In November, I had the opportunity to speak with Representative Tyler Clancy from Utah in studio. We talked about a wide range of topics, and per usual, I’ve edited the transcript to make it easier to read and more clear written down.
Is there anyone in particular you would like to see me speak with? Leave a comment and let me know!
We covered:
His background and experience as Utah’s youngest state legislator.
The importance of honesty and hard work for legislative effectiveness.
His work on reducing homelessness and the failures of Biden’s housing policies.
The emerging bipartisan consensus on public safety and criminal justice policy.
Utah’s Blue Collar Caucus.
Rep. Clancy’s goals and vision for Utah going into 2025 and beyond.
No syllabus for this one!
Transcript:
Aiden Buzzetti: Welcome to Daring Greatly.
I'm your host, Aiden Buzzetti. Today, I'll be interviewing Tyler Clancy, state representative for Utah's house district 60. He was one of the youngest lawmakers in state history, and we'll be discussing his journey to the legislature and his path through 2025 and beyond.
Tyler, thank you so much for joining us here in the studio. I was really hoping to get you here. Otherwise, I would've had to fly you down because there's something you miss when you're doing virtual interviews. I'm really grateful that you're able to make it.
I wanted to start off first for anyone who may not know you - although if they follow me on Twitter, they've probably seen your stuff all the time. How did you get where you are when you were elected? You're the youngest lawmaker, the youngest legislator in Utah. What was the origin story there?
Tyler Clancy: Well, I have to preface by thanking you, Aiden, for having me here and for all the great work you do at the Bull Moose Project.
I was really just like anyone else involved even peripherally with Republican politics - cared about my community, cared about community service. It really was out of the blue. I'd made the decision to move from the political sphere to law enforcement and thought I was done with politics for a while. Shortly thereafter, my predecessor had to resign due to life challenges, so there was a special election. My district in Provo, Utah's 60th house district, is the youngest in the state. Almost 72% of the district is between 18-25, which is pretty dramatic for the state of Utah.
So I wanted to build on my relationships and experience. I went out, knocked on doors, and was lucky to come out on top of the election there.
Aiden Buzzetti: You said 60%?
Tyler Clancy: Almost 72%.
Aiden Buzzetti: How many of those 18 to 25 are also families?
Tyler Clancy: The upper range, closer to 22 to 25, you have those emerging families. We also have two colleges that overlap in the district, so it's very young.
Aiden Buzzetti: When you were running, were people receptive to the fact that you were young? The most common story I've heard when I talk to younger legislators is that they had this huge uphill battle with voters and their own party establishments because they didn't have enough experience, or they were being told to wait their turn and do some other stuff first. Did you get that same reception?
Tyler Clancy: I would say a little bit, but there were some strengths there too. I wasn't pretending to be someone I wasn't. I wasn't pretending to have a wealth of experience. But as a young person whose life was impacted by the COVID-19 craziness and so many other things, I felt that I could be a good representative for my community and be a voice.
I also shared with people that when we invest in young conservatives, we're investing in a conservative future. Look at the Trump administration and some of these appointments he's already made. Similar to Reagan - for example, Vice President Vance, he's going to be around for the next 20 to 30 years, which I think is really powerful. So building that bench, I tried to bring that to the table as well.
Aiden Buzzetti: That's a really good point. The youngest president we've ever had, I believe, is Theodore Roosevelt, and then the youngest elected one was JFK. Vance will be one of the top 3 or 4 youngest VPs in history.
Tyler Clancy: Yeah, early forties.
Aiden Buzzetti: A lot of legislators I've spoken with are usually in their mid to late twenties, which is pretty young for politics. That brings me to my next question. Your district is younger, and you felt it was a pretty positive reception. Was it the same in the legislature when you were coming in as a freshman member? You were the youngest person there - is the chamber pretty old? Is it relatively mixed? Do people care that you were so young?
Tyler Clancy: I love that question. I would say it's getting younger. For me and anyone who's listening to this that is younger and wanting to get more involved in politics, I would say take that as a challenge to be the most informed, to do the most work, and be the hardest worker in the room.
I knew going in that there would be questions. Is this person prepared? Is Tyler cut out to do this job? It really motivated me to do the groundwork to build those relationships that are necessary when we get into some of these harder legislative fights.
Aiden Buzzetti: How do you manage your career? Your day job and being a state representative - you're very active. That's probably one of the biggest things I pick up on looking at your socials. You're always going out and doing something or meeting with constituents or hosting events. You're always out, which is great. But you also have a job - you are a police officer and you are married. You're gonna have a family. How do you make it work?
