of Utah voters from Democrats to Republicans, Rod Decker analyzes the intersection of politics and faith in the complex political culture of modern Utah. Beginning with the state’s roots as a communal theocracy, Utah Politics deftly examines how Mormon morality influenced and continues to shape conflicts on both the local and federal levels. Whether determining the role nuclear fallout played in causing cancer epidemics throughout the state or the influence of Mormon lobbyists, Decker demonstrates how the rose that blossomed in the desert was sometimes fertilized by conspiracy, debate, and political machination.

Some themes reoccur: governors become popular by fighting federal oversight— signaling a lingering distrust that Washington could alter the Mormon way of life—and liberals use the court system to circumvent conservative legislatures who see public morality as a defining feature of government. Through this lens, issues both deceptively innocuous and deeply complex underscore Utah’s dance with religious freedom and civil liberty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560852728
Publisher:	Signature Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/01/2019
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Known for his reporting on Utah’s KUTV Channel 2, as well as for his column and editorials in the Deseret News, Rod Decker understands the innuendoes of Utah culture, politics, and faith like few others. A graduate of the University of Utah in political science, he attended graduate school at the University of Chicago and spent a year at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow in journalism after serving as a military intelligence officer during the Vietnam War. His first book, An Environment for Murder, turned his intimate acquaintance with sagebrush politics into a page-turning mystery.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

The Second Separation

1 The Founding 1

2 The Republican Ascendancy 17

3 Public Morality 33

4 Demography: Families and Children 75

5 Economy 87

6 The Time of Disorder 107

Issues of Land and Climate

7 The Downwinders' Tale 141

8 Downwinder Politics 153

9 Water 185

10 Federal Land 199

The Republican Ascendancy

11 The Utah State Legislature 229

12 Utah's Governors 249

13 Governing 261

14 Courts and Public Law 277

15 Budgeting, Spending, Taxing, Revolting 297

16 Utah Schools 319

17 Recapitulation 341

Bibliography 355

Index 389