Nicole Young

Nicole Young
27th President of Deseret
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 June 2020
Vice President	Madison West
Preceded by	Carla Chaufman
41st Speaker of the House of Representatives
In office 4 June 2018 – 1 June 2020
Preceded by	Gregory Duncan
Succeeded by	Martha Vanderbilt
Member of the House of Representatives from California's 4th district
In office 2 June 2014 – 1 June 2020
Preceded by	Mark Jensen
Succeeded by	Nancy Douglass
Member of the California State Senate from the 23rd district
In office 20 May 2010 – 15 May 2014
Preceded by	Aaron Wright
Succeeded by	Jeremiah Langley
Mayor of Rock Ridge, California
In office 25 June 2004 – 13 December 2004
Preceded by	Eleanora Peasley
Succeeded by	Jessica Lopez
Personal details
Born	(1985-11-16) November 16, 1985 Rock Ridge, California
Political party	Reform
Other political affiliations	• Deseret Union (2003-2006) • Independent (2006-2009) • Federalist (2009-2015)
Height	5 ft 4 in (163 cm)
Spouse	John Macky (m. 2013)
Children	3
Parents	Weasley Young (father) Jannice Young (mother)
Alma mater	Brigham Young University (BA)
Salary	$405,000

Nicole Annyta Young (born 16 November 1985), often stylized and known as Nicole A. Young, is a Deseretian politician who currently serves as the 27th president of Deseret. A member of the Reform party, she served as mayor of Rock Ridge, California in 2004, a state senator from 2010 to 2014, a representative from 2014 to 2020, and as Speaker of the Deseret House of Representative from 2018 to 2020. Young is the 5th woman, the 3rd direct descendant of Brigham Young, and the youngest person to hold the office of president, at age 34 when she was sworn in.

Young was born and raised in California and served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which influenced her politics regarding poverty, unemployment, agriculture, immigration, and welfare. Young served in the California State Senate and as a representative from the state, which helped boost her familiarity and popularity in the swing state. She has become well-known for her political fighting, negotiation, and bipartisan abilities, as well as being able to connect with certain voting blocs having held membership in all three of Deseret's major political parties and having been an independent.

Young's political beliefs have been heavily influenced by her religious beliefs, including self-sufficiency, charity, compassion, free agency, and families. She has structured much of her major legislation and policies on these views, including her policies on national self-sufficiency with water, energy, food, and financial resources, care for the planet, tax breaks for and endorsement of families, public cooperation with private institutions in regards to infrastructure work, welfare, and unemployment programs, discouraging the use of substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and sugar, and support of free choice in many personal matters.

Young has faced condemnation from conservatives for being too liberal in regards to same-sex relationships, the environment, amnesty for illegal immigrants and workers, and government grants, subsidies, and control over healthcare, education, arts, and other businesses. She has also faced backlash from liberals for being too conservative in regards to the importance of the family and religion, protectionist trade policies, increased border security, and forcing the federal government to be "politically biased" towards certain activities, groups, and substances as they relate to religion and so-called conservative values.

Early life

Young was born 16 November 1985 in Rock Ridge, California, to Jannice and Weasley Young. She is the fifth great-granddaughter of 1st president of Deseret and 2nd president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Brigham Young. She attended Rock Ridge High School, where she became active in her community in service and politics as a self-described socialist. She graduated in 2004 and, during her senior year, she ran for mayor of Rock Ridge.

Young campaigned on reversing decisions made by the unpopular incumbent mayor, in which much of the city's public works and maintenance departments were privatized, on increasing budget and city council, transparency, eliminating the balanced-budget ordinance, increasing funding for education, health, retirement, addiction, and homeless services, and on bringing in the next generation of young people into government and community activism. She ran against an outgoing city councilor and a prominent local businessman in a contested three-way race.

