Dedication of Michael O. Leavitt Building

Speakers

•          Dana Jones — Executive Director, Capitol Preservation Board

•          Rep. Candice Pierucci — House Majority Whip

•          Senate President J. Stuart Adams

•          Gov. Spencer Cox

•          Gov. Michael O. Leavitt

Dana Jones

Good morning and a warm welcome. My name is Dana Jones and I serve as the executive director for the Capitol Preservation Board. It is a privilege to join you on this occasion as we officially dedicate the Michael O. Leavitt Building, a significant milestone for Capitol Hill.

This morning we will have the opportunity to hear remarks from Representative Pierucci, who will be followed by President Adams. After President Adams, Governor Cox will address us and will then have the honor of introducing this building’s namesake, Governor Michael O. Leavitt.

Rep. Candice Pierucci

Thank you, good morning. I am excited to be here on behalf of the House. I serve as the majority whip. The Speaker was not able to be here, but sends his regards. It’s an honor to be able to dedicate this remarkable building for Governor Michael Leavitt.

If you look up — if it gets boring, I’m just going to tell you, look up. My little kids — I have a three-year-old and a seven-year-old — and this building has become their new favorite part of the Capitol complex. You can stand there and find all the incredible things that the artists worked in. It truly is a reflection of Utah, and of how well we can do it when we build things.

Governor Leavitt served our state during an important period in Utah’s history, and I think it’s fitting that this building bears your name — and that it’s not a monument to the past. This is a place where Utahns are already learning, gathering, and doing the work that’s going to shape the future of our state.

There’s a lot we could say about this building itself. Like I’ve said, it’s beautiful. It’s very functional. But what excites me most is what is happening within its walls. This is a place of learning and everyday leadership. It’s been so fun to start seeing the kids and their classes start trickling in and have the same awed moment we all just had as they walk into the building. There are citizens who gather here for public meetings and policy discussions. And some of the most important and often unseen work of our state government happens here every day. We’ve got legislative attorneys who turn our brilliant ideas — all of which the Governor loves — into laws; our fiscal analysts who help us understand how we can be good stewards of taxpayer dollars; and auditors who are asking the hard questions about whether the government is working as it should.

In different ways, all of that work is about learning from our history, learning from one another, and learning how we can make our state better. You can see that especially in the Museum of Utah that’s right behind me. One of the stories featured prominently is the 2002 Winter Olympics, which was a defining moment in our history and an important chapter of Governor Leavitt’s service.

I distinctly remember being in elementary school. They had us line up along the hallways, and they had someone come run with the Olympic torch. That is a core memory for me — they let us all touch it. I remember, even at a young age, thinking how incredible it was that our state was hosting the Olympics and what an incredible job we did with it. It brought the world together and showed what our state could accomplish when Utahns are united. Now, more than two decades later, visitors can walk into a building bearing Governor Leavitt’s name and experience that history for themselves.

I had the chance to preview this museum with my little kids, and they loved it. We stopped at the handcart and talked about how my family came across the plains pulling a handcart. They couldn’t believe it. They said, “Where did they fit all their toys?” And we’re like, “They didn’t get to bring the toys.” We had an incredible conversation about our pioneer history — and that is a conversation that is going to happen thousands of times in this building, with families who are sharing Utah’s story, with Governor Leavitt’s name on this building bearing that legacy.

We know that thousands of Utah kids are going to be coming through here. I’m so excited we have a place for them to go. As someone who cares about education, that means a great deal to me. This is another place where Governor Leavitt’s legacy connects with what happens inside this building, because Governor Leavitt didn’t approach education only from behind a desk here at the Capitol. By your own estimate, it sounds like he visited more than 400 Utah schools during his time as governor and actually went into the classrooms to see on the ground what was happening. It’s pretty incredible, the legacy that the Leavitts left for charter schools in our state and in expanding educational choice for families. I just dropped my little boy off at a charter school yesterday, so thank you.

Today, students from traditional district schools, charter schools, private schools, and homeschool families can all come learn about the state we get to call home. Regardless of where they go to school, I hope they leave with the same feeling: This belongs to me too. And that they can achieve something great, like so many of the Utahns that are highlighted here. Because government shouldn’t feel distant or abstract. The Capitol complex belongs to the people of Utah, and I love this building because it is their place, where they can come and participate and learn and take pride in our great state.

Looking back on his time as governor, Governor Leavitt once said, “We planted seeds for the next generation.” I think that idea is especially fitting for today. This building brings us all together. This is a legacy worthy of this place and of the people of Utah, and I’m so excited that we get to be here to celebrate this today. Thank you.

Senate President J. Stuart Adams

Wow. I’m really excited. It’s an honor for me to be here today, not only to recognize one of our great governors, but to recognize a great friend and someone who’s had a real, significant influence on me and my life.

