As Tuesday, March 25th is the date for precinct caucuses here in Utah, I've been reading up on some of our local races. We've actually got quite a bit going on this year, with primary challengers in our house district race (66), our senate district race (13), and our federal congressional race (Utah's Third Congressional District).
It's not a surprise that Chris Cannon has an intra-party challenge again--people haven't been particularly pleased with Congress as a whole, and Rep. Cannon doesn't have the highest approval ratings in the world. This year there are two gentleman running against him for the Republican "nomination"--
David Leavitt (our former governor's brother) and
Jason Chaffetz (a former Chief of Staff for our current governor).
I believe that all three of these gentlemen are patriots, wishing to serve the country as best they can. I believe that all three want to protect our country from trouble within and without. I believe all three are honorable, upstanding citizens. So in this case, I'll be making my choice based on another criteria--fiscal responsibility. I personally haven't been pleased with Congress in that regard in the past several years, and I am considering voting against Chris Cannon for that reason--message-sending and all that. However, I won't just blindly vote for "anyone-but". According to both the challengers' websites, they are against the type of spending we have seen recently. Specifically, Chaffetz supports presidential line-item veto power over "pork barrel" earmarks. More research and information must be gathered before I am willing to commit to any of the three.
More locally, Senator Mark B. Madsen (senate district 13) has a challenger, J. Lane Henderson. I haven't been able to find much information about Mr. Henderson, but possibly he is (or was) mayor of Salem. I like Senator Madsen, though, and agree with many of his stances (as well as a
voter-identification law he sponsored this session), so for now I don't see myself switching away from him.
Even
more locally, Rep. Mike Morley (house district 66) has a challenger, Chance Williams. I can find no information about Mr. Williams beyond
this quote in the Deseret News:
"I got tired of reading all the articles about (Rep.) Mike Morley (supporting a bill) that would benefit his construction company," said Chance Williams, a Republican candidate in District 66 running against the Republican Morley. "I want to see people working for legislation that would sincerely benefit the people."
I'm not familiar with this objection, and a quick search of the Deseret News archives (search terms Mike Morley and construction) leads to two articles--
one which only mentions Rep. Morley in the comments (a forum I'm not inclined to put great trust) and
one which discusses possible conflicts of interest and praises Rep. Morley for his "thorough" disclosure form. So, unless I discover more about this situation, I'm pretty comfortable supporting Rep. Morley.
I'm hoping to be a county delegate again this year--I had such a great time doing it for the last two years. Maybe even a state delegate--that would be an amazing experience. We'll see. Even if I don't get that opportunity, I'm really looking forward to the caucus Tuesday.
[Update: Be sure to read the comments--there is a lot of good information there]