My Values
One of the best things I took from my time in Scouting was an appreciation for the Scout Law, the points of which I believe voters deserve to expect from their political representatives:
- Trustworthy – honest, transparent, principled, devoted to the public interest and rule of law, and worthy of the voters’ trust to represent them
- Loyal – to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Utah, and to the law, as equally protected and equally accountable as any other person under its jurisdiction
- Helpful – being in office to solve problems and to do good for one’s constituents—supporters, opponents, and neutrals alike
- Friendly – being quick to see the good in others and the value in their ideas, and welcoming of people from all walks of life
- Courteous – staying away from personal attacks and hostility, and seeking to elevate others’ dignity and goodwill
- Kind – seeking ways to reach out in encouragement to the less fortunate, to find common ground, and to show appreciation for our similarities and our differences
- Obedient – to one’s oath of office and to one’s duty as a public servant
- Cheerful – realistic but optimistic, believing there are solutions and incremental improvements for even our most vexing problems, understanding not only the ways we can screw things up but also the way we can band together and fix things
- Thrifty – careful and scrupulous with public funds, putting them to the use of current and future generations of the public, never turning them to one’s own personal benefit or being wasteful or careless with them
- Brave – willing to speak the truth and to advance good causes in spite of opposition or inertia
- Clean – free of scandal, of corruption, of impropriety, and of bigotry
- Reverent – respectful of our nation and state’s founding ideals, of our constitutional democratic republic, of our heritage, of our freedoms, of our people, and of all that is good
Other values that don’t exactly fit into those points:
- Seeking change through consensus, compromise, discussion, and persuasion, rather than domination, exclusion, and hostility
- Making decisions based on facts and data, not just a gut feel or popular belief
- Understanding what I’m voting on, and voting NO on bills I haven’t been given time to study before voting on them
- Authenticity: being the same person in public and in private; speaking with my own voice and not stealing someone else’s words or letting an artificial intelligence speak for me
- Fairness: seeking equitable treatment of all people, playing no favorites, dismantling systems that tilt the electoral playing field or distort the marketplace or discriminate unfairly, and applying the Golden Rule
My Vision
For House District 64
- Healthy, thriving communities
- Dependable and low-cost transit options
- Growth happens without outpacing infrastructure
- Water resources are sufficient and we conserve enough to send extra downstream
- Regular town halls and public meetings so voters stay informed
- Good relationships, and collaborative problem solving, with municipal and county governments
For Utah
- We have fair and proportional representation, no party or faction being unduly privileged above another
- We get to keep voting by mail and in person, and we use better voting methods to choose representatives whom we trust and like (rather than voting to keep the worst from winning)
- We preserve the Great Salt Lake at levels that will prevent toxic dust from polluting our air
- We protect our public lands and beautiful wild places in the state
- We expand our responsible innovation, production, and use of renewable energy
- We have leaders and representatives who respect the public will and are accountable to the public
- We figure out how to discuss and debate ideas and policies based on facts and data, inviting civic and civil engagement at all levels and in all sorts of communities
Policy Priorities
These represent my current priorities and positions on various policies. I am opinionated but open to thoughtful arguments and differing views. I may be wrong on some points and welcome feedback.
Election and Voting Reform
- Restore vote-by-mail as an opt-out system (everyone gets a ballot unless they request not to) rather than opt-in, and forbid counties from requiring or directing voters to affix postage to a return ballot envelope.
- Authorize use of ranked-choice voting and introduce pilots of Approval and STAR Voting methods to address problems in our default “Choose-One” voting method.
- Allocate Utah’s votes in the Electoral College (presidential election) proportionally based on statewide popular vote, so that a candidate getting 1/6 of the popular vote gets one electoral vote, 2/6 gets two, etc., with leftover electoral votes going to the statewide popular vote winner. This would replace our winner-take-all system and immediately make every Utahn’s vote sought after rather than being taken for granted or ignored.
- Propose amendment to state constitution to allow for recall elections, so an official may be removed from office when found to be unfit, corrupt, incompetent, abusive, criminal, or otherwise has lost the trust of their constituents.
- Propose a form of term limits as a state constitutional amendment: no public official may serve in the same office for more than three consecutive terms (but may serve again after a break or being elected to a different office).
Water Conservation
- Reform the antiquated water-rights system, using eminent domain as necessary to reclaim public control of water flows BUT with due fair-market compensation for current water rights holders and with legal commitments for essential uses.
- Set a legal minimum surface elevation for the Great Salt Lake that water managers in the basin are obligated to help maintain.
- Change or repeal laws that encourage wasteful water use (“use it or lose it”) or the depletion or foulement of aquifers and other freshwater sources.
- Fund programs that incentivize water-smart practices like replacing lawn with drought-tolerant landscaping, modernizing irrigation systems, monitoring for leaks, etc.
Redistricting
- Propose a state constitutional amendment to prohibit use of partisan data in drawing political districts, to require nonpartisan criteria for choosing district boundaries, and to require all district map drawing to be done via a public process, fully transparent and subject to meaningful public input.
- Oppose efforts to repeal Prop 4’s anti-gerrymandering provisions.
- Encourage Utah’s federal delegation to support a nationwide anti-gerrymandering law, undoing all the gerrymandering done in Republican- or Democratic-controlled states.
Affordable Housing
- Study the main factors driving up housing costs and driving down availability, to make sure proposed solutions align with realities in the market.
- Allow conversion of low-density residential lots to high-density units under certain conditions.
- Explore ways to disincentivize residential property investment practices that box out would-be homeowners in favor of short-term rentals, speculators, multi-state or international conglomerates, etc.
- Encourage transit-oriented residential development to avoid congestion pressure on roadways.
- Critically examine Public Infrastructure Districts and how they are used—whether they are properly disclosed to home buyers, whether the cost/risk is fairly transferred to those benefiting from them, and whether they should be continued or reformed or abolished.
Taxation and Funding
- Stop cutting income taxes to score political points—it drains our public education system of funding which districts have to make up for by jacking up property taxes, putting a heavier burden on those who have less ability to pay the increases. Property taxes are more regressive than income taxes.
- Keep the state tax on Social Security benefits, but increase the income threshold for qualifying for the tax credit and tie it to the rate of inflation / cost of living. (Initially I was opposed to taxing benefits entirely, but some admittedly cursory research has me leaning towards this as the fairer approach.)
- Automated license plate recognition (ALPR) would be a very convenient way to do equitable tolling for highway use across the state for all vehicles; but the privacy concerns are too great for me to support them. It would inherently allow tracking of citizen movements in detail without probable cause for suspicion.
Education
- Protect and expand public K-12 education funding. Recent funding cuts from the state and federal levels have forced districts to raise property taxes and levies.
- Free school lunch. If we require the kids to attend during lunch, we need to feed them. School lunch debt should not be a thing.
- Repeal the law (HB 29, from 2024) that allows the decision of just three districts in the state to force a book title to be removed from all public school libraries statewide. The decision of a district to remove a title from school libraries should be a local decision limited to that district, as its board only represents the citizens of that district and should not be able to make decisions for those outside it. If repeal is not possible, amend the law to require at least two-thirds of the districts in the state to agree on a title’s removal for it to be banned from school libraries statewide—a high threshold requiring considerable statewide consensus rather than the current low threshold that can be heavily influenced by a small number of activists and a handful of school board members in localized pockets of the state.
- Repeal or amend the school voucher program (Utah Fits All), replacing it with a similar program that draws from the General Fund rather than the income tax fund that is constitutionally required to fund only public education.