Action: HB13 – Cox’s Big Gaslight – Pretending to Not Tax You; Foreign Individuals Governing You

Urgent Call To Action 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

HB13 – Key Alerts!

This bill must be killed! It’s flying through the legislature and it’s about to become law.

It took a while to read through it and identify the poison pills in this bill. Violating the constitution, it sets up a framework for new taxes without you having a voice and gives non-residents power to govern you and benefit from those taxes and sets up new quasi-sovereign mini governments to do it all.

So using this new tool the legislature is creating, you could literally lay a new government on top of an existing one, run by people who live in New York or Europe or China, right in the middle of Salt Lake County.

Read on for the details or skip to the bottom for the call to action.

CURRENT STATUS OF BILL (2-22-24)

The bill has been amended, received a unanimous vote in favor in the House, and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. It’s flying through the process and needs quick action from the people.

WE COVERED THE PRINCIPLES LAST YEAR

Last year we did a deep dive article on “Micro Regionalism” where the legislature tried and failed to create a legal tool called a DID (Dedicated Infrastructure District). In the article we explained that clear municipal boundaries are part of a republican form of government. Without boundaries the people have no mechanism to exercise control of their government at the local level.  Cities and counties must always remain in full control. Read last year’s article for how the Utah Constitution requires these clear boundaries in multiple places as part of the national constitution’s requirement to maintain a Republican form of Government.

This year, they’re back at it AGAIN! Trying to continue the creation of a new form of government in the USA that can have non-local, even international, connections (Globalism anyone?).

One of these new confusing district types is called a PID (Public Infrastructure District), which this video on our YouTube channel discusses.

But now we’re about to get what’s called an IFD (Infrastructure Financing District)

IFDs – MAKING THE PROBLEM WORSE

HB 13 – Infrastructure Financing Districts

This bill would allow for the creation of another type of  district, similar to PIDs but different. (Potato, Pot-AH-to?)

They’ve resurrected the dead “DID”s from last year and now they’re calling them “IFD”s.

Constitutionally speaking, they’re all “Special Districts” and the Utah constitution has rules about them that are not being followed.

This has been touted as a way to help with housing affordability…  We can know that this is a lie because the housing crisis itself is just a fantasy-fiction that the elite just keep repeating.

The only way to bring housing prices down is to get government out of the way so they stop making prices worse and let the free market handle the problem. (We put a video on our YouTube channel recently explaining all of that)

WHAT’S THIS REALLY ABOUT – Cox’s Gaslight On You

Connecting the dots… This new illegal-district tool matches the Utah main stream media narrative forming around Major League Baseball in Utah and a rumored “Entertainment 15 Minute City” to be somewhere in Utah.

1 Billion?  Wow! Who’s going to pay for that?

The taxpayer?

Listen to Governor Cox claim to care about the free market in this KSL article, and not giving tax payer money to big corporations.

At first glance, that sounds like he’s either having a moment of following the constitution (free market clause, Article XII Sec 20) or he’s telling the media that he cares while knowing something else is actually happening.

WHO WILL FUND THE STADIUM?

It SHOULD be the sports franchise.  But that is not how this has worked for major sports for a very long time.  It’s always the taxpayer building big stadiums while private sports business benefits.  So what are the chances Cox is going to break this American Marxist tradition and actually make them pay for their own stadium? Has Cox been more of a Marxist in his tenure or a Constitutionalist?

Enter the legislation, HB13 – Let’s look at how IFDs will work:

1. Here we read about the very purpose of an IFD.  A government entity created to enter into a contract with someone to develop or build something. Could be high-density housing, could be parks, could be an entire city (like daybreak), or it could be a $1 Billion dollar sports complex.  It could literally be anything.

2. Don’t let the name fool you. An IFD or any magical name they give these new districts, are all “Special Districts” according to the constitution, and the constitution has rules about them.

The county, city or town they sit in, must be in charge.  This is one place the Utah Constitution complies with the US Constitution requirement to maintain a Republican Form of Government. It must be governed by the people (the municipalities that have elected representatives) or we’re no longer a Republic.

