The Sitdown: State Sen. Derek Kitchen on speaking for millennials, thinking long-term and tackling climate change

SALT LAKE CITY — The 2020 Utah State Legislature is nearly finished in Salt Lake City, as legislators try to leave their mark before the session’s end on Thursday.

State lawmakers are largely drawn from older, more established generations, but the decisions they make during the session can affect young Utahns for years to come.

KSL.com recently sat down with Sen. Derek Kitchen, D-Salt Lake City, to talk about his perspective as the Senate’s youngest member and how millennials can impact the political process.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How does your age inform your work as a legislator?

That’s a good question. It’s wild because the state of Utah has one of the youngest populations in the country. The last number I remember seeing was about 29-and-a-half years old, was the median age. And if you look at the Legislature, we do not reflect that, demographically speaking.

You know, me at 31, I think I’m closer to the median age of most Utahns. So in some way, I feel that it’s a real opportunity for me to speak with authority on the floor or in a committee meeting, and express that very different lived experience that a lot of young people have.

You know, as a member of the millennial generation, the economic situation that I'm growing up in and adulting in is much different than a lot of my colleagues. And so that lived experience is something that I think is really important to be communicated. Because policy that we debate or even pass up here inevitably impacts all Utahns, of course, but it doesn't impact everybody equally.

And so, you know, my age isn't at the forefront of my mind at all times. But it's definitely part of me in a way that informs my worldview. And so I bring my age, I suppose, to all aspects of this job.

What do you perceive as some of the biggest barriers or obstacles between young people and greater political participation?

Money.

The thing is, I served on the city council before this, before I was elected to the Senate, and the city council was not by any means a high-paying job. But I took a haircut coming to the state Senate. So I got — I had to, basically, halve my salary. It went, you know, from roughly $30,000 to roughly $15,000 a year.

And the kind of work that we do up here requires a lot of time, a commitment in time. And so I think, when I say the barrier to young people getting involved being money, it's that most young people are not independently wealthy. And you have to be independently wealthy or have somebody else taking care of you, not be a primary breadwinner in the house.

And most people, especially young people, are dual-income households. And so it's unfeasible for them to imagine stepping outside of their profession to do something like this, as much as they may want to. It's just a huge barrier. So I think, you know, finding a way to get elected officials compensated fairly would allow the average person to even contemplate running for office.

Given Utah’s conservative politics, how is your party trying to get young people in this state to consider the Democratic Party?

Utah, being a very young state, is trending more and more Democratic. But let me just back up and talk to you about my district.

I represent Senate District 2. It was held by Jim Dabakis before me. It's widely known and believed to be the most progressive or liberal Senate district in the state of Utah. If you look at the data, 62% of my voters are unaffiliated or otherwise independent.

So if you tease that out a little bit, what that tells me is that they might be progressive, but by no means are they partisan. And I think that that's probably a pretty accurate trend for the rest of the state as well.

If you look at what happened in 2018, with all of those ballot initiatives, we had cannabis on the ballot, we had Medicaid on the ballot, we had school funding on the ballot, and we had redistricting on the ballot. Three out of the four won, and I think what you're seeing is a general displeasure with the Legislature by the general electorate.

And so I don't know that it's necessarily — I think the trends are heading the way of the progressive, more left-leaning electorate. But you’ve got to keep in mind that every 10 years we redraw our political boundaries and Republicans have been in charge for the last 30 years. And when we redraw our political boundaries, they redraw the boundaries in a way that not only supports them but further entrenches their power.

And so I think that's why the proposition in 2018, that called for an independent redistricting commission, is so important, because our demographics are shifting so fast in the state of Utah and the Legislature has historically not really reflected the general electorate. And, that the voters had to go gather signatures and put big issues on the ballot, like cannabis and Medicaid expansion, when the Legislature should have been doing that for them. And you saw it again this year with tax reform.

At the end of the day, I think that our Legislature is incredibly out of touch with the voters of the state of Utah.

They may be Mormon in the state of Utah and the Legislature may be Mormon, but that doesn't mean that they are representing them from a policy standpoint accurately. And I think, if the Utah Legislature continues to neglect the desires of the general electorate, you're going to see more and more disruption, I think, politically.

What’s one thing you learned during your first session last year that is helping you this year?

I think one thing I noticed last year is that, in a Republican supermajority and as a Democrat, I have to be very mindful of some of the policies that I push forward, and acknowledge that some of them might have a chance of being successful while other issues might need to be nurtured a little bit more long term.

I think one thing that I've noticed is that, you know, some of my peers will run a bill with the expectation that it fails. But the point is not to get it past the finish line, it's to start a conversation.

And so I'm realizing that in this job, I have an opportunity to build policy successes over the long haul. It's not immediate success on some things. Now, obviously, other issues are really important that must be addressed immediately. But I think just having that long vision is really important.

Now, this is my second session, and I feel a lot more confident, I have a better understanding of the process. I know who the personalities are, I've made friends with my peers and my colleagues. And so I have a lot — I feel a lot more sure of myself.

I don't know if that's one thing specifically that I've learned, but just to — I think one thing that I would like to be communicated here is that in politics, it's important to a) work together, and b) take the long vision.

What are some of the biggest challenges that our generation will have to address as we age?

Climate change. I think that's the only thing that matters at this point.

Because, I mean, you’ve got to keep in mind, globally we are losing 200 species to extinction a day. A day.

In about nine years, the consensus among the scientific community globally — whether you're Republican, Democrat or otherwise unaffiliated — the scientists agree that in about nine years, we're going to hit a tipping point where climate change is no longer going to be something that we can prevent or mitigate. We're going to be dealing with it front and center. And so we're going to hit that tipping point where all of these externalities are going to be coming at us — the ecosystem is going to be so disrupted that it's going to sort of get out of our control. And so climate change is first and foremost, the biggest issue and everything else is secondary, honestly.

How would you like to see Utah lead out on that issue?

Yeah, I would love to see us move away from the single-occupant vehicle development. Salt Lake County and the state of Utah, broadly, is expected to nearly double in population in the next 25 to 30 years. It's taken us almost 200 years to become a population of this size, as a state. We're going to (double) that in a couple of decades.

So I think as we anticipate this growth, we’ve got to build communities that are walkable, that don't use as much carbon, that isn't focused around the automobile, where people can live close to work, they can live close to school, they can live close to the doctor's office and the grocery store. And focus on building codes that allow for passive design, so we're not using as much energy.

And I think we need to build a resilient economy that's focused on supporting local commerce, local agriculture, insulating ourselves from the global economic winds so that when there's a housing crisis nationally, or there's an international trade dispute, that less of our local economy is impacted by those issues.

I think when we think about climate change, we need to talk about it in terms of general sustainability. And of course, that applies to, you know, energy consumption and our carbon footprint. But also, I think what that means — when I think about sustainability, I think about self-sustenance and how we can take care of ourselves. And so making sure that we aren't focused on, you know, mono agriculture, and that we're incubating a diverse economy that's resilient.

So I think about climate change, of course, but I also just think about general, good practices for community development. And so Utah can focus on quality development, density, we can focus on building our transit infrastructure. We need to move away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and that means investing in renewable energy like wind and solar and geothermal and hydro and battery storage.

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