Back Channel Utah

Kirk Cullimore on the Leadership Race Already Underway in the Utah Senate

• Marty • Episode 12

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Kirk Cullimore, Utah Senate Majority Leader, shares the unexpected journey that took him from a career in music to one of Utah's top legislative leadership positions. He reflects on the lessons he learned through music, law, and public service, and how those experiences continue to shape his approach to leadership.

The conversation explores Utah's rapid growth, housing affordability, economic development, artificial intelligence, and the long-term decisions that will influence the state's future. Cullimore also discusses the importance of discipline, community involvement, and why the most meaningful opportunities often come from simply being willing to serve.

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Off Script. On Record.

SPEAKER_01

The Utah legislature is a place where relationships matter as much as the votes, where big decisions are shaped in committee rooms, in caucus conversations, and in all those quieter moments in between. And when you step back, the real story isn't always which bills pass. It's how leaders build alignment inside a caucus, especially when tough questions are coming and the politics can get complicated. Right now, the Utah Senate is preparing for a sizable transition. A leadership race is coming, and the question underneath it is bigger than who gets the gavel. It's what kind of Senate Utah's want for the next four years. My guest today is the Utah Senate Majority Leader and a practicing attorney, someone whose job it is to understand the Senate, keep a caucus moving in the same direction, find common ground with the House and with the governor, and help keep Utah on the short list of states doing things right. Coming up on Back Channel, we go off script and on record with Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore.

SPEAKER_00

This is the back channel.

SPEAKER_02

Back channel.

SPEAKER_01

You didn't hear this from me. Back channel.

SPEAKER_02

What channel is it on?

SPEAKER_01

Back channel. Off script on record. Senator Kirk Cullomore, Majority Leader Kirk Cullomore. Thanks so much for spending some time with us today. Appreciate being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Marty. Uh okay, let's start with this. Are you a Utah guy originally? Tell me about where you grew up and and the family you grew up in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I am. I grew up in pretty much the area where I live in right now, north part of Sandy, pretty close to Cottonwood Heights. Nothing more Utah than living basically where you grew up as well. Yes. Yeah, it took it took a little while to get back there, but happy to be back there and be back there with a bunch of friends that I grew up with as well. So that's kind of fun. Uh I'm the oldest of 10 kids. Wow, big family. Yeah, big family. Uh most of, well, about half of them live in the area still. And uh yeah, we we regularly see each other still. Um what's the age difference between you and your youngest sibling?

SPEAKER_01

I think it's about 18 years. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you've you've had some management experience even just growing up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I uh by the time I had kids, I'd probably change more diapers than most most parents out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Sounds like it. Uh I I love that idea of like not only living close to where you grew up, but you mentioned the that you hang out with some of the same friends you've had for a long time. I have that same thing in my life. I think it's one of the biggest blessings to have if you've had friends from like uh how far back do your friends go, like elementary school?

SPEAKER_00

Well, a lot of these people are just, you know, I was friends with them, or maybe they were a couple years younger than me, and so we knew each other, but now we're back in the area, and it's kind of fun to, you know, have that commonality of, hey, we all grew up here, we know a lot of the same people, yeah. And now we're sending our kids to the schools that we all went to and stuff.

SPEAKER_01

So tell me a little bit about your family now. How many kids do you have?

SPEAKER_00

So I have six kids, uh five daughters, one boy. Do your parents look at you and say, like, you know, nice start, but you're slacking. Yeah. Um, you know, things are a little different now, but but um yeah, we got six, so five daughters. My oldest daughter is twenty two, and then my youngest daughter is eleven, and the the boy is number five out of six.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So you got the boy and then thought you went for a second boy there at the time.

SPEAKER_00

We did, we thought we'd give him a little brother, and yeah, it was another girl.

SPEAKER_01

Didn't quite work out. Uh okay, so you uh tell me about uh you grew up in Utah. Uh where'd you go to college and and what did you study?

SPEAKER_00

So I um went to UBSC at the time, UVU now. Yeah. Um right now. Same house.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. Yeah. Right when I the dates us when we tell people, right?

SPEAKER_00

I actually left high school early and went went down there, so I started down there. Um I remember my senior year, I watched a lot of the OJ Simpson trial, you know, during the fall semester and then started in full at UVSC in January. I I was on a violin scholarship, so I did music at UVSC. I got my two-year degree um pretty quick. It was taking a lot of hours, and then I went on a mission. When I came back from my mission. Where did you serve your mission? I served in the Philippines. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Heaven bless you. I served in the Dominican Republic, and I say there are two people I can see I feel sorry for. Those people who went to the Philippines or to Haiti. Everyone else I'm like, I think I can play, I think I can hang with you, but Philippines is a tough one.