The legislature is violating this by making the district specifically “separate and distinct” and unaccountable to the municipalities (the people).

Because it’s distinct, they’re saying that the debt of the city, is never the burden of ANY political entity in the entire state of Utah.

Now that an IFD’s finances have been legally separated from so much accountability to Utah’s government, they can claim that no tax payer money will ever pay the debts of the IFD. So whatever the IFD builds, the people are not on the hook, right? We’ll answer that in a moment.

If the city is not in charge of these IFDs, they’re politically independent, and not a financial burden, then who is in charge?

They get to have their own board, possibly a fully unelected board. They will divide the new IFD up into sub-divisons.  Sounds an awful lot like they’re starting to create their own little city council and sub-divisions. It looks just like a government to me.  Why can’t the cities and counties handle this? We already have a government, but we’re creating a new one, and we’re pretending it’s essentially not part of the state of Utah?

Who gets to be on the board? To maintain a Republican Form of government, the representation must come from the body of the people within the jurisdiction of the district. If not, then it is no longer an American form of government, it’s something else (foreign).

The founders initially set up the standard of property ownership as the main requirement to have “skin in the game” (vote), because they knew property is what ties you to a jurisdiction and makes you part of the “great body of the people” (as the federalist papers explained it).  Now in today’s language, the same principle simply means living in a district. Renting, or having permanent residence with someone else who rents or owns, means you are part of the community.

In a gross violation of this, HB13 says that the IFD can choose to allow anyone who does not live or own property there, to be on the governing board.

Repeating what I said before…

Using this new tool the legislature is creating, you could literally lay a new “government”, that’s not considered part of the state of Utah, that would be run by people who live in New York or Europe or China, right on top of parts of Salt Lake County (or any county).

But wait! It gets worse!

So now that we’ve established this is a separate, not-real-Utah-government (but yet acting like a government) entity, we can clearly see that we have delegated municipal powers of some kind to a 3rd party.

A 3rd party that could be run by anyone…  Maybe the developers, maybe someone from the World Economic Forum, who knows. They have to make it a 3rd party so they can say that they are not taxing you.  It’s not Utah’s problem to pay the debt of the IFD, so then who will?  The IFD?  Where will the IFD get the money?

Answer: The IFD will levy a tax on you!

Ah! Do you see the magic of government?

The state of Utah has no responsibility to pay for the infrastructure, because they’ve legally defined it that way… but what they’ve done is delegate the power to levy a tax to a 3rd party that is not considered part of Utah’s government for the purposes of paying Utah’s debts. They can argue that it both is and is not part of government, depending on which concern you bring to them. They can flip flop depending on who they’re talking to and what questions are being asked.

So when Cox says the government will not tax you to pay for a stadium, that stadium could be built by a special district. Then using legal gymnastics he could claim that he’s not lying to you.  But now you know, that this whole thing is a pile of gaslighting.

Not only is it a lie, it is explicitly forbidden in our state constitution.

Do you see how powerful our state constitution is?  It’s already prevented this problem from happening, and tyrants are trying to legislate their way around it.  It is only our ignorance of what is in our constitutions, and lack of understanding the enforcement mechanism (nullification), that allow them to get away with it.

So two primary constitutional reasons they can’t do this:

1. A district can never, under any circumstance, be declared distinct and separate.  Even 1% separate.

2. A 3rd party, that is not a constitutionally valid special district, can never be delegated the power to govern a city, and especially tax.  Even 1% tax or 1% governing power.

Both of these make us non-republican in form.  Which violates the US constitution’s requirement to maintain a Republican form of government

WHERE DOES IT TALK ABOUT THE STADIUM?

They put it in another bill, SB272

THE FINAL SLIMY TRICK

What if a city or county figures this out, and following the will of the people and the authority of the constitution, wanted to put a stop to an IFD that is within their boundaries?

A municipality taking their power back would fall under the category of “nullification‘, otherwise known as an act to enforce the constitution.

The bill claims to set the standard of the “exclusive” remedy if one decides the creation of the district was illegal.