It’s a well-deserved tribute to the service of a governor — but not only as a governor. As a former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, as the former Secretary of Health and Human Services for the United States. A great service, and a great, fitting tribute to former Governor Leavitt.

I came into the Legislature in 2002. When I came in, Governor Leavitt had already been governor for ten years. I was actually appointed — it was a midterm appointment. But I learned very quickly, as I looked at his example, that I saw someone who not only looked at the moment — because we dealt with a lot of tough issues — but, as Candice has articulated here, looked beyond the moment into future generations. That influence has had a great impact on me.

As I talk about the things you’ve done — and there are many — you focused on transportation, education, growth, and all those things have determined what Utah is today. But let me give you a specific example. As you championed infrastructure, you championed the Centennial Highway Fund. Remember back in the day when 100% of our transportation — new growth, all of the new capacity — was paid for out of the gas tax. The Centennial Highway Fund was the very first time that we took sales tax dollars and dedicated them to infrastructure. We were looking at an Olympics, I-15 reconstruction, Legacy Parkway, all the other things we wanted to do in this state, and we actually took some sales tax money and put it into a fund.

In 2002, when I came into the Legislature, we were having a bit of an economic downturn, and the $90 million that we’d appropriated into that Centennial Highway Fund, we determined we needed to put back into our budget to basically hold education harmless. My very first vote was to actually take that $90 million — even though I’m a great champion for infrastructure — and put it back into our budget. But I learned that if you can appropriate money to one-time expenses, you can take that money and spend it when the economy turns down. We have grown that into what we call the working rainy day fund. That Centennial Highway Fund was replenished with $90 million; we then moved to a TIF with hundreds of millions of dollars in it; and then we ran a bill, Senate Bill 229, and we now have almost a quarter of our sales tax revenue — 25% — being spent on infrastructure. So when the economy turns down, there’s almost $2 billion of flexibility in our budget so that we can hold education, or other services, harmless. We’ve been recognized as one of the best-managed states because of that. Thank you, Governor Leavitt.

The other thing he championed — we talked about education, but not only education — was the engineering initiative. Think about it today. Back then, WordPerfect was still part of the process; they were one of the best word-processing companies in the world. Now they’ve been replaced, but we were the leader in the tech movement, the IT movement. Look at what’s going on now at Hill Air Force Base. In the last few years, we’ve added 6,000 jobs at Hill. The entire land-based missile defense system — the strategic defense for the United States — is housed out of Roy, Utah. All those engineers. We had a meeting yesterday, a MITRE meeting, where they talked about another building with a thousand new jobs. That’s 7,000 jobs at Hill Air Force Base. We talk about what’s going on at Silicon Slopes. Where would we be without the engineering initiative that you championed? I’m not sure how we would ever have facilitated that growth. Thank you again, Governor Leavitt.

You not only championed that, but you led us through the 2002 Winter Olympics. In 1998, you worked with the Legislature to form the Capitol Preservation Board — one of the great accomplishments. Now we are here to celebrate this new building, the Michael O. Leavitt Building, on this spectacular Capitol complex that the Capitol Preservation Board has done so much to preserve and make so beautiful.

It’s very appropriate that your name is on this building. Think about the future: all the kids, all the people who will come here, from around the state and internationally, will see your name — but they’ll learn about this great state of Utah. You’ve made Utah better than you found it. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your service. And thank you for your lifelong dedication to the state of Utah.

Governor Spencer Cox

Thank you, Representative Pierucci. Thank you, President Adams, for your leadership. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. It’s great to see all of you here today on this momentous and very special occasion.

I want to thank my team who helped put this together. I also want to thank them for writing this incredible speech that I’m not going to give. They did an excellent job, and I want you to know I’m very proud of it. Maybe I’ll send a copy of it with Governor Leavitt when he goes.

We don’t do this very often. I don’t know if we’ve ever done this — maybe in some past administration at some point — where we name a building, especially a building of this magnitude, after someone who is not yet dead, who is still very much alive and very much with us. He is here. Now, I need you to know there’s a reason we don’t do that. Most states don’t do that; most countries don’t do that. There are lots of reasons for it, but it’s often hard to understand a legacy until someone has passed on. There’s also always that chance that they embarrass us in future years. We’re sure that will not happen here.

So let me tell you a little bit about why we did this.

In 1993, I was a senior in high school, and the phone rang in my house. We didn’t have cell phones back then, for you kids. There was a literal phone hanging on the wall, and it was the only one in the house. I picked up that phone, and someone said, “Hey, is your dad there?” I said, “No, he’s not.” He said, “Okay, will you tell him that I called? This is Governor Mike Leavitt.” I stuttered — I don’t remember what I said, something like, “Sure, I’ll tell him.” I couldn’t wait to tell my dad that the governor had called. It was the first governor I had ever spoken to.

