SALT LAKE CITY —The year 2016 will mean big change for not only Salt Lake City, but also its new soon-to-be-mayor, Jackie Biskupski.
The former legislator, who unseated two-term Mayor Ralph Becker on a platform of change, says she’s ready to spur economic growth, pursue social justice and make the city a place of inclusion.
But now, as Biskupski readies for a January start to her term as Salt Lake’s first openly gay mayor, she will also enter a new chapter in her life at home: growing her family.
So far, Salt Lake residents have known Biskupski — who will turn 50 one week after her Jan. 4 inauguration — as a single mother to her nearly 6-year-old son, Archie, whom she adopted in Georgia when he was born in 2009.
Now, Archie will soon have a big brother and a second mother.
In an interview at her quaint, brick home in Sugar House last week, Biskupski told the Deseret News that she and her girlfriend, Betty Iverson of Colorado, are engaged and are planning a wedding.
Two years removed from U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby’s December 2013 decision to strike down Utah’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, the mayor of Utah’s capital city will prepare for an inauguration and a marriage. Biskupski’s new role in leadership promises to challenge not only her as mayor, but also those across this very red state lamenting a change in traditional values.
“I don’t think my life could be any better than it is today,” Biskupski said, smiling at her fiancé as they sat side-by-side in her living room. “It’s amazing.”
Path to politics
Biskupski was born Jan. 11, 1966, in Hastings, Minnesota. Her journey to Salt Lake City’s mayor’s office began when she visited Utah for a ski trip in 1989, soon after graduating from Arizona State University with a degree in criminal justice.
Charmed by Utah’s slopes, she never left.
“I thought it was a such a phenomenal outdoor playground,” she said, as an avid skier in the wintertime and a mountain biker during the summer. “So I stayed.”
She started her own private practice investigating fraud for about four years before joining State Farm Insurance to manage injury claims. But it would be perceived injury to others that would draw her into politics.
In late 1995, a group of students filed for authorization to have a Gay-Straight Alliance at East High School, and controversy erupted in Salt Lake City.
“I sat there thinking, ‘What is wrong with me? Why haven’t I done something to make life easier for these kids?’” Biskupski said. "So I decided I would get involved."
It was only a year earlier, when Biskupski was 28, that she had told her Catholic parents, Marvin and Arlene, that she was gay. While she said her mom and dad first experienced some “growing pains,” they always surrounded her with love and support.
“My mom was very supportive,” she said. “It took my dad a bit longer, but we are a family of unconditional love, so he always shows up. That’s just who we are, we are a family, and that means we stand with each other forever.”
Biskupski’s parents had named her after Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy Onassis out of reverence for the Kennedys. She said that's brought a mindset focused on equal rights and social justice that has followed her throughout her life.
In 1996 she gained recognition among Democrats when helping the campaign to elect state Rep. Patrice Arent. In 1997, Biskupski was elected to the executive committee of the Salt Lake County Democratic Party, as well as the board of directors for the YMCA of Salt Lake. That same year, she decided to run for Salt Lake City Council, but she lost by less than 50 votes to Roger H. Thompson.
In 1998 she succeeded in her bid to join the Utah House of Representatives, where she would represent District 30 — parts of Salt Lake, Sugar House and Central City — for 13 years. It made her the first openly gay legislator in Utah, despite strong opposition from conservative groups in the state.
She says those early days in the Legislature proved challenging, with some lawmakers avoiding eye contact with her or refusing to shake her hand. Over time, however, Biskupski said she earned the trust and respect of her legislative colleagues.
She said her work at the Legislature centered on advancing social justice, and she said that remains her fundamental drive as she prepares for her new role.
“That is what’s at the core of what I do in general,” she said. “If something is not fair or just, I feel a need to address it.”
That desire to affect change fueled her mission to serve at every level of government in Utah: state, county and city. She checked off working for the county when Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder called her in 2007, seeking a political mentor.
“To me, her real qualification was that she was an expert in the helping-people-get-along business,” Winder said. “It didn’t really matter what constituency she would represent. Whoever it was, she would listen reasonably — not view it through the lens of some agenda.”
She joined Winder’s team as senior policy adviser and manager of special projects. Through various community projects — including revitalizing the Kearns Pony League Ball Park and programs to assist and educate refugees — she grew closer to the community.
That’s when she said she got to know more Salt Lake residents, built relationships and noted their appetite for change. Her path to the mayor’s office began to crystallize.
Private life
Building relationships was not just a public pursuit. Biskupski’s private life was also about to change.
She adopted Archie in December 2009 as a single, openly gay woman.
“Because of that, many adoption agencies wouldn’t work with me,” she said. “It’s easy to forget that six years ago the laws were not what they are today, and even today, LGBT people face hurdles when adopting, and so I had to navigate a system to ensure that both Archie and I were fully protected legally.”
When asked if she ever felt like an outsider in Utah, Biskupski said she and Archie were “lucky to not only have a very supportive family in Minnesota, but a very supportive family of friends in Utah.”
“So Archie was surrounded by love the moment I brought him home to Utah,” she said.
When Archie was 18 months old, she had also hoped to give him a sibling. Shortly before she resigned from the Utah Legislature in 2011, she was in the process of adopting a second child. But the birth mother changed her mind, so the adoption fell through.
For the next five years, it would be just her and Archie. But little did she know, years before she adopted her son, she had already met the woman that would eventually become her fiancé.
Biskupski and Iverson — Jackie and Betty — met in the early 1990s through mutual friends and have crossed paths repeatedly over the years.
