Katie Matheson and Alliance for a Better Utah

Shireen Ghorbani (0:11)

Hello, Shireen Ghorbani here with a very special episode of Both Sides of the Aisle. You know, every once in a while, we invite people into the studio to talk about sort of the bigger issues in Utah, folks that are working in political spaces and shifting, I would say, the conversations we're having or directing our attention to particular issues rising in the landscape, whether that is at the legislature, at the county level, everything from data centers to what's happening in our courts. And I am so happy to have with me Katie Matheson, who is the Executive Director of Alliance for a Better Utah. I would say a progressive organization in the state, a watchdog in the state. But first, I just want to welcome Katie. Katie, thank you for joining.

Katie Matheson (0:53)

Hey, thank you for having me. I have listened to this podcast and the show many times in my past. And I am just kind of, I've got a little bit of imposter syndrome being here and being like, oh, my gosh, I'm on the show. I told my team that I was going to be on it. And they're like, oh, my gosh, you're going to be on it. So thank you, Shireen.

Shireen Ghorbani (1:12)

Well, that is wonderful. So Katie, I was thinking about our friendship, or when we first met, I think probably was in maybe 2017 in a living room in West Jordan.

Katie Matheson (1:26)

That sounds right.

Shireen Ghorbani (1:27)

But tell just listeners a little bit about who you are and your path into politics.

Katie Matheson (1:33)

Yeah. Well, the hilarious thing is I found out much later after I got involved in politics that I come by it very naturally. I have political folks on both sides of my family. In fact, the first speaker of the House of Utah, WW. Phelps, was my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather on my mom's side. My grandma was a Phelps.

Of course, I'm a Matheson on my dad's side, not of Governor Matheson crew. Not that, I mean, I think they're distant cousins, but to just answer that question because I get asked a million times, not directly related, we do not have Sunday dinners together, etc.

But yeah, I got involved in politics. I'd always been interested in it, but I felt like I wasn't smart enough for it. I felt like I didn't belong in it, but I was always passionate about it. I did some student government stuff throughout my college years. But the thing that really got me into it is the thing that I think gets a lot of women into it, which is my kids.

Shireen Ghorbani (2:28)

Yeah. So did you grow up in Utah?

Katie Matheson (2:30)

I was born in Utah, lived here for a while. But in third grade, I moved to California, lived there for eight years, and then I moved to New Jersey, lived there for 10 years, met my ex-husband there.

Then in 2014, I came back as an adult, and I had my two kids here and I've been here ever since.

Shireen Ghorbani (2:45)

Okay. That's so interesting. So you really experienced, I think, Utah at a time, not long after I did. I actually moved here in 2009, but at a time when things like a house was still affordable to families.

I'm just curious about your experience when you moved here, or maybe in those transitions, you said you were interested in politics, but really having children spread that on for you. Can you talk a little bit about what about it? What about either Utah or being a mother was critical to your path into political work?

Katie Matheson (3:20)

Yeah. I have a shirt that says motherhood is political, and that sums it up for me.

Having kids was what spurred me into it, because sometimes you're faced with a choice of like, I have made this decision and now I have to, there are consequences for this decision, and I want to make sure that my kids are raised in a better world than I have found myself in. But the first moment that I really started to reflect on politics and how it impacts me was an emergency room visit. When I was uninsured, I was having a miscarriage, and it was Valentine's Day, and like, I remember it was probably late 2011, 2012 It was my first pregnancy with my ex-husband, and I had no health insurance, and so I experienced a miscarriage in an emergency room, and then I went home and I had a bill afterwards, and I'm like, well, this is messed up. And so then I started listening, and the first person I ever heard in political spaces say something that resonated and actually felt relevant to my life was actually Bernie Sanders, and what he was saying is like, the health care system is messed up, and that shocked me because up until that moment, I believed that my failure to have health care, the poverty that I was experiencing as we were, small business owners, by the way, we owned a business music store in New Jersey.