“We never shy away from hard things” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox talks about his first few months as governor
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently spoke with the Statesman about challenges during his first 100 days, the current state of vaccines in Utah and his hopes for future initiatives.
Statesman: I wanted to kind of start with, back at the beginning, I know that you started out campaigning in a really normal campaign year, and then it got not so normal so quickly. I was curious at what point, especially once you recognized that you would probably win the governorship, once you won the Republican nomination, you realized that it might be a difficult first year as governor? And what were your thoughts when you realized that?
Cox: Well, that’s a really interesting question. I don’t know that anybody’s ever asked me that. Certainly, it was not what we had planned or expected when we decided to run, as you mentioned. I think it was actually before I knew that I would win that I started realizing, probably about a month into the pandemic, when everything became clear that there was no easy way out of this, and that it was going to be a long slog and that the next year would be one of the most difficult years that we had faced as a state, and, certainty, me personally. And so it was before that.
There were mixed feelings, at least personally and in our family, when we won. But you know, we never shy away from hard things. That’s how we were raised. So, we didn’t spend much time thinking about it. We just kind of put our shoulders, you know put our head down and go to work and do the best with the hand that we’ve been dealt. And that’s certainty how we’ve approached it. But, I would probably say, you know, kind of April/May timeframe because I was involved with the pandemic response. I started to get a vision for what the next year could look like, and it was certainly daunting.
Statesman: Yeah. Absolutely. And then, once, I mean you got inaugurated on Jan. 4 and then, obviously, we had the events of Jan. 6 and the Capitol. There were even threats, if I remember correctly, to the Utah State Capitol. So, your first week was a little rocky, just because of events that were happening. And then of course, on top of that the pandemic, we still had record high numbers and people were dying every day. As all these things were compounding on top of each other, did you have hope, even then, that we were going to overcome this virus? And that we were going to get to a good place with some of the political division in our country?
Cox: Yeah, that first week was intense. And I had hope with the virus, I had significant hope because we had just started vaccinating people. So, when I took office, there were 300 people that were considered fully vaccinated. And I was a little discouraged because our vaccine numbers were low, in that our ability to get shots into arms, we were one of the worst states in the nation. I think we were 39th in the country, in the percentage of vaccines that had been used in our state. We don’t have any control on how many we get, but we do have control over how quickly we use them once they get here. And so, that very first day, that was my priority. I sat down and completely reorganized how we delivered vaccines. And we went, within a couple of weeks, we were in the top 10%, so that was good news. So I was very hopeful and optimistic on the virus front because of the vaccines, because I knew we controlled our destiny there.
On the political side, I was really discouraged because I had actually been warning about this very thing for months. And I’ve given a couple speeches, including my inauguration speech two days before, warning about what was coming and the need for us to work closer together and to overcome the political divisions that exist in our country right now. That was unfortunate, the kind of natural progression from everything that had been happening over the past decade to that point in time. So that was, that was very discouraging, and that was, I believe, one of the darkest days in our nation’s history. But I’m genuinely an optimistic person and believe that Utah , if anyone could figure this out it’s Utah. I really believe that we have the ability to work across the aisle to take some of the heat out of politics and to show that there’s a better way. That’s why I ran, I mean that was one of the reasons my wife and I decided to run was to try to see if we could prove that you didn’t have to be toxic and negative to win an election. And, hopefully, some people will try to copy it. So, I’m still optimistic, and I feel better about both of those things today than I did on Jan. 6.
Statesman: I wanted to kind of ask about vaccines. I know you mentioned that during your press conference on Thursday. I remember you said that’s kind of been your number one thing all along that that was the most important thing that we get shots into arms. And more and more people are obviously getting vaccinated. And there’s, there’s been a lot of success with that. But, and I’m sure you know this too, there’s quite a few people in the state that are still unsure about the vaccine. I was reading a report from the Deseret News. It said approximately 36% of Utahns are still really unsure if they want to get the vaccine. I guess my first question would be what would your response be to that? And then also, if we do have 36%, it’s a third of the state that doesn’t want to get vaccinated. How does that affect us in terms of trying to get out of this pandemic?
Cox: Well, to the latter question, the answer is that nobody’s really sure how that affects. Again, obviously, everyone get vaccinated, that’s the most surety that we would have. However, you know, no one is sure exactly what it will take to get to herd immunity because there’s a combination of herd immunity that comes through the vaccines, but also we know that there is some immunity that is achieved just by having the viruses. So of those 36%, I anticipate that there are many of them that have had the virus already. And we’ll have some immunity, although we don’t know how long that will last. So the answer to that is unclear. But certainly, it would be better if more people got vaccinated.