SPEAKER_00

Philippines, yeah, it was it was awesome. I was in very rural parts, you know, and so we got to see a lot of the real Filipino life, but it was it was fun. I enjoyed it. Uh came back and went to BYU, so finished my degree in music at BYU, but switched my main instrument from violin to piano there, and then just did a BA, a general BA in music with an emphasis in songwriting.

SPEAKER_01

How long have you been playing the piano and the violin? And which one are you better at?

SPEAKER_00

I started violin when I was four and then started piano a couple years later, and then was always always doing both. Um did orchestras through high school and then um at UBSC, of course. But really started focusing more on piano around 15, 16. And so I would say if you look at if you compare me to-the girls like the piano there. It was really my violin teacher, Jack Ashton. He's a he's a renowned violin teacher. Um, just died a year ago or so. But um Jack was amazing. When I was about 14 years old, Jack told me, listen, you're at a point in your violin career where you either need to dedicate yourself to violin and be practicing three, four hours a day, or be a good violinist and and focus on piano. And he actually recommended to me that I do piano, that it would be that it would serve me better throughout my life.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He was probably right. I also think he was just like, you're not practicing enough to do this. That's a nice way to say it. But uh, but yeah, so I started focusing more on piano at that time. And so if I compare myself to performance majors, I'm not really good at either of them. But I'd say I'm I'm really good at violin and piano, but a master of neither, maybe.

SPEAKER_01

Um I'm not musical at all, can't play anything, so I find this really fascinating. What did you love about playing the violin?

SPEAKER_00

Um well it's honestly I probably started it before I knew anything different. And so it's really brainwashing. Yeah, so it's just it's just always been kind of part of my life. But I I do love the violin music. I love the tone, I love the emotion you can get out of it. Uh uh later as I got into high school and college, like had to learn like fiddle and stuff like that, because you can play with like country bands and all that, so that's you know, the style's kind of fun, but but I I you know I just love the technical aspect of violin and the the emotion that comes with it.

SPEAKER_01

So I'm interested then you've got six kids right now. Um how often do you actually pick up a violin these days, or how often do you play the pi the piano?

SPEAKER_00

I play the piano a lot still, pretty regularly. At church, I'm the organist and the primary pianist and the ward choir pianist.

SPEAKER_01

You've got all you the you're the only one who plays the piano or anything with the keyboard.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we've got a couple, but yeah, I do a lot of that. Um I've accompanied a lot of violinists and cellists and recitals and stuff like that growing up. So I've I've I play piano more, but because of my kids, I still do some violin. I've got all my kids do string instruments, so a couple, well, four violinists and two cellists.

SPEAKER_01

And did they start in the brainwashing stage or did they start by their own choice?

SPEAKER_00

Uh no, they all start at the brainwashing stage. This is what you will do.

SPEAKER_01

That's the better way to get them in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, this is this is your life. Yeah. Get used to it.

SPEAKER_01

Are any of them better at it than you are either now or than you were at that age?

SPEAKER_00

Um you know, I don't want to yeah. They're good.

SPEAKER_01

Put you on the spot about your kids.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know the topic. I uh I had a lot of opportunities and was forced to practice a lot. So I and then it's hard to it's hard to judge because if they're not gonna pursue in college, I I think I grew a lot musically during college. And so it's hard to remember exactly where I was at 16, 17 versus where I ended up. But they all have the potential to be as good or better than me. I just don't know if they'll pursue it to the same degree in college.

SPEAKER_01

And you're still involved in this, in the music scene, not only still playing, but something called the is it the Suzuki Institute?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so a couple things. So Suzuki is a method. It's um it's based on nurturing the kid and and teaching that music develops all sorts of other skills, but it's also has a lot of ear training. I think it's really effective on string instruments where you have to rely on your ear a lot. So um it really came to rise in the 70s and 80s uh from Dr. Sinichi Suzuki out of Japan. There's a Suzuki Association of America's. I serve on that board. And then as part of these, there's institutes around the country. The Intermount Suzuki String Institute was started in Utah almost 50 years ago now by Ramona Sterling, who's still involved. She did an amazing job. A little more than 10 years ago, I started asking questions about it, and they're like, oh, we could really use your help. And so I I came in and kind of formalized the the nonprofit board for this organization, served as the chair for about 10 years, and uh still serve on that organization. My kids attend it. About 600 plus kids come to this seven or ten-day institute every year. We get faculty from all over the world that come, and so it's a couple hundred faculty and teacher trainers, so yeah, still do that.