Under this language, an uneducated county or city would say “I guess filing a lawsuit is our only option, it’s the law”.

They also limit it to 30 days from creation.  After 30 days you can no longer contest it.

Then the uneducated (or complicit) representative would say “I guess there’s nothing we can do, it’s the law”. Of course, this would not be true.  This legislation can never override the authority of an elected official to take constitutionally sound executive action to bring something back into constitutional compliance, whatever path they had to take to get the job done. The oath of office is full legal empowerment to get the job done.

SOLUTIONS – YOUR TURN TO TAKE ACTION

HB13 is not alone.

Other bills this year are working for the same agenda: to expand unconstitutional district power. Kill them all, we don’t need any of it: HB13, SB252. SB258, SB259, SB272.

Please tell our Senate that the People don’t want another unaccountable taxation district that will only raise our cost of living and do nothing for affordability.

If they want a stadium, they must do it constitutionally, in accordance with the law.  That means our form of government must not change AND the sports franchise pays for their own stadium.

Demand we maintain a republican form of government. No more creativity in changing our form of government.

The bill has already passed the house, we need to stop it in the Senate. You can use this template, but make it your own.

Dear Senator ___________,

I am your constituent and I am seriously concerned about the constitutionality of HB13 and I think you should revisit your view of this bill. The power to build infrastructure already exists within the free market and the legal frameworks of local cities and counties. There’s no need to create any new type of special districts for this. Especially if it’s being done in a way that violates Utah’s Constitution, Article VI Sec 28 and Article IX Sec 7, at a minimum. When the constitution is violated, that means the people have not authorized such a law to exist. Utah Constitution Article 1 Sec 2 states that all political power is inherent in the people.

Allowing foreign individuals who don’t own property or reside in an area to govern that area in any way, is a serious concern for our state sovereignty and safety.

Allowing 3rd parties to perform any municipal function, whether taxing (line 3598) or administrative, consolidates power into special interests hands.

Allowing either of these changes our Republican form of government.

I will be speaking to my neighbors about the proper constitutional way to create infrastructure, because I feel it’s past time that we make a serious effort to follow our constitutions more strictly.

Please vote no on HB13, and all the related special district bills that do not serve the people of Utah in their current form (SB252, SB258, SB259, SB272). All these bills can be killed because the power to build infrastructure already exists within the free market and local municipal legal frameworks.

If any piece of these bills can be separated from the path that changes our form of government, and be found justifiable to still be needed where the free market and existing legal frameworks are not sufficient, then I’d consider supporting those pieces that were changed to conform with constitutional requirements.

Sincerely,

____________

1. Contact your Senator and tell them they must vote NO on HB13. Do not delegate municipal and taxing powers to 3rd parties.

Find your Senator: – www.DefendingUtah.org/ContactYourReps

2. If this bill gets passed in the Senate, then we must contact the Governor and demand that he VETO it.
Leave a voicemail on the Governor’s line:

The Office of Gov. Spencer J. Cox

Online web form, comments to the governor: https://sf.gov.utah.gov/Contact/s/

Phone: 801-538-1000
Toll Free: 800-705-2464

3. If it gets passed all the way, then the place to protect our Republican form of government becomes the cities and counties learning to engage in Nullification against the pretend-state-law.

Here’s your guide:

– Watch this short video on Nullification, so that you have a personal understanding on what it is, how it works, and why it’s the duty of your city/county council.

– The Utah Central Committee for Protecting Rights published a sample nullification declaration for this same problem from last year.  You can bring this to any government body and they can use it as a template to write their own. You would replace last year’s legislation mentioned in the document with the same bills from this year that are doing the same thing (Download the document here).
This year’s bills expanding unconstitutional district power: HB13, SB252. SB258, SB259, SB272.

4. Spread this article around.

5. Read about the founder’s solution to tyranny, committees, and then contact us and we’ll mentor you directly to create groups in your area that you can use to push back.

6. Become a member of Defending Utah and join our weekly training

7. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for an upcoming video about this bill and others.