Rock Ridge mayor (2004)

Young narrowly secured a plurality of votes and was elected as the next mayor. As mayor, Young worked to pass municipal, welfare, and education reform; including a re-work of the city property tax system, an increase in city grants and funding to education, health, and welfare establishments, setting up several shelters and organizations for the unemployed, uninsured, elderly, and homeless, and renewing of city infrastructure in the form of repairing roads, bridges, and revitalizing the historic downtown district after de-privatizing much of the municipal government. Young also helped repeal the balanced budget ordinance, which opened the way for the city to increase funding for Young's newly expanded programs.

With mixed popularity, Young resigned from her mayoral position in December 2004 after she had come to the conclusion to drop her political duties as a way to revitalize her spiritual standing. She appointed Jessica Lopez as her replacement, who worked to continue much of the work Young had done and implement many of her policies.

Missionary service

Young decided to serve a full-time, 18-month, proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ in Tanzania, where she learned Swahili, which she still speaks fluently. During her mission, Young's political beliefs and philosophy were reshaped by her interactions with poverty, violence, and the local economy and culture.

After returning from her mission, Young attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2006 before transferring to BYU-Hawaii, where she graduated early in 2009 and earned a BA in political science and a minor in public management.

Following her mission and post-secondary education, Young self-identified as an independent and as a liberal centrist.

State senate (2010-2014)

Nicole Young addressing constituents during a town hall in Rock Ridge, 2011

Young launched her main political career by running for state senator in her home district in the state of California. Running as a moderate Federalist, she won a plurality of votes in a primarily three-way race between Federalist incumbent Ben Waight and Reformist Chuck Mason.

During her tenure in the senate, Young became well-known state-wide for her ambitious plans, bipartisanship, unifying ability, and refusal to back down. She focused extensively on worker's and women's rights and business regulation, especially the agricultural sector, with large amounts of Latino workers. Young helped spearhead legislation that called for greater government protection of small agricultural businesses with majority Latino workers and co-authored the bi-partisan Minority Agricultural Business Protection Act in 2013 with Reformist minority leader Catherina Gonzalez. The legislation was used as a model by Congress and Young in 2020 for bills addressing agricultural protection, worker's rights, employment discrimination, and minority protection in businesses.

Young sponsored, co-sponsored, and helped pass legislation with regard to equal rights for women and minorities in the workplace, greater worker protections and safety nets, improved welfare and unemployment systems, increased and streamlined state grant systems, protections for agricultural businesses, and integration of undocumented immigrants into the state. She backed environmental legislation and, in 2012, joined 46 other senators in petitioning the governor to act on and prepare for water shortages.

Young protesting outside the state capitol during her 2014 walkout

On 18 January 2014 Young and a coalition of 21 Reformists and one other Federalist staged a walkout protest in response to the Federalist-controlled Senate purposefully subverting and preventing a climate change bill, which Young endorsed, from leaving committee and going to a floor vote. The bill would have had the State of California recognize the impacts of climate change on its agricultural industry and would set up a committee to advise the governor on climate change and environment-related issues. The walkout protest was attended by around 200-230 additional protesters and gained coverage by several national news outlets. While the event made Young more nationally recognized, it did little to change public perception on the issue of climate change.

Young only served one term in the state senate as her moderate popularity and political goals led her to run for Congress rather than secure reelection on the state level. Young thought about running to represent California's 4th congressional district in 2012 but decided not to challenge incumbent Mark Jensen, one of the most influential Federalists in Congress. Young entered office with an approval rating of roughly 38% and left with an approval rating of around 67%, with her approval fluctuating between 55-65% throughout most of her term.

Federal politics

Representative (2014-2020)

In 2013 Jensen announced he would not seek reelection after eight terms in office. Young and eight other candidates participated in one of the largest and most competitive House primaries in the nation. Young was endorsed by Jensen and won with a plurality of votes in the primary. In the general election, she won against Reformist Terri Johnson, who later became the Secretary of Health and Welfare under Young's administration.

2014-2015

In the House, Young quickly rose in popularity as the endorsed replacement of one of the Federalist's most influential members. Her commencement speech in the House garnered national attention as she called attention to the large and inefficient government bureaucracy and large amounts of corruption in the legislative and judicial branches. She affirmed her committment to streamlining government proccesses and countering corrupt officials. Her anti-bureaucracy and anti-corruption stances helped her gain national popularity.