And so my message to those that are hesitant is that we need you. We want you here. And the best way to be here is to avoid getting this terrible disease and getting vaccinated protection. But it also protects the community and these vaccines are incredibly safe, unbelievably safe and more effective. Safer and more effective that even the most optimistic experts were telling us a year ago that was achievable. And so I believe that this is a medical breakthrough that is on par with just about anything we’ve accomplished in medicine over the past 100 years. And I’m so excited that we have this, things can get back to normal, people can be healthy and we can put this terrible year in the rearview mirror. And so I would just encourage everyone to please please get vaccinated.
Statesman: Absolutely. And then, also with the vaccines, one of the concerns, just as I’ve been reading through comments on some of the Facebook posts and Twitter feeds surrounding this virus, one thing that keeps coming up is vaccine passports. Actually saw that one guy said, “I won’t get the vaccine unless I can be insured that there’s not going to be a passport.” And I know that some governors and other states have had been looking at that, would you ever? Or do you think Utah could ever consider doing a vaccine passport?
Cox: No, in fact, it’s funny because yes, other governors have been doing that. But we did something even bigger than what other governors have done, and that is we passed a law that says that government can’t force vaccinations, or use vaccines as a requirement. And so we’ve already done that here in the state of Utah, so that’s not a thing. I mean, even the Biden administration has backed away from the idea of vaccine passports. Now, it doesn’t mean that people won’t require you to be vaccinated, that’s been happening forever, as long as we had vaccines. There are certain countries that will require you to have proof of vaccination, if you want to go visit them. And that happens now. My son just got a mission call to Brazil and he’s had to get several vaccinations to prepare for that. And so that will happen. And of course, private businesses have the ability to make those types of determinations as they to want to, I don’t suspect that many of them will at all. In fact, I think fewer and fewer of them are going to be doing that. So I’m not, I’m really not worried about that piece as we go forward. But I know it’s certainly been a talking point that gets people fired up. But I just think most people don’t even know what we’ve done here in Utah.
Statesman: Moving forward into the future. I know a big part of your campaign was on trying to make a more self-reliant Utah, and you actually had seven different points, including agriculture, telehealth capacity, telework, online education, all these things that you wanted to do to make a more self-reliant Utah. Once, I won’t say once the pandemic is over, because we don’t know if or when that’ll be, but once maybe we get to a good place with it, where it’s a lot easier to focus on many other things, what are some of these initiatives that you’re really looking forward to being able to focus on again, especially from your plan?
Cox: Yeah. So we had that self-reliance plan. And then we also put out our, you know, our 500 day roadmap and, and we are anxiously engaged right now on all of those fronts, trying to make a real big impact on the future of our state. And really, it’s the things we’ve learned coming out of the pandemic that are going to help us with it. So we’ve we put a major emphasis on telework and telehealth, on making sure that we are more resilient. I’ve had several meetings with our agriculture community on the things that we need to do and change here in the state to make sure the supply chains are not disruptive going forward. But I think the thing I’m most excited to work on is really education and the the equity piece of education, making sure that every child in our state has the same opportunity as those those kids who live in more affluent areas; that’s rural Utah, that’s our multicultural community. There’s just so much work to be done. And that’s investing in our future, investing in our kids, investing in our workforce, those are the investments that are going to pay off and help raise the standard of living for people across the state, help remove people from poverty and help our economy continue to grow. So I think those are the areas that I’m most excited to work on moving forward.
Statesman: I asked a few people just to submit questions to me, I wanted to see what some of the students had to say. And these were the two most requested ones: The first one, what did you love the most about being an Aggie and being at USU?
Cox: So I just loved everything about being an Aggie, it would be hard to pick something that was a favorite. But I think, I guess it was my relationship with professors and my fellow students. I was in the political science department and there was such a collegial atmosphere, where we were close together and, honestly, it was the best education possible for me, they gave me so much confidence. And I fully submit that I am where I am today because of the opportunities and the people that I met at Utah State who really helped me figure out, you know, who I was and what I wanted to be when I grew up. All of those questions that you’re trying to answer when you’re, you know, 20-something and going to college, so I loved our time in Logan and I love the the political science department.
Statesman: Wonderful. And this last one’s actually a fun, quick little one. Everyone wanted to know, for some reason, what your favorite Aggie Ice Cream flavor is.
Cox: That’s interesting. That’s like asking me which one of my kids is my favorite. So I… the Aggie Blue Mint is pretty awesome. Yeah. With the chocolate. Yeah, it’s it’s pretty fantastic. I’m gonna go there.
Statesman: Thank you so much for taking the time and answering my questions governor.
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