SPEAKER_01

So you went to UVSC, now UVU, with the intention of playing the violin and then sort of made some transition. Did you end up graduating from there? Did you transfer somewhere?

SPEAKER_00

I got my associates from UVU and Music and then transferred to BIU and finished my bachelor's in music there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

But then somehow you end up as a lawyer. So tell me about that journey and what took you to Oklahoma for law school.

SPEAKER_00

So I actually I taught I taught and played music professionally for about six years after getting my degree at BIU. Really enjoyed it. I think at my peak I had about 70 students a week between violin, piano, a little bit of viola. Uh I actually really enjoyed it, was able to play with some bands, country bands, jazz trios here and there. And uh it was a lot of fun. But in the back of my mind, I always had this thought like, oh, I need to I need to go get a master's or a something. And law was always in the back of my mind. My father's an attorney. And so uh almost on a whim, took the ALSAT again and then uh decided to go to law school. I went to Oklahoma. My father grew up there, but I'd never been to Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we have to say Boomer Sooner and Boomer Sooner Hortonsdale. Right, we know. I was a sportscaster in Oklahoma, so we've got this little connection here.

SPEAKER_00

So I'd be lying if I'd said OU football wasn't a a draw. Yeah. It was it was super fun to experience that. But went there to the cost of living, you couldn't beat. I you know, at the time I started law school, I was 28, already had two kids, and so cost of living was important at that time, and uh OU was a really good fit. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01

I got to Oklahoma at a at a great time because I think my first year there, Jason White was the quarterback. I think Adrian Peterson was a freshman that first year. And I think they went to the I think the Orange Bowl was the national championship. They lost to LSU somewhere in the first year or two I was there. Is that about the same time?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I I probably came, I I moved there in 20 or 2006. Okay. So just a little bit after I think my third year of law school, they went to the national championship against Florida. And I I did go to that game.

SPEAKER_01

So that's one of the things. Good time to be an Oklahoma football fan, those those years from like 2004 through 2000, probably eight or nine.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's when they won the national championship.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, which predated me a little bit. But you know, uh we we missed that part, but that's awesome. Yeah. Uh what did you love about living in Oklahoma? Well, you said cost of living. I think we can all, if you've lived there, you can agree with that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, cost of living was great. I actually really enjoyed law school. It might have been one of the first times that I actually like decided to focus on school and and try to get the most and enjoy school rather than I just need credits to get that, yeah, you know, to get that certificate. And so I dug in and actually enjoyed law school. Um, the people there were great. Uh we've, you know, we we actually dug into the community, thought we were gonna potentially raise our family there. I had two of my daughters in Oklahoma, uh, started practicing law in Oklahoma, and uh yeah, it was a lot of fun. Uh it was a good experience to be outside of Utah, um, develop our little family. And so we we enjoyed it a lot.

SPEAKER_01

And super cheap gas in Oklahoma. That's the thing I remember from it is man, the gas just never cost anything in Oklahoma. Okay, so what brings you back from Oklahoma to Utah, and then what makes you decide that a political career might be in the process?

SPEAKER_00

So uh it was late 2011. My father called me, his his office was growing. He he's had a practice here for you know 35, 40 years now. So that was oh, 15, 17 years ago, something like that. So he called me and said, Hey, I'm looking to hire another attorney. I'd just as soon it be you if if you're interested. And so we talked it through, and my wife and I said, uh, we should take a chance to get back to Utah if we can. So we we moved back here. Uh, I started working for my father's firm. Uh was the managing attorney for about 12 years doing that. And uh that gave us a good opportunity to get back here um managing that firm or being the managing attorney there for a number of years. It's a great firm because it's not um it's not billable hours-based, and so it's you can usually get your job done and you know, nine to fiver. Obviously, like any job, there's stuff you gotta do outside of that sometimes. But uh it afforded me the time to to get more involved service-wise in the community. So I did uh school community councils during that time, got on some parent oversight board with uh Canyon School District. I also served in the Rental Housing Association and did their government affairs for about seven years. Um so just a combination of those things. Serving when a seat opened up, a few people encouraged, hey, you should you should uh run for this.

SPEAKER_01

Tell me about your first campaign for the state senate. Um was it an open seat? It sounds like it was an open seat.