2020

Young authored legislation to increase and streamline welfare and unemployment benefits, increase federal subsidies for agriculture and healthcare, and integrate illegal immigrants into the country while strengthening border security. Young faced scrutiny for "socialist-leaning" beliefs in eliminating the death penalty, increasing taxes on the wealthy, increasing government funding for education and healthcare, legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption, and increasing rights and representation for women and racial minorities. Young switched to the Reform party in 2015 but continued to win general elections in her historically Federalist district.

In 2016, Young became the majority leader in the House of Representatives. Young helped push through much of her legislation including mandatory paid maternity leave, rights of same-sex couples to adopt and foster children, increased subsidies for private agricultural businesses, increased tariffs on agricultural and electronic products, higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline, increased use of renewable energy, tax breaks for married couples, children, electric vehicles, and solar panels, increased scholarships for college, increased funding for K-12 schools, strengthened border security, reduce of wasteful and inefficient government programs, reduction in government spying abilities in the name of counter-terrorism, increased fiscal responsibility, and increased aid to underdeveloped nations. Due to Federalist influence in the Senate and control of the Executive Branch, however, none of Young's sponsored and authored legislation passed; although she found increased popularity in the eyes of the public for her resiliency and failure to comply with government norms.

Speaker of the House (2018-2020)

Young addressing the press on her new position as Speaker of the House after the commencement of the 85th Congres in 2018

Electoral history

2004

2004 Rock Ridge, California mayoral election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Deseret Union	Nicole A. Young	7,950	34.7
	Independent	Donald McDonough	7,927	34.6
	Federalist	Joseph Zatos	7,034	30.7
Total votes			22,911	100.0

2010

2010 California's 23rd State Senate district general election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Federalist	Nicole A. Young	18,890	33.7
	Federalist	Ben Waight	18,721	33.4
	Reform	Chuck Mason	87,441	32.9
Total votes			56,052	100.0

2014

2014 California's 4th congressional district Federalist primary

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Federalist	Nicole A. Young	4,979	21.5
	Federalist	Matthew Miles	3,312	14.3
	Federalist	Pennee Curtis	3,288	14.2
	Federalist	Lisa August	3,173	13.7
	Federalist	Jacob Karowski	3,149	13.6
	Federalist	April Files	2,362	10.2
	Federalist	Jung Tin	1,482	6.4
	Federalist	Stannis Young	926	4.0
	Federalist	Josefina Meyer	486	2.1
Total votes			23,157	100.0

2014 California's 4th congressional district general election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Federalist	Nicole A. Young	48,301	58.4
	Reform	Terri Johnson	32,916	39.8
	Independent	Kacyee Tougee	1,488	1.8
Total votes			82,705	100.0

2016

2016 California's 4th congressional district Reformist primary

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Reform	Nicole A. Young	16,215	89.9
	Reform	Saul Kyrk	1,822	10.1
Total votes			18,037	100.0

2016 California's 4th congressional district general election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Reform	Nicole A. Young	51,014	54.7
	Federalist	Pennee Curtis	39,916	42.8
	Independent	Saul Kyrk	2,331	2.5
Total votes			93,261	100.0

2018

2018 California's 4th congressional district Reformist primary

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Reform	Nicole A. Young	21,638	100.0
Total votes			21,638	100.0

2018 California's 4th congressional district general election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Reform	Nicole A. Young	50,659	61.4
	Federalist	Alejandro Taitum	31,105	37.7
	Independent	Cecil B. Abrams	743	0.9
Total votes			82,507	100.0

2019

2019 California's 4th congressional district recall election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Reform	Nicole A. Young	45,577	68.3
	Federalist	Matthew Miles	21,154	31.7
Total votes			66,731	100.0

Personal life

Nicole Young attended Brigham Young University and Graduated from BYU-Hawaii in 2009. She married John Macky while she served in the California State Senate on 14 May 2013. She currently has three children: twins Susan Jannice and Emma Smith (b. 2016) and Ephraim Hadley (b. 2018) . Young is fluent in Swahili and Spanish . She and her family are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.