Deidre Henderson

Early life, education, and career

Deidre Henderson attended high school at Eagan High in Saint Paul, Minnesota and at Taylorsville High School in Taylorsville, Utah. She attended Brigham Young University. Henderson has five children, and is married to Gabe Henderson, with whom she operates a small business. Senator Henderson is a self-proclaimed 'obsessive expiration date checker'. Before joining the Utah State Senate, Henderson worked as a business consultant, and was involved in U.S. Congressman Jason Chaffetz's campaign. Deidre Henderson is also a 'stay at home mom', and enjoys spending time with her children.

Political career

Senator Henderson started her political career working for the Jason Chaffetz Campaign. She was elected to the Utah State Senate in 2012 and re-elected in 2016.

Beginning on January 1, 2017, Senator Henderson will serve on the following committees:

Transparency

Transparency has been a consistent policy goal for Henderson. She has said "Sunshine is the best disinfectant". Henderson has sponsored transparency related bills almost every year since taking office. One of the more prominent of these bills was SB283 in 2013. This bill led to the creation of open.utah.gov, a website that serves as a one-stop-shop for financial and other public data. It features data visualizers and downloadable spreadsheets.

Eliminating Protectionism against Birthing Centers

In 2005, the state established a licensing procedure for Direct Entry Midwives in Utah. This statute allowed midwives to practice in any out-of-hospital setting including birthing centers. Contrary to this statute, however, the Health Facilities Licensing Board, charged with the task of regulating health facility licenses by means of administrative rule, required birth centers to maintain transfer agreements with a local hospital in order to have a birthing center license. No hospitals were willing to grant a transfer agreement to a Birthing center. For 10 years, the small group of midwives appealed to this committee over and over to find a way to get licenses for their Birthing Centers. This committee, which consisted of doctors, nurses and hospital administrators, consistently rejected their appeals for 10 years. Consequently, there were no birth centers in Utah with more than one room.

Her bill, SB108 in the 2016 session, prohibited the Health Facilities Licensing Board from requiring transfer agreements with hospitals as a condition of licensing. In its place, midwives were required to develop transfer plans.

During the debate, Senator Henderson argued that the administrative rule allowed hospitals to severely cripple the success of their competition, birthing centers. She orchestrated the passage of the bill and the first Birthing Center with more than one room opened in the fall of 2016.

Her work on this issue earned her the American Association of Birthing Centers (AABC) Public Advocate of the Year for 2016.

Food Truck Freedom

Prior to the 2017 session, food truck owners in Utah had to pay anywhere from $45 to one city in a year, $250 in another, and $1400 in another to hold licenses in these jurisdictions. In some locations, food truck operators pay per-day fees. In other locations, they are forced to pay licensing fees per vehicle. Senator Henderson’s SB250 made this confusing patchwork of regulations a little more manageable for food truck owners. This bill requires food trucks to maintain business licenses and health and fire safety inspection certificates without compromising public safety and right-of-way requirements. It provides more standardization for business license fees and permit fees. It limits the fees beyond the cost of regulation and to require redundant safety inspections. Lastly, it prohibits “Per-day” ,”Per-location” fees, and regulations specifying that food trucks must maintain a certain distance from a restaurant.

Recognizing the Candy Bomber

Senator Henderson sponsored an effort during the 2017 session (SCR04) to recognize Gail Halvorsen—affectionately known as the "Candy Bomber" and one of Henderson's constituents—for his extraordinary lifetime of service. This Resolution reads in part:

"WHEREAS, during the Berlin Airlift from 1948 to 1949, Halvorsen, moved by the gratitude and resilience of the children living in that devastated city, dropped tiny handkerchief-sized parachutes filled with candy from his C-54 for the children of Berlin to chase down and collect — an act for which he was affectionately nicknamed the “candy bomber,” and, though he was nearly court-martialed for doing so, Halvorsen continued to make his candy drops for several months;

WHEREAS, in the decades following the airlift, having achieved the rank of Colonel in the United States Air Force, Halvorsen continued his service in the Civilian Air Patrol, returning to Germany as a commander of the Tempelhof Central Airport in Berlin and as the United States Air Force Representative to the city of Berlin; and

WHEREAS, almost 70 years later, Halvorsen’s service to the children of Berlin stands as one of the foremost examples of kindness and human compassion, bringing relief to a war-torn country and joy to children in need of a little bit of hope, and his continued participation in humanitarian air drops to children in Bosnia, Albania, Micronesia, and elsewhere has served as an inspiring example of dedicated service.”

Legislative awards

Elections