SPEAKER_00

It was. It was uh Senator Wayne Niederhauser who was president. Um and I I I think it was late February, March at the end of the session, announced that he was not gonna run for the for the next year. So that that opened that seat up. Um my representative was Robert Spinlove. Um I didn't know him well at the time, but knew him and reached out to see if he was gonna run for that. And he had decided not that he was gonna stay in the house, so I thought, well, I figured if he would run for that, maybe I'd run for the house. Yeah. By him not running for that, I thought, well, give it a shot. So it was an open seat. Uh what'd the field look like? It was um there were a few people filed, but what it ended up being was was me and another guy that that ran a con ran in a convention battle. And it w you know, I'd been a delegate and stuff like that before, so I kind of knew what I was getting into, but not not really. You know, it's it's different as a candidate. And so I'm sure. Um yeah, just just ran a convention. I was fortunate and got out of convention and so didn't have to do a primary and uh and away we went.

SPEAKER_01

So you get into the Senate. What's the first thing that when you got to the Senate, you were like, oh, I didn't recognize I didn't realize that was part of this? Or I didn't what was like your first sort of welcome to the Senate moment?

SPEAKER_00

Um, you know, even working on the the hill a little bit and uh government affairs capacity for the association, like I really didn't appreciate how much time it was gonna be. You know, how much of everything you're supposed to know. I mean, I thought I kind of knew how government worked, but then you get in there and learn about all, you know, all the state agencies, stuff that seems obvious now, but I'm like, okay, I did not understand how all this worked together and even like the state school board and the local school boards and the and you know, all of that. And so there was there was a steep learning curve, then there was the legislative leadership stuff that I I just wasn't even, you know, I knew we had a Senate president, Speaker of the House, but I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01

And having taken over for the Senate president, essentially taking over his seat, you were walking into a leadership race. It wasn't like, oh well, we're set with our four role.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so you start getting calls, you know, right away about stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, right off the bat, you have to make a decision sort of about who of your new colleagues do you support. And that's that is probably like a little bit of gut feel, but also there's like a political calculation to that. Like you're you're sort of making that call, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there is. And uh the the leadership team that ended up winning, you know, I took some advice from the people, but also, you know, uh it was just kind of gut. I went with them and they and they won, and it it it it helped, you know, it served me well because it kind of set you up in in different uh positions and chairmanships and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, you're kind of rolling in in that first thing is I'm not sure who to vote for, but I do want to vote for the winner. Yes. Whoever's gonna win, yeah, that's who I want to be voting for because I may not know all of the pieces in place at that point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a really interesting dynamic to go through. So, okay, you get into the Senate. I'm gonna come right back to the Senate, but I want to talk about two sort of uh other professional transitions because you're working in a sense of the managing partner at your the firm your father had started. Um but you're making a transition from professionally right now uh in your in your you know personal professional life. And then I want to talk about well, we will get to the Senate stuff. I promise that. So tell me about what you're doing professionally then.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so my so my father's firm encouraged me to run. You know, they said, hey, yeah, that that'd be a good opportunity. Um I did it for four or five years working for my father's firm. And and I will say this like the the amount of time that it takes to be an effective legislator, people people understand that during the session, you're you're gone, you're out. And so I think even my father's firm who who does this was like, okay, Kirk's gonna be gone for these six or seven weeks, and then it's back to life as normal. It's not back to life as normal, you know. Uh I think, and I'm in a fortunate to be in a leadership position now and have been in the Senate for a few years, so I think you know that your responsibilities grow over time. But if you ask my executive assistant right now, she's she would tell you probably 20 to 30 hours a week is spent on legislative stuff. So it started kind of uh encroaching on the time I was able to put into my my practice at my father's firm. So they they kind of had to sit down with me and said, listen, this isn't working out for us. Uh you know, we might need to figure out a trade.

SPEAKER_01

We just found our headline. Senator Colomore fired by his dad.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Uh uh Of course they were very nice about it and helped with with the transition. But yeah, so about three years ago I went off and uh started my own practice. Have been doing that for for three years. Um in that role, ended up on a board of a life insurance company, uh, overseeing some legal stuff, uh regulatory compliance and and all of that. Um in that position, the there's a holding company that owns the insurance company that I was on the board for. I I worked with them and hit it off, and then they offered me a position to kind of head up the office and re-establishing the insurance company here in Utah. So that's that's a pretty new recent development just in the last three months and becoming official. So yeah, so I'm now now doing that and kind of phasing out some of the legal stuff, although I'll probably keep a little project, a few little projects here and there.

