PROVO – For anyone longing for a return to more reasoned, thoughtful and centrist politics, the youngest member of Utah’s Legislature offers a ray of hope.
Tyler Clancy recently turned 26 – but it’s difficult to dismiss him as immature and inexperienced.
In 2020, his father Matthew Clancy died of cancer. In 2021, Tyler Clancy graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Family Studies. By June 2022, he’d served two years as executive director of the nonprofit Pioneer Park Coalition.
In May 2022, Clancy joined the Provo City Police Department – following in the footsteps of his father. In September, he married his wife Leah, and this January, Provo Republican delegates elected him from a field of five candidates to fill the House seat vacated by Adam Robertson, who had recently resigned.
Three days later, the 45-day Legislative session began.
And now, viewing the 2023 session in the rearview mirror, it becomes obvious that Clancy did more than sit on the sidelines. He sponsored six bills, and all of them passed and were signed by the Governor.
But perhaps most remarkably, Clancy never had to malign anyone in the process.
QUICK STUDY
A Jan. 20 story in BYU’s Daily Universe quoted Clancy’s mother Lisa describing him as an early learner who loved to read books.
“I think it was about middle school that the fire really started to burn,” Lisa Clancy told the Daily Universe. “He started realizing the power of his voice and the power of being involved.”
In a recent phone interview, Clancy described his youth growing up in Beaufort, South Carolina where his Dad served as police chief and his mother taught in the public schools. Politics often surfaced as dinner-table conversation.
But during Clancy’s senior year in high school, his father – a former Marine – learned he had a neuroendocrine pancreatic tumor. Matthew Clancy battled that cancer for five years but ultimately succumbed while Tyler attended BYU.
“He fought it all the way up until the end,” Clancy said. “It’s bittersweet to talk about him because on one hand obviously we miss him like crazy. There are so many times I want to pick up the phone and talk to him and get his advice on this or that.”
But Clancy also treasured having Matthew as a father.
“It’s pretty awesome to be raised by someone like him … their influence never really leaves you,” Clancy said. “When you lose someone who means so much to you it has that ability to kind of ground you and put things in perspective.”
LESSONS LEARNED
Clancy credits his parents for teaching him that a job is so much more than a paycheck.
“It’s an opportunity to look after the people who need it most,” he said.
And while he didn’t take a direct path to law enforcement straight out of high school, Clancy said he always knew he wanted to be a police officer: “It was more about the timing.”
He said his two-year stint heading up the Pioneer Park Coalition actually served as a vital building block for that future role.
“It gave me a more holistic perspective when it comes to challenges of mental illness, homelessness and poverty,” Clancy said.
Serving on Provo’s police force, Clancy saw that each workday could serve up the unexpected.
“You could go from someone locking their keys in their car to someone taking their mom hostage in their house,” Clancy said. “It can change on a dime.”
And each day could also bring its share of grief.
“As police officers we’re trying to solve the issue that’s right in front of us – how can we get the victim to safety, how can we help this person get mental health services, how can we connect these dots?” Clancy said. But for children living in a home where abuse and domestic violence happen routinely … that’s their day-to-day reality, he added.
“That was a big reason I wanted to jump into the Legislature,” Clancy said. “So many times kids bear the brunt of our failures. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”
STEPPING STONES
During his years at BYU, Clancy began tapping Utah politicians for their insights and perspectives. But he didn’t confine himself to one political party.
“My premiere mentor in life is (former Democratic state Senator) Scott Howell,” Clancy said. “We get along and learn from each other, so we have a really great dynamic.”
Reached by phone recently, Howell – who served three terms in the state Senate from January 1991 to December 2002 – said that Clancy reached out to him for help with launching a No Labels chapter on the BYU campus.
Howell said he’s long been a part of No Labels, a national movement focused on finding solutions for the country’s biggest problems.
At the time, Howell had sons who played lacrosse at BYU – and Clancy served as captain of that team.