It was a brief interaction, but a memorable one, because my dad sat down — my dad was a county commissioner at the time — and he decided to tell me more about Governor Mike Leavitt. He told me he was the greatest governor that we’d ever had, that he admired him tremendously. He told me that he came from rural Utah, from a small town. I didn’t know they let kids from small towns do stuff like that — although I thought Cedar City was kind of a big town compared to Fairview at the time.

But I knew, by the way my dad spoke about Governor Leavitt, that there was something special about him. And so I followed very closely from that day on what was happening in our state. I started paying attention to the decisions that were being made and who he was.

Of course, we were also very proud when we saw him leave the state — not that we were excited to see him leave, but so proud that the President of the United States saw how great someone from Utah was. It had been a while since we had someone from Utah serve in such an esteemed position at the national level: with the EPA, and then a cabinet-level position, one of the most important cabinet-level positions in the country. He was one of ours, and that made us proud.

Of course, when the world came here for the Olympics, that was a huge deal for all of us. We finally got to show the rest of the world what we all knew — that Utah was a pretty great state. The fact that those Olympics went off so well at a time when the nation was reeling from 9/11 — of course, former Governor and Senator Mitt Romney is here with us — a person who, again, speaks to Governor Mike Leavitt. He didn’t do everything himself. He found the best people to do those things, because he knew the capabilities of others. As I look around this room, I see so many of you who served with Governor Leavitt in his cabinet and have continued to make such a tremendous difference in our state.

When I was looking at the potential of possibly running for governor, I started doing a deep dive on research. I went back and read what our state was like in the late ’80s and into the early and mid ’90s, and I was a little surprised. I started looking up some of the rankings. I looked at some of the debates that happened when Governor Leavitt ran for the first time, some of the conversations that were happening there. We were a very middling state. We’ve gotten so used to being named the best state, the best economy, number one for this — the best state four years in a row, which has never happened to any state before. That was not the case in 1992, 1993, 1994, when Governor Leavitt assumed the mantle of governor. We were struggling as an economy. We didn’t have a very diverse economy. We had people who were leaving the state. We weren’t attracting talent into the state. We were growing, but just because we were really great at having kids.

The modern Utah that so many of us know — and for many young people, this has been their entire lives — wasn’t the Utah then. It’s the Utah now because of him. We’re the number one state four years in a row, not because of me, but because of decisions that were made 30 years ago that made us what we are today.

Someone much wiser than I said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I’ve read his papers; I’ve studied them intently. When I became governor, I decided that I was going to learn everything I could about the Leavitt administration. I went back and looked at their cabinet members. I looked at the decisions they made. I looked at his strategy — brilliant strategy, I will tell you that. But that’s not what transformed Utah into the greatest state in the nation. It was the culture that he built. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Culture is the thing that matters. Culture is so hard to build — it’s the hardest thing to build, and it’s very easy to destroy. I can tell you that every governor since this governor has felt the weight of preserving that culture that made us the state we are today.

So when people ask why you would name a building after someone who is still with us, why you would change the way we usually do things — you only do that in the rarest of circumstances. And this is the rarest of circumstances. We built something very special here, something we’re very proud of. You don’t often get to build a forever building. Elder Caussé is here with us — the Church builds forever buildings on occasion, but we’re not used to that. We got a chance — not just once in a generation, more than a generation, really a once-in-a-lifetime chance — to build the last piece of this campus, to build a forever building. We wanted it to be something that future generations of our state would be proud of, but just as important, that the past generations who have passed on would be proud of. I think we accomplished that — from the skylight at the top, to the marble on the floor, to this world-class museum that I hope you all, even if you don’t have much time, just run through really quickly and look around in these four spaces. It is a museum that rivals anything anywhere in the world. It’s incredible. Thousands of artifacts. Utah history is here.

And it needed a name. As we sat and talked about it — the President, the Speaker, myself, and others — we looked at the history of Utah, and there’s only one name that could match this building. This building is the physical embodiment of the spirit of Michael O. and Jackie Leavitt.

This building, like Governor Leavitt, always has an eye to the future — the technology, the screen you see behind us — but is forever rooted in the past. You see, you can’t just decide to go somewhere. You’ll never get there in a straight line. You have to connect two different points. What Governor Leavitt did best was to look back at who we are, at our core, at what made this state and the people who made this state; tie it to the present; and then point us to the future. It’s led us to the greatest state in the nation.

So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here to pay tribute to one of the greatest public servants ever to grace these Capitol steps.

It’s now my privilege and honor to welcome to the podium Governor Michael O. Leavitt.