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Powell Uh what's uh what is Governor Cox called a reformed lawyer, right? Yeah, he's still doing some law work, but you know he's kind of a reformed lawyer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I I think there's a lot of attorneys where if a different opportunity pops up the to not be practicing law, might jump at that.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I think it's such a really interesting thing though, just even in what we've talked about over, say, the last 20 minutes, if there's a lesson I think people could take away from it, it's that you know, you you can have a job and you can go do that job, but uh a lot of success is driven by doing stuff outside of that, right? Like you're on a board, you get involved in this board and this board, and the next thing you know, you're running for this, and and then you know all of all of this kind of comes together. Is that something that that came natural to you, or is it sort of like you dipped your toe in it and it just kind of got bigger and bigger, and you say, Wow, this really has been an important thing to do?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I would say it's a little bit of both, right? Like I I might be a little bit restless or might have, you know, um, you know, if you if I look back at my career, I did music, then I went to law school, then I was in Oklahoma for three years, then I was back here. And so, you know, there's a lot of jumping, but but I also like to be involved in a lot of things. Um and so, you know, maybe I have a short attention span or something, but but I do I do find myself involved in a lot of things, but it does but it does open doors and opportunities, and and then sometimes you take them, and I've I've taken many opportunities that haven't worked out the way I thought they would, but it's still been good learning experiences, you know.

SPEAKER_01

So Yeah, you open a door, you close the door behind you, and you hope it just opens three more doors in front of you and you figure out the next step. All right, so we talked a little bit about getting to the Senate and dealing with your first leadership race there as someone just a new member having to vote in it. Uh we've talked about a personal professional transition, a non-legislative transition. But here you are, you're the Senate majority leader. Well, first let's start here. Tell me how you decided to run for leadership in the first place and and what made you uh, you know, make that jump.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, like I said, this is something that I didn't really know or appreciate or understand coming into the Senate, the whole leadership dynamic. Um, but getting in, kind of saw it, and uh obviously the first couple of sessions I was there saw it. Um uh Dan Hemert was the majority whip at the time and part of the team that I I supported. He when Governor Cox won, he uh was called away to be the the go-ed director. Yeah. And uh so it opened up a opened up a spot. And you know, just seeing the opportunities that that opens again, I thought, hey, I'd I'd like to try for that. I know I was kinda young to the Senate, but um thought I was in a good position to try.

SPEAKER_01

So Hammard had been young as well, right? So like you could look at it and say there's a chance there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he got in after two years in the Senate. So you know, I didn't think it was unprecedented to try that and was fortunate and Senator Ann Milner was the assistant whip, so she moved up to WIP, and then I ran for the assistant whip position and was able to get that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And now today you find yourself as the majority leader, and as luck would have it, you've got another leadership election coming up this time because the Senate president who you've been serving with is uh not going to be back uh for the session coming up in January. I want to talk mostly about the dynamics, uh somewhat I guess to this specific race, whatever you're willing to talk about at this point, but just the dynamics of of uh a leadership race when you're already in leadership, right? Like you're the elephant in the room, you've been the Senate majority leader, you are the Senate majority leader, the only position above you in the Senate opens up. Um how do you make a calculation there? Like how what is that like behind the scenes for those of us who aren't in the Senate to say, how quickly do people start going, oh, who's gonna be in the leadership race or who's gonna do this? Because I can tell you from outside, it was like immediate. It was probably before, like, uh, what are the polls looking like in that race? Hey, what is that gonna mean? It doesn't take long for out people in the bubble, or outside of the bubble, but in the a i in the orbit to say, this is coming up. So how quickly does that happen inside?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it I mean, it happened really fast as you might imagine. It it it feels a little bit weird just because, you know, we had some great colleagues that that didn't win primary races, and and so uh you know, you're trying to balance like being respectful of that and the service that they provided and the ways that they've been able to change the state of Utah. And and you don't want to just run right past that and overlook it. And so so there's some of that. So uh one, I want to be respectful of President Adams, Senator McKay, um and and and even the other colleagues that decided not to run, Jerry and Ann, and and uh yeah, I guess Jerry and Ann. So um but yeah, it starts it starts happening right away. I um a lot of people don't appreciate that. The uh it's the majority caucus that votes for leadership, and so you're you're working amongst your caucus. And and there's a lot of factors that that have to be taken in, you know. Some sometimes it's political ideology, sometimes it's geo geographical, like um, you know, who's gonna help represent my area the best? Sometimes it's friendship and all of that. And and the reality is that as a majority caucus, like we're together so often that it it really does become like a family. And so it's leadership races are are awkward times, right? Because you're having to ask people for votes against another one of their friends or family members, basically, you know, and so it it's it's interesting, it's difficult. And then you you also have to take into consideration everybody would like opportunities to be in leadership, you know, positions. Like it's we're up there to serve, but you know, uh that that capacity to serve is changed by by your leadership opportunities sometimes. And so um that's another factor is okay, will this help me get to a position where I where I think I could better serve?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um Stuart Adams has been the Senate president the entire time you've been in the Senate, if I'm doing my math right. What have you learned from watching him in that role to say, man, he was effective because he could he could really have a talent to do this?