Tyler Clancy: It's like anything in life. Are you ever ready to start a family? Are you ever ready to take the next step in a career? It's just something you do. You figure it out. Having my wife, Leah, as a partner - you can't even measure the impact of that. For me, being an active representative, I take it very seriously. I take my job very seriously, and I want to do a good job representing my constituents, making sure they feel like I'm out there doing the work, hosting town halls, and making sure people's voices are heard in the community.
Aiden Buzzetti: Do you think that's why you were so successful in the last session? Of the bills that you introduced last session - I believe it was your first session in your first term - every single one of them was enrolled. They all got support and got through the legislature. Is that a product of what you're saying, just doing the work, meeting the people?
Tyler Clancy: Definitely. It's a team effort, working with great people in the Utah legislature, but also doing the groundwork. There's no excuse whether it's in campaigns or in legislative affairs - there's no substitute for hard work, for meeting with people who have concerns, working out the kinks of the bills.
In 2023, I was able to get all of my legislation passed. In 2024, the majority of it passed. There were some things we'll talk about later that we've been working on. The tax on foreign remittances, although it didn't pass last session, the conversation continued, and it's on the agenda for this year with other representatives as well.
Aiden Buzzetti: For your governance philosophy, I was looking into some of your other appearances and quotes and speeches, and you mentioned once that you'd want the governance behind the system to work effectively enough so that taxpayers don't feel their money is being wasted. It seems like you take that in large part into your issues, one of which is homelessness. Republicans and conservatives always think about the taxpayers, and the common charges are that the people on the other side of the aisle often don't. But in the real world, talking with legislators, debating them on the issues - is this approach something that crosses party lines? Do you get good support for adjusting the way certain systems or bureaucratic processes work to maximize it?
Tyler Clancy: Reform, it depends. There's definitely people that have entrenched interests that are not interested in reform. But I think your average Utahn or your average American certainly wants the government programs that we do have to work effectively.
I think it cuts both ways. On one end, when we fail to deliver results - take homelessness or public safety for example - you have people who just flatly lose faith in the system, and the system is broken for the people who are in there. If we're funding an ineffective homeless services system, those homeless people are not going to be served effectively.
But on the flip side, from a societal standpoint, it goes one of two ways. Either you continue to fund an ineffective program, or you have the left who says we just need to solve it by throwing more money at the issue without addressing those underlying structural reforms. My biggest focus is making sure we have those reforms in place, the structure works, so we can serve the taxpayer effectively. If we need to cut funding, we do it. If we need to adjust some screws here or there, we do it.
Aiden Buzzetti: With homelessness in particular, talk to me about the adjustments that you want to make and how that's been perceived by Republicans and Democrats in the legislature. What exactly are you looking to change with the homelessness programs in Utah?
Tyler Clancy: Under the Biden administration, states have been restricted using our funds from Housing Urban Development or HUD. It's under a program called Housing First. You've heard Senator Vance talk about this when he was in the senate as someone with lived experience who had family members and loved ones with addiction. This bizarre notion that if you take someone with fentanyl or meth addiction and put them in a home, suddenly those problems are going to melt away. Or take someone with a severe and persistent mental illness like schizophrenia, that if we just put them in a home, it'll solve the issue.
We know that's not true. If you talk to many folks who are homeless, who are living on the street, they've had housing 3, 4, or 5 times, and it's failed. It's been a disaster if you look at our overdose rate and the addiction that's gripping our country.
What we'd like to do in Utah, and what we're slowly but surely making progress on, is being able to address those issues. If you are a criminal, you're going to go to jail. If you are experiencing addiction, if you are in the thralls of Fentanyl or meth addiction, we want to get you into treatment. And if you have mental health issues, we love you too much to let you die in slow motion on the street. We're going to get you into mental health treatment.
With that multi-pronged approach, we really think we can take a marked step, and we're very excited in the state of Utah that President Trump was elected. We do think there's going to be some major reforms at HUD.
Aiden Buzzetti: Those reforms that you're hoping for from HUD, is that with that specific program - are you hoping that they change the requirements or the strings?
Tyler Clancy: We'd love to go back to what it was before, which was just a block grant. If there's federal funds that come in, allow us to innovate, allow us to identify the certain unique needs that Utah has or Texas has or Maryland has and attack it that way. Don't put these very liberal progressive restrictions on our funding that quite honestly perpetuate the issue.
Aiden Buzzetti: In 2023, 11 out of 10,000 people experienced homelessness in Utah, up from 9.6 out of 10,000 in 2020. So since Biden was elected, the homelessness rate has actually gone up.
