The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has asked its lay leaders in Utah to assign grassroots “specialists” to help members get more involved in civic affairs — from seeing that they are registered to vote to informing them of party caucuses and telling them about community meetings.
Why might the church be doing this? Will it be carried out in a “politically neutral” way — as the faith’s leaders have instructed? And what are the pros and cons of such an effort by the state’s predominant institution?
Morgan Lyon Cotti, associate director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics, discusses those question and more on this week’s “Mormon Land.