SPEAKER_00

Stuart Adams cares about Utah deeply and immensely. And because he been in the in the legislature for the time that he had and served on city councils before that, and served on the Transportation Commission, like he understood a lot about state government. And because of that, he was able to, you know, navigate the whole political thing very, very well. I think for the conservative cause, you'd be hard pressed to find anybody in the state of Utah that's done more for the conservative cause than President Adams during his his tenure in the legislature. And he's very good about listening and and uh taking input and listening from stakeholders and and people throughout the state, and then knowing how to direct them to the right spot to accomplish what they need to get done. And so um, you know, I think I think there's a lot of stakeholders, a lot of business interests, and and a lot of colleagues, and and hopefully his constituents that that found that, you know, Stuart Adams was a problem solver and and really moved forward the work of the state. I think uh he was he was most concerned about economic outlook, right? And for 18 years now, um Utah has had the number one economic outlook in the state of Utah, and I think a lot of that can be attributed to President Adams' work.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um I'm interested because uh in his race of particular, and I I want to talk about it more generally, but there there clearly has been an issue that bubbled up to the forefront uh just in the months preceding the primary election that became a big deal. I I wonder how, as a as an elected official and someone in leadership, do you have to make that decision to balance when there's a difference in like I I this is really and again, I want let's set the data center aside. This is something that would be good for the state in many ways. But for some reason it's not popular with constituents. How do you have that balance where you say, man, how do I how do I balance those issues between the people I represent, but also understanding maybe things that I've been elected to study and understand better than the general public does?

SPEAKER_00

Aaron Powell Yeah, I think you hit on it right there at the end, right? Like we're in a representative form of government and people represent you know somebody to go and dig into the issues and learn about them and then make a judgment call based on, you know, the principles that they hold true and and you know the judgment that they were sent there to represent. And it's hard because uh particularly in in today's uh uh uh vitriolic climate and with social media, a lot of that decision making seemed like it can be decentralized and socialized because you know, so much information can get out there. But I think a lot of information that gets out there is just like headlines or snippets or somebody's opinion from social media that's you know not totally informed. And so it's become more difficult, right, because of that socialization of information. But it's but it's an inch deep rather than a mile deep, and you're expected to go a mile deep to make the proper decision. And so it it can be hard, you know, because I mean we're we're in politics, and so you want to do things right by your constituents. And if they don't understand the issue enough to support a particular vote or particular position, then is it on you to make sure that they do understand that? And I I think that's part of it, or do you make the right decision and hope that they come along? And that's that's the calculus you're always having away.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Part of it I think uh is it becomes even more important to have a good open process and and you know, find recognize the moments when you can take some extra time to get it buy-in and when things actually need to be expedited, and then just to communicate clearly on it. And and I think that that's gotta be one of the tougher things about being an elected official is hey, I still have to know all this stuff and understand it and process it and get to where I am on an issue and understand where the public is. That's sort of been something that's been going on since the beginning of the of the republic. Uh, but then on top of it, how do I communicate clearly in a time when not everybody's watching the same TV news anymore or reading the same newspaper anymore? I I imagine that's got to be a real challenge for you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think whether you look at the federal level or the state level, like that communication piece is is difficult, and the legislature does not do well with that, right? I mean, you've got the governor has this bully pulpit and can do a little bit better at that because he gets the airtime and all of that. But between in Utah, 104 different legislators, getting one, getting a unified voice and then two actually conveying it, um, we've we've certainly struggled with that. And I don't think it's um I don't think it's any individual legislature that's trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes or their constituents' eyes. It's just we're a part-time legislature. You go in and do the best you can, and then it takes a full-time job to really, you know, communicate that back out and get that done while we're also trying to maintain our professional lives. And so I think I think as uh individuals, we just get stretched too thin, and as a collective, we just haven't found a good format to get to effectively do that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um it's uh we're about as far away as you can be from a legislative session right now. We're recording this in in early July. Uh but I'm I'm wondering at this point, like what do you look at ahead to the 2027 session and say, this is gonna be a big issue we're gonna have to deal with. Budget's always part of it, but is there something that jumps out to you that says, this is something we're gonna we're gonna have on our radar?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think I think we want to maintain, you know, a good business outlook here in Utah. And I think as we do that, we've seen that the it's it's realized growth in the state. And there's a lot of people, what the the difficulty of of a growing state is change is hard, right? And that's the one thing we're we're guaranteed in life is is change. And I think there's a growing resistance to change and to growth. But when I look across the country and look at talk to some of my other colleagues in other states, you know, the challenges that we deal with in growth, I would much prefer those to the challenges that they're dealing with in declining economies and declining populations and the social ills that come with that. And so I think we do need to focus on on managing that growth properly and ensuring that we, you know, continue to grow the our business environment, but we need to protect water, we need to protect our airshed, we need to protect our environment. And and then we also need to make sure that that growth is done right because affordability is one of the number one concerns that we're hearing from constituencies. And so, you know, we need we need more housing, we need more power, and and the demand for power is growing exponentially, even even setting aside data centers. And so uh we've got to continue to look at energy policy. And we've we've focused on that a lot the last couple years, but I think there's still room to look at it. We need to focus on water, um, whether that's water infrastructure, whether it's certainly conservation. Um, those are things we need to be considering, and we need to be looking at really big ideas at this point because um if we continue to have winters like we had, the it's a dire situation.