Tyler Clancy: It's bizarre as an understatement of what the Biden administration's policy has been for homelessness and the addiction problem. Not too far from this studio here in Washington DC, the Biden administration funded vending machines with crack pipes, tinfoil, straws, and drug paraphernalia in the idea that somehow this would alleviate the addiction crisis and not fuel it even further. It's time to get common sense back into some of these areas where conservatives have neglected, because our families and our friends are paying the price.
Aiden Buzzetti: If I remember correctly, you started advocating on homelessness policy even before you were a police officer. Is that right?
Tyler Clancy: Prior to my career in law enforcement, I was the executive director of a nonprofit called Solutions Utah Now, and we focused on advocacy in the public arena for policy changes on public safety, mental health, and homelessness - the intersection of those three. We worked with the US attorney's office to help create Project Safe Streets in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a task force to identify violent criminals and charge them federally. Just different projects like that to move the needle on these important issues in our community.
Aiden Buzzetti: This has been a pretty strong interest of yours for a very long time. How did you get into this kind of policy, public safety, and dealing with the opioid crisis and getting people the help they need?
Tyler Clancy: There are a couple ways. I think we've become so callous to the suffering and despair that we've seen on our streets. If I was wearing this suit and tie here and I was laying flat on my back in Washington DC, someone would come up and talk to me within 10 seconds and say, "Are you okay? Do we need to call you an ambulance?" But we see people in that state, whether it's using Fentanyl, Xylazine, methamphetamine, or dealing with these severe mental illnesses who are quite literally suffering in front of us, and we've gotten to a point where we just accept that as normal. I think it's wrong.
We shouldn't allow Washington DC and these great American cities to be overrun with crime. A lot of it where policymakers or these municipal leaders will see homelessness as an issue and have a blanket non-enforcement strategy. When we see vehicle burglaries and carjackings go on the rise, violent crimes shoot up, and you see people literally fleeing these blue cities across the country - especially San Francisco - it's time for change.
The flip side is if you're our age, we know people who have been impacted by the opioid crisis. I lost a friend in 2018 to fentanyl overdose. It was the first time I'd heard about it. Folks that we grew up with in pop culture, Mac Miller dying from Fentanyl in 2018. It's personal, but also I just think that on a societal level, it's a high priority issue because our cities have become so destroyed with these challenges.
Aiden Buzzetti: It's one of those issues - we can talk about public safety, we can talk about homelessness, we can talk about the drug crisis, but they're all intertwined in a way that just exacerbates these problems. I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and I know people who have dealt with similar problems. Fortunately, they haven't died, but they've gone through experiences like that and had to get help. It's something that follows them forever, something that they constantly have to deal with. It's totally unconscionable that that's as big of a problem as it is.
I think one of the other disturbing trends which we were talking about before we started recording is the degree to which it ruins socialization. It ruins the community of these cities and even individual neighborhoods regardless if it's urban, suburban, or rural. Here in DC, one of the most disturbing trends is we have 12 to 15-year-olds robbing people at gunpoint or at knife point and stealing cars, killing people, whether or not it's by accident. The DA has been very not helpful, and hopefully that changes. It speaks broadly to the point that there are so many second and third order effects of not tackling crime when it pops up, not giving people the opportunity to recover, and just leaving them on the street.
Tyler Clancy: Absolutely. You mentioned second and third order effects. Think about how far the narrative has come when we talk about this kind of social justice out-of-control movement to the fact that public safety isn't even the baseline for policy making decisions.
With this whole justice reform movement, I think it had great intentions - let's get people help that need it, let's look at some of these underlying causes. But when you have criminals who are convicted of murder, but because they're a juvenile, they're let out with a 3-year sentence, they're let out when they're 22, and then they kill another innocent person when they get out, how do we act surprised?
Look at New York City. There's a gentleman who goes out, stabs 3 people to death. It was not in a vacuum. He had been arrested 5 or 6 times for felony burglary, 3 to 4 times for assault. When he was incarcerated, he assaulted a correctional officer. This isn't a shock to anyone. This is the bare minimum common sense. Unfortunately, the narrative has shifted so far in the criminal justice arena that we can't even prioritize putting away violent criminals and keeping those antisocial personalities away from our loved ones and innocent people. That's where I really think that conservatives can lead out on this just flat common sense idea that we ought to keep our community safe from repeat violent offenders.
Aiden Buzzetti: How do you judge that philosophy with those same criminal justice reform advocates who say these people deserve resources, they deserve a second chance? Or maybe a better question is, how do you separate these more antisocial personalities or repeat offenders from people who actually can make a reintroduction into society?
