This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
We got a lot of reaction — thank you — to our annual Christmas edition announcement of The Salt Lake Tribune's Utahn of the Year.
— Utahn of the Year: House Speaker Greg Hughes played many lead roles in 2015 — The Salt Lake Tribune
Most of it negative.
Some of the online comments so far:
"He should be indicted for voluntary manslaughter of poor people needing Medicaid, not named Utahn of the year." — Anti Theocratus
"I guess he had more effect on human life than any other person in the state. The death of hundreds of people needing health care makes him a Republican hero and the Trib's man of the year." — Max Cady
"The Dine Bikeyeh and Jackie Biskupski got by far more online votes than any other nominee. Yet the Trib's editorial board ignores the voice of the people and selects the pugnacious, corrupt, uncompassionate Greg Hughes to be its 'Utahn of the Year.' Very disappointing, to say the least. So much for the Trib being a 'liberal' newspaper!" — EmmanuelGoldstein1984
And in The Public Forum:
That's fine. The whole point is to get people thinking and start a conversation.
— Behind the Headlines: The Year's Top Stories (and Utahn of the Year) — KCPW podcast
But, really, the criteria is to pick out the person (or, in some cases, people) who have made the most news — made the most difference — over the past 12 months. Not who had the best intentions or whose heart was most firmly in the right place. But whose fingerprints were on the things that mattered most.
Our choice, Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes, basically killed Medicaid expansion, made the decision to move the state prison from Draper to Salt Lake City and preserved the power of the Republican super-majority in the Legislature to make its decisions in secret and without any respect for minority — or even, when considering the whole of the state, majority — views.
Hughes also, by accident, helped to kill Prop 1, the measure that would have boosted sales taxes for highways and public transit in Salt Lake and Utah counties (though it passed in other places). He was the personification of the arrogant, removed, clubby image that damns the Utah Transit Authority, both in the eyes of people who never liked public transit and those who depend on it.
Note that The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board favored Medicaid expansion, was suspicious of the prison move and backed Prop 1.
We considered some other candidates, such as Salt Lake City Mayor-elect Jackie Buskupski and the Native American groups working to protect public lands in southern Utah. But, so far, those and others, while their goals more closely match our own, and many of our readers', don't have the notches that Greg Hughes does.
Maybe next year.