SPEAKER_01

I agree. It's probably better to have the problems or the challenges we have with growth than with decline. Uh, but they are, you know, they're real challenges that come with growth, and that gets to people's attitudes about growth, right? That yeah, uh you go back to say um the end of the Huntsman administration, beginning of the Herbert administration, coming out of the Great Recession, everyone seemed to be on board. Let's grow the economy. We've got to grow the economy. And and Utah, by all measures, did a as good of a job or better of a job than almost any other state in the country. But yeah, like it comes with that challenges, and you have to just sort of really take the temperature of people in the state and say, I I get that there's some fatigue, or I get that you can even take for granted that Utah is always this strong. But we've got to keep that going up because otherwise the problems it just seems like a really challenging message to drive home to the public.

SPEAKER_00

It is. It wasn't that long ago that we had one of the least diversified economies in the in the nation. And I'll give a lot of credit to Governor Hunts uh Huntsman and mean before that, Governor Levitt, you know, that saw that and said, what can we do? And now, you know, as it compares to the uh economy of the United States at large, now we're one of the most diversified, which puts us in a really good spot. But again, it's growing. But I think people would like to see their kids be able to stay in Utah if they want, to have the opportunities here in Utah. And so, you know, we need to work on workforce development. I think we're gonna see one of the biggest changes in our economy is happening right now through AI. We need to position our workforce to deal with the AI so that we can, you know, continue to grow responsibly. But but yeah, it's growth, growth is hard for AI.

SPEAKER_01

And the challenge of that, because AI, like, you know, even if you just say, hey, all I know about AI is Chat GPT or Claude, every two weeks there's a new version of it, a new version of it. So it's really hard to keep up with all that. Um I want to ask you a couple of questions that are maybe off the political path, uh, and then we'll get to a lightning round. But uh uh what do you are you a big reader? What do you read to uh uh or listen to uh podcast-wise? What what influences uh Kirk Cullomore?

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah, good question. So I I usually listen to at least two podcasts every week. One's one's a religious one, and then one is the all-in podcast. So I'll I try to stay up on the tech and the business side of things. We're adding a third, the the back channel podcast, of course. There we go. Back channel podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Three podcasts is what he said.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Um I like to read historical fiction mostly because you know I like I like it to be an escape, but I still like to kind of kind of learn something. Okay, best historical fiction. What comes to your mind when you say, Boy, I really love this one. Aaron Powell Gosh, I love like Ken Follett books. Okay. So, you know, uh what's the main his his I can't uh oh my gosh. Kingsbridge, it started I don't know, he's got like four or five books, but the first Pillars of the Earth. Pillars of the Earth is is I think that's a a great book. So I I love that. I'm the author slipping my mind, but there was a Genghis Khan series that's like seven books long that I I thought was super fun and fascinating. I really enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_01

Are you a hardcover, uh, paperback, an audible guy? How do you go? Kindle guy?

SPEAKER_00

I when I read historical fiction, I like to like actually look at the words, so it's but I'm I'm on a Kindle, although I still prefer, you know, actual paper because I feel like I retain it better for some reason.

SPEAKER_01

But I like to be able to feel how close I am to finishing the book. That's my push on it. Um okay. Uh what's your personal signal that you're getting stretched too thin? And what do you do when you feel like I'm getting pulled in too many directions?

SPEAKER_00

Um you know, I I don't want to say it's like make time for me, because that's that's really not it. But if I find that I'm missing the gym in the morning, like it it starts unraveling things, you know. So I've I've gotta go to the gym or walk regularly. Um music. I I fall back to music a lot. I'll sit down on the piano and play for 20, 30 minutes at a night just to like decompress and stuff. And and then participating in music things, you know. I like to go to concerts, whether rock bands, the symphony, anything like that.