Tyler Clancy: I think it's two-pronged. The first is just where we start from. We can't start our criminal justice policies by focusing on who needs help and who needs resources. We need to start our criminal justice policies on, am I safe to walk to work? Am I safe in my home? When you kill someone, when you harm someone, when you carjack someone at gunpoint, the resources conversation ought to be over. You need to be removed from society so that normal people can be safe and have a life.
I think when we look at first-time offenders or people who quite literally make a mistake, there's conversations to be had there, but we need data. We need to look at outcomes. We need to really not just focus on good ideas or inputs to the system. We need to look at outputs and how are these programs affecting our communities? Are they helping people move on and get to resources? But before that baseline public safety is taken care of, it's going to be a failure. A criminal justice system that doesn't begin and end with keeping Americans safe from violent crime is a failure.
Aiden Buzzetti: In your experience, are there Democrats in the legislature who share that opinion? States like California and New York with their supermajorities have the ability to pursue some really wild ideas and policies. But in your state, what is the consensus there?
Tyler Clancy: I would say we're seeing a shift to yes. You see in California, they just passed overwhelmingly Proposition 36, which repealed one of the policies, Prop 47, that Kamala Harris was a big proponent of - decriminalizing theft up to $950. There's kind of this baseline of common sense, and we've gone so far off the reservation to the left where we see CVS and 7-11 are donating to these public safety campaigns.
You are seeing some more common sense and moving to the middle there. Certainly, you're going to have your ideologues who don't care. They're totally insulated from any type of crime or disorder in our communities, and they laugh and point fingers and try to dunk on people who say, "It's not safe to walk my dog. It's not safe for me to walk to the grocery store." But I would say in the work that I've engaged with homelessness and looking at the disorder, some of our best allies are people who maybe were formerly progressive and say, "This isn't compassionate. This isn't right, what we're doing." That's where you can find a lot of that overlap.
Aiden Buzzetti: Your own record - you're pretty conservative. You vote largely in line with Republican priorities in the legislature, but you also helped found the Blue Collar Caucus, which is bipartisan. You are pretty strong in working with and talking to people of opposing parties and views. Where are the places that you as a conservative, as a new and younger conservative, can find opportunities to work with Democrats, with people that think differently?
Tyler Clancy: Look at President Trump's victory in some of those blue wall states. A lot of what that was is you had working class voters understand that President Trump is looking out for the American worker, whether it's renegotiating NAFTA in his first term or looking at some of these incredible trade deficits with China. I think it's come a long way for conservatives like you and I to be able to say, let's take a step back - how do we have free trade with a country that uses slave labor, has no environmental regulations, steals our intellectual property, and is actively our geopolitical foe in the case of China?
The American worker has been relegated by and large by the establishment right in the pursuit of free trade and expanding GDP at all costs, but I think you've seen that the left has lost those workers in the pursuit of some of these bizarre social causes, and they've forgotten their core economic beliefs.
For me with the Blue Collar Caucus, what that was about is making sure workers have a seat at the table. People who don't have money to hire lobbyists, people who maybe don't have the time to spend a Tuesday morning up at the legislature - making sure those voices are heard. Senator Vance has led out on this issue and is trying to replicate that by just listening. How about just listen? How about opening up our table to hear workers who have been historically left behind and recognize some of those concerns?
Aiden Buzzetti: What kind of people have come to the Blue Collar Caucus to talk?
Tyler Clancy: We've had everyone. We've had operating engineers - individuals, workers who operate cranes, heavy machinery. We've had railroad workers, railroad conductors. We've had the Teamsters, so UPS drivers, Amazon warehouse workers. We've had firefighters, police officers for the IFF, FOP - you name it. Really just trying to bring everyone to the table and learn about those concerns.
At the end of the day, when we overlook our workers, those are the people that keep our state running, keep our state moving day and night. It's important we make sure that they have dignity, they have healthcare so that they're not bankrupt if they have an accident at work, that they have a decent wage, and they can raise a family and continue to have a shot at that American dream we all hope for.
Aiden Buzzetti: In your conversations with this wide variety of professions, what is your perception of that Trump agenda? Like, renegotiating NAFTA, wanting to bring jobs back, manufacturing back into the US, even the resolution regarding China. Did they offer opinions on this? Or was it really focused on that nitty-gritty local salary, healthcare, wages?
Tyler Clancy: It's both. Listen, there is a country mile difference between having free trade or no tariffs on vehicles made in Germany, where they have a similar economy to ours, similar labor force and protections, same with the environment. Was it Ross Perot who said that NAFTA was going to create a large sucking sound across our southern border? That's what we've seen, whether it's agriculture or manufacturing. When we set up these trade deals so maybe we can buy a t-shirt for $2 cheaper on Amazon, that has some value, I guess, but we're missing the people who live in our communities, the people who help build this country and build the middle class.