“As the relationship began to get more and more about mentoring and him asking me for advice, we had an opening at the Pioneer Park Coalition (for an executive director),” Howell said.
Clancy applied, and against the odds, got hired.
“We normally wouldn’t hire a college kid to be the executive director,” Howell said. “But we all agreed that … he could do the job.”
Howell praised Clancy for pouring his heart and soul into that work, even while juggling lacrosse and coursework.
“He knows homelessness, I would dare say, better than anyone in the state of Utah,” Howell said.
But then the day came when Clancy told Howell he had to resign in order to start Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST) and follow his dream of being a cop.
“His dad had always told him that the best way you can give back is to give service,” Howell said. “And there’s no greater service than being out on the front line protecting the community and its citizens.”
Last December, Howell got another significant call from Clancy after the resignation of recently re-elected House Rep. Adam Robertson.
“He asked me what I thought,” Howell said. “So we got together and did a deep dive on the pros and cons.”
Clancy competed against four other Provo Republicans and had two weeks to convince enough delegates to lean his way.
“He worked so hard,” Howell said. “He found himself a niche in that party of being the ‘normal Republican.’”
Clancy’s character appears to play a big part in his appeal
“He has nobility, a moral compass and just wants to do the right thing,” Howell said. “And he’s very, very smart.”
VALUED PERSPECTIVE
When Robertson resigned, Clancy also reached out to Provo’s longtime Republican state Senator Curt Bramble to ask for his support.
“I endorsed him early on,” Bramble said by phone recently. “I thought having the perspective of a frontline police officer would be very healthy for the Legislature.”
But Bramble also believes Clancy brings more to the legislative process than his chosen career.
Along with youthful zeal and zest, Bramble described Clancy as “very articulate, highly intelligent – and he learned early on how to listen.”
Bramble ended up teaming with Clancy as the Senate sponsor for legislation establishing a scholarship fund for children of fallen officers.
“Getting an appropriation approved … that’s a pretty big deal,” Bramble said, crediting the freshman House representative for making it happen.
“I was merely a mouthpiece on the floor of the Senate,” Bramble said. “By the time (HB 332) got to me it was already a done deal. He’d already lined up all the support.”
Interestingly, Bramble has served almost as many years in the Utah Senate as Clancy has been alive. Halfway through his sixth four-year term, Bramble said he plans to seek re-election in 2024.
“Tyler brings a unique skillset to the table – for someone at any age,” Bramble said.
For Clancy, HB 332 grew out of his desire to provide a state death benefit for public safety personnel killed in the line of duty. He vividly remembered the shooting death of Provo Officer Joe Shinners in January 2019. Shinners died at age 29.
“It rocked our little community in Provo … this officer didn’t even know who I was, but he was going out to protect our community, my family, our friends. It had a big impact on me,” Clancy said.
And in early 2023, on Utah’s Capitol Hill, pieces of his background coalesced to give Clancy the chance to act.
“That (legislation) was something I wanted to tackle early on, in Joe Shinner’s honor,” Clancy said.
As the accomplishment he said he’s most proud of from this year’s session, Clancy described what he loved most about it: Along with the $5,000 educational award for children when they turn 18 “to pursue any educational endeavor whatsoever,” the Utah Department of Public Safety will also make sure that colleagues share what it was like to serve alongside the parent who was lost in the line of duty.
“We’ll let them know we won’t forget them, but will also keep the memory of their fallen parent from fading into oblivion,” Clancy said.
LOOKING AHEAD
Clancy acknowledged the grueling nature of the legislative session, saying it felt like drinking from the fire hose.
And now he pivots to the present, which means juggling his job as a police officer with that of a part-time legislator.
“I have one or two issues that I’m starting to call experts and researchers on,” Clancy said. “But the main thing I’m focused on is trying to get to know all the people I represent.”
Those plans include shadowing a teacher, and seeing what it’s like firsthand to bag groceries.
Clancy said he wants to “go behind the scenes, listen more than I’m talking, and just try to figure out the true needs of our friends and neighbors in Provo.”