Iverson, 55, currently lives in Denver with her 11-year-old son, Jack, whom she adopted in Guatemala when he was 8 months old. She works as director of state and government affairs for the health care company Johnson & Johnson, and she regularly travels to and from Utah for business.
Biskupski said their friendship began to flourish over the past year, after they reconnected while they were both walking the halls of the Utah Capitol.
“I don’t know what it is exactly, but every time I’ve ever crossed Betty’s path, I’ve always been super excited and happy about it. We’ve always really liked each other as people,” Biskupski said. “At this stage of our lives, we both had children where that was not true in the past. We reconnected. And then it evolved from what has always been a really lovely friendship into a much more intimate relationship.”
While their relationship evolved over the past year, Iverson was never introduced throughout Biskupski’s campaign. Biskupski said keeping their relationship behind the scenes was not out of fear of public backlash, but because their relationship was private and not a factor in the race — the focus of her campaign was on her qualifications and ability to lead.
“People judged me on my merits,” she said.
While Iverson said over the past year it became apparent to both her and Biskupski that their lives would eventually merge, it was not until after the hectic campaign season that their path would lead to engagement.
In November, after Biskupski’s election, she went on vacation in California with Iverson. To Biskupski’s surprise, Iverson proposed on a beach.
Iverson and Biskupski said no date has been set for a wedding ceremony, since Iverson must first move from Denver. But Biskupski said they plan to purchase a new home together in Salt Lake City when they do get married.
She said her new family will provide stability, but it won’t change how she leads Salt Lake City or how she continues to speak out for the LGBT community.
Looking ahead
The mayor-elect's sexual orientation did not become an issue during the campaign. Yet when she was elected, she made national headlines as "Salt Lake City’s first gay mayor."
“I am the only lesbian mayor in the entire country starting in 2016,” Biskupski said, unsurprised by the national attention. “To win was huge for the community and the state. There were a lot of people who were watching this race living outside of the city who thought it was so exciting.”
Utah’s capital has for decades been an island of blue in a sea of red. Democrats, like Biskupski and her soon-to-be predecessor, Mayor Ralph Becker, have sat in the mayor’s office for the past 40 years. But a lesbian single mother as mayor is a first.
“In some sense, it’s a sign of liberal progress. Salt Lake is an increasingly reliable democratic stronghold, so in that sense it’s not surprising,” said Brigham Young University political science professor Chris Karpowitz. “Salt Lake is more focused on other sorts of political issues.”
If Biskupski’s campaign foreshadows anything about her coming years as mayor, Karpowitz said her sexuality will likely not become an issue.
“It’s certainly possible that could arise, but I honestly don’t see anyone making this a political issue,” he said. “I think people are most eager and interested in having a new mayoral administration and how she manages the affairs of the city.”
Karpowitz said it’s “more telling” that it hasn’t become an issue, and Biskupski’s election could be indicative that the state and city’s anti-discrimination efforts last year are “paying off.”
A year ago legislators, gay rights advocates, community leaders and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hailed legislation protecting both religious liberty and the rights of those in the LGBT community, among others traditionally protected from discrimination.
“Perhaps it will be more of an issue that citizens and other politicians would want to talk about in other places in the state,” Karpowitz said. “But then again, maybe not. I think people in general are less focused on that aspect of her personal story and more focused on what specific political decisions she will make.”
Troy Williams, Equality Utah executive director, said depending on how Biskupski leads Salt Lake City, she could very well become a prominent LGBT icon.
“Not only does she inspire young LGBT people, but also young women to run for office and achieve great things,” Williams said. “We hope that she has a very successful administration. Her time as mayor will determine how people look back on her.”
Says Biskupski: “It’s an important role to make sure that young girls and boys all around this country have an opportunity to see someone like me lead,” she said. “But it won’t overshadow the day-to-day work and all that needs to get done in this community.”
Salt Lake City’s future
Just as her proudest moments in the Legislature arose from advancing social justice, Biskupski said she hopes to create a more “inclusive” city in the next four years as mayor.
“I want people to feel like everyone in this community found a place at the table, so there are no longer invisible members of our city,” she said, especially by prioritizing input from residents as neighborhoods are developed.
She also wants the city to celebrate diversity more prominently, by not only spurring more economic development on the west side, but by inspiring more people from the east side to visit the west side for food and shopping, and “vice versa,” she said.
“We speak over 100 languages in some of our schools, and yet you would never know walking around in this community that we’re really that diverse,” she said. “I really want to bring our community together in a way that we haven’t done before.”
Winder said he knows from his working relationship with Biskupski that she will make a strong and influential mayor.
“What (Biskupski) exhibits is what I see in a lot of good leaders: focused and intense,” he said. “Salt Lake City has elected somebody that will move the pieces.”
The sheriff said some people may initially be off put by her Type A personality, but once people get to know her, they will recognize she listens, cares and actually gets work done.
“Leadership is not just about smiles and handshakes,” the sheriff said. “Somebody has to move it along. (Biskupski) has that intensity, but I think when she gets settled in, people are going to find that she is a very kind and open person.”
Winder said she, of all people — especially after her trials in the Legislature from groups who attacked her for her lifestyle — knows how important it is to be compassionate and inclusive.
“She represents a lot of struggle that has brought her to this point,” the sheriff said. “The best people to deal with conflict are those that have experienced it. I believe that. That’s why I know she’ll be a great mayor.”
Email: kmckellar@deseretnews.com
Twitter: KatieMcKellar1