SPEAKER_01

So that's a that's a big gap. So we'll put symphony on one side, rock band on the other. We'll go to the rock band side, which who is your favorite?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'm a I'm a child of the 90s, so I love I love the grunge rock still. You know, I put Pearl Jam up there and uh I'm a little more edgy, like Rage Against the Machine and Tool. I love I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I can guess you graduated from high school in 1996, let's say. That's right. Yeah, same way. Okay, so we're in the same range, yeah. Uh okay. Uh let's let's jump to the to the lightning round. You ready for this? Okay, these are just uh quick answers, easy things to help us get to know you a little bit better. Uh what's your favorite food? What are you ordering when nobody's watching or calories don't count?

SPEAKER_00

Uh pizza or cereal. Pizza and cereal.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Breakfast cereal? Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Do you have a breakfast cereal that's like that's the one? Uh I could go for a lot of stuff, but frosted flakes are always a good thing. Frosted flakes. Excellent choice.

SPEAKER_01

That's the right answer. Uh okay, number two, uh favorite sport or hobby? Watch, play, what kind of thing do you go out and do?

SPEAKER_00

Um I love, love college football. So college football is probably number one, but soccer is right close behind it. So I love watching soccer. Um I tried to play indoor soccer for a number of years. I stopped a couple years ago after I broke my foot for a second time, but would love to start playing that again. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and in high school, if I I think I've football, what what did you play in high school?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I was a little guy in high school. Um did not grow until 17, almost 18. So my junior year, I think I was about five, five three, five, four, and I wrestled the 103 weight class. So I wrestled a lot of ninth graders when I was a junior, which makes you feel tough. Stacking up the W's, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Any injuries from that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I broke my collarbone twice my junior year. So that that both sides are. Same one. I I broke it early in the season, so I thought, okay, I can rehab it, you know, set it, come back in six to eight weeks, came back, still had the last half of the s season that I could wrestle and wrestled one or two matches and then broke it again in practice, and that was that. So what is a profession other than your own that you would like to try? Um I don't know anything about this, so I shouldn't say it, but like physicists, like it seems super interesting, and it's like smart people, whether it's astrophysicists or just you know, I don't I don't even know what I'm talking about here, but that's just if I had to redo it. You don't have to do it.

SPEAKER_01

You just have to decide that that sounds cool. We'll we'll accept that answer. Physicist is the right answer. Um what's the uh what's the best compliment you've ever received from someone who disagreed with you?

SPEAKER_00

Um and this happens a lot at the legislature, right? But I I think that that that I listen and actually appreciated where they're coming from and would be pragmatic in approaching them, you know, taking an approach with them because I think I think this is a skill, maybe maybe as an musician, but also as an attorney, where you know, I I don't I don't uh impute ill will towards most people, right? Like they're coming at a problem because they want to solve it and probably for a good reason. And so if that's their intent, there's probably a way that we can, you know, we can find some common ground and solve the problem. And so as a legislature, it doesn't matter if they're Democrat or maybe we just don't agree, and maybe it's not even a nonpartisan issue, but if if they're looking to solve a problem, generally I'll I'll jump in and help them. Let's let's find a solution. And it may not be what either of us consider at first, but you know, I think we can find a solution.

SPEAKER_01

And I think the way uh kids who were in junior high in the early 90s would say it is if they've got a problem, yo, you'll solve it. Yes. Check out the hook while Kirk Colomore revolves it. All right, last one I want to talk to you about. Uh best piece of advice that you would give your younger self. You're a man of wisdom now at age 48, let's say, and you've got to go back and you get to go talk to your 14, 15-year-old self. What are you telling that guy?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I've so I've got six kids, so I you know, you get to impart this advice. I I tried that a lot, but simple things. You know, it's the it's the the daily discipline stuff that gets you to where you want to be, and you're not gonna see immediate results on anything, but if you stick with anything, you'll get there, and then just be where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there. You know, showing up is like 90% of the battle. And so just continue to show up and and do the little things every day that that yield the long-term results that you're looking for.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh Senator Colomore, thanks for your time. And no matter what happens in the uh leadership race, we wish you the best of luck there and the best of luck with the upcoming session. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. My thanks to Senator Kirk Colomore, and good luck to him uh with everything coming up in the Senate over the next couple of months. Interesting to hear his thoughts on the forthcoming Senate leadership race. That's still four months away, but also very much so already underway. That's it for this episode. Back Channel is a northbound strategy production. You can subscribe to the audio version of our show wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. We're everywhere as at Back Channel Utah. Thanks for being with us. We'll see you next week.