Ultimately too, on the local level, it is going to be more individualized. It's going to be the basics of: I'm putting my life out there, whether it's a lineman working after a natural disaster or earthquake, or someone who's working to pave our roads. I want to make sure I'm safe on the job. I want to make sure that I can feed my family. I want to make sure that I'm not one health emergency away from bankruptcy. Those are things that we can all agree on, but someone's got to do the job of looking out for those workers.
Aiden Buzzetti: Have you found that your constituents are receptive by and large to the message that you're preaching, especially the ones that may not fully agree with you on these issues? Do they come to you as a person, as their elected official and say, "I may not like your party, I may not like some of the things that you vote for, but I look at you and I respect you and I trust that you'll make the right decision"?
Tyler Clancy: I would say this more broadly - in politics, honesty and transparency are your currency. There are so many times whether it's in the nitty-gritty work of legislating or campaigning, the more honest, the more upfront, and the more transparent you are with what your beliefs are, how you're going to vote, legislation that you're going to work on, that makes all the difference in the world.
I think voters are really hungry for authenticity, not the boxed answers. People really want to know what you think and what your decision-making process will be like. If you can be counted on to tell the truth, that's going to go so much farther than any niche policy position because someone's going to be able to trust you and know where you stand on the issues when things get hairy.
Aiden Buzzetti: And do you find that that currency is what has made your work, your bills, especially in that first year, but hopefully into the future so effective?
Tyler Clancy: President Trump said "promises made, promises kept." I think that was the biggest shock to so many people when President Trump followed through on many of the priorities that he ran on in 2016. Now when we're seeing this administration be selected in some of these picks, people are hungry for that. People are saying, "I hired you to do this job. Please go out and do it."
On the inside, if you're working on legislation and I'm counting votes, it's a close bill - even if you're telling me no, I appreciate that more than you smiling and nodding and giving me some answer, because at least I know where you stand. If you tell me no and you're a no, now the next time and you're a yes, I know I can trust you. I know I can count on you to be there. You can't put a value on that.
Aiden Buzzetti: I imagine it's one of those things where you go to somebody as a fellow legislator and you ask for their support, and they kind of dilly dally a little bit. Maybe they're undecided or waiting to hear back from other people. And then maybe you won't go back to them again for their support. That's why I think you, as a person, are so effective at doing what you're doing even though you are younger. You're going into your second term now, so objectively, you haven't been around for 20 years. But you still managed to get things done, and that is part of the transparency and the honesty and that authenticity.
So I'm curious - what are you really looking at next year, next session? What are your long-term goals, even going past 2025 and 2026? What would you like to see happen in Utah?
Tyler Clancy: We definitely hit on a couple. I think continuing the pressure and the momentum on reforming our homeless services, curtailing some of what's called harm reduction - the idea that giving out needles is the solution to the addiction crisis. I think we really need to pair that back and really look at more data-driven results.
Public safety - I think that's just the most fundamental human right, that you ought to be able to go to work, go to church, go to the store, go on a walk. Do you live in DC? Would you take your wife out for a walk downtown at 8, 9 PM? That's a problem. It's a huge problem in our capital city of our country that we have people who are too afraid to go outside, and rightfully so.
Looking at a lot of these things to just bring back a sense of normalcy, a sense of safety, and opportunities for the next generation to grow up in a country better than we did. That's how we've progressed as a country. That's how we'll continue our success - making sure that we're planting trees that we know we won't sit in the shade of, as the old saying goes.
Aiden Buzzetti: Your own service as a legislator - I assume you may not want to be a legislator forever. But when you think about the future of your state and your family and your country - I think we both largely believe in what Donald Trump has been talking about. Do you see the party, and this younger conservative movement going in a way that continues that?
Tyler Clancy: I certainly think so. Take the trade issue. I think there's an argument to be made when NAFTA or bringing China into the WTO, most favored nation status - there were promises or projections made. If you're an economic student, maybe there's some hope there. But we're on the other end of it. We've seen the results.
We were told that bringing China into the World Trade Organization and most favored nation status would liberalize their economy and modernize their government. It hasn't happened. In fact, quite the opposite - they've become more of a control economy. They're on the brink of invading Taiwan, and they're funding terrorism across the world.
For us, this generation, we've seen the promises that haven't been kept. We've seen the second and third order effects of some of these policies that were made before we were born. We're coming in and saying it's time for reform. It's time to right the ship. So I'm excited to see what happens.
Aiden Buzzetti: Me too. And I'm, again, so grateful that you were able to join us here in the studio.
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