Vote for Boyd Petersen

Announcement of Candidacy, 6 March 2008

"Real Utah Values"

 

In 2006, the Utah County Republican Party put up billboards around the valley which read, “Vote your Values. Vote Republican.” I was appalled by the message, as were many of my Republican friends and neighbors. The billboard suggested that the Republican party has a corner on Utah values, that if you don’t vote for a Republican you are voting for someone who is not good, ethical, or moral. Utah valley voters, however, have a long tradition of voting for the person not the party.

Today I am asking Utah voters in District 64 to do just that. I am announcing my candidacy for the Utah State Legislature as a socially conservative Democrat. I do not take this decision lightly. I have never been one to seek the spotlight. My years in Washington taught me that I am much more comfortable in the obscure halls of the academy than in the limelight of elected office. But my Church has called upon its members to get involved in politics to promote moral values, and I do not believe those values are currently being represented in our State Legislature. This election year will give voters a real choice between candidates who claim to promote Utah values and candidates who actually do promote Utah values.

First and foremost, Utah voters value life. I want to emphasize that I share Utah valley residents’ abhorrence of abortion. I believe in the sanctity of human life, and endorse the position of my Church and the Utah County Democratic party platform that abortion should be limited to pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, or cases of severe fetal deformities, or when there is a serious threat to the life or health of the mother. However, I believe Utahns value a commitment to life that goes beyond the birth of our children.

Our commitment extends to ensuring that our children are educated. I promise to work to support and improve public education. Utah has achieved some embarrassing statistics in education. Nationally, we rank last in per-pupil spending, forty-fifth in beginning teachers’ salaries, and first in highest class size. We can do better. Our out-of-touch legislature supported vouchers, which would turn the task of educating our children over to businesses and our children into widgets on an assembly line. In 2006, the incumbent for my district voted against a bill to create voluntary full-day Kindergarten. Last session, she voted with her party for vouchers. This session she voted in committee against a proposal to reduce classroom size, only to vote in favor of the resolution after its chance for final passage was doomed. The referendum on vouchers was soundly defeated by a majority of the voters in this district. The incumbent’s values about education are, I believe, out of touch with those of Utah valley voters. I believe we need an education system that reflects our commitment to our children, and polls tell us Utah voters agree. Voters share with me the belief that when we provide our children with a quality education, families are more stable, businesses benefit, crime rates fall, and communities thrive.

Our commitment to life extends to ensuring health and safety to each and every person. Utah valley voters understand the need for laws that protect our health and promote affordable health care for all families. Last year my father passed away after an eight-year battle with cancer. At one point he was receiving a monthly injection that cost over a thousand dollars. Fortunately, my father had good insurance that covered these injections and most of his other medications, otherwise my parents would have faced the unenviable decision of leaving my mother with an insecure future or having my father’s life cut off much sooner. But many families are not so lucky. Some must choose between feeding their children or taking them to a doctor, between paying their mortgage or paying for prescriptions. Preventive care is also important. Utah led the nation in establishing in-door smoking restrictions. Despite the fact that the incumbent is a registered nurse, she twice voted with the tobacco industry against additions to our smoking ban. She also voted against extending the right to obtain a domestic violence protective order to dating couples, leaving individuals in dating relationships that have turned violent without protection. I promise to support legislation that will help individuals and families stay healthy, safe, and obtain and retain quality health insurance.

Our commitment to life is a commitment to a moral life, an ethical life. Utah valley residents know the importance of teaching morals to their children, living moral lives, and demanding moral and ethical standards of their representatives. While I am sure my opponent is a good person, I believe that her ethical conduct as a state representative has not been above reproach. An audit of Mountainland Applied Technology College and subsequent newspaper articles revealed that the incumbent pressured the College to build a parade float for the Utah county GOP, likely using public funds. She is also a co-chair of an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that holds closed meetings to produce “model legislation” promoting the interests of big-business and with strong ties to the tobacco industry. With a husband who is one of the highest-spending lobbyists in Utah and who is chair of the Utah GOP, the incumbent walks very close to the conflict-of-interest line. Again, I do believe she is nice person, a good wife, mother, and neighbor. But I do question her judgment in her capacity as a lawmaker. Legislators should walk a higher path. I promise to support real ethics reform in the State House. Our legislature should adhere to the same ethical standards that Utah valley residents teach their children.

Our commitment to life is a commitment to a life of compassion, of respect and tolerance for all peoples from every culture. With regards to immigration, I support the position of the Utah county Democratic party that “those who come to the United States should do so legally.” But I also believe, as does my Church, that immigration reform needs to be made in a “thoughtful and factual, . . . [and] humane” way, exercising a “spirit of compassion.” In 2007 and 2008, the incumbent voted to repeal in-state tuition privileges for undocumented immigrants. While I do not condone illegal immigration, taking away in-state tuition privileges punishes the innocent children of illegal immigrants, creates deep ethnic divisions in our communities, and leads to a potential of increased crime.

And our commitment to life is a commitment to our seniors. I believe that senior citizens deserve to live with dignity, knowing that their Social Security and pension benefits are secure. They deserve a representative who looks out for their interests.

Finally, our commitment to life extends to all people, not just the powerful and privileged. I spoke with a man the other day—I’ll call him Don—who said he grew up in a very conservative, Republican family and was committed to the values he believed the Republican party represented. Don has a disabled child, a son with severe autism. He told me how he, with his autistic son by his side, went to speak with state legislators to urge them to provide funding for a day care center for disabled children. He recounted how, when he told one legislator about the proposal, the legislator simply pointed at his son and said, “look at that boy; he’s never going to amount to anything. Why should we spend taxpayer’s money on him?” Don said he walked outside, sat on the steps of the capitol, and wept. “That was the day,” Don related, “that I became a Democrat.” Don discovered what many Utah valley Republicans are discovering: that their state party leaders do not listen to their concerns, do no care about their family’s needs. He discovered that so many of the values he had long associated with the Republican party were being better represented by socially conservative Utah valley Democrats.

In short, I believe that Utah valley voters—Republicans, independents, and Democrats—believe in a full spectrum of values, supporting life, health, education, compassion, and public morality. They expect those values to be reflected in the words and deeds of our Utah state legislature. And I believe that the current Utah valley legislators are largely out of touch with their constituency.

Let me address one final issue: Some may wonder why an English teacher is running for the state legislature. Despite the fact that I do, in fact, have experience working in the political sphere, I would also like to point out how during this session of the legislature an English teacher could have easily saved at least one state senator from embarrassment. When commenting about his vote against funding the International Bacchelaureate degree in Utah schools—a program that promotes “Worldwide socialization and training for a global work force”—one legislator stated that, “Socialization has been a failure everywhere it’s been tried. It’s not the system we work in, and it’s not the system that pays our education bills.” Had I been there, I might have been able to explain to him the difference between the words “socialization” and “socialism.”

More important, however, I believe my background as an educator has given me a unique perspective. I have seen in my college classrooms over the past thirteen years, a cross-section of Utah valley’s young people. My students have shown me the effects of our inadequately funding public education, as year after year, my incoming freshmen have had to spend more and more time playing catch-up to learn basic skills they should have learned in high school. My students have told me about their struggles to pay for their college education, often holding down two and three jobs in order to attend school. I understand the need to make higher education more affordable. My students have shown me the effects of drug abuse in our valley. Last semester, I had an entire class of recovering addicts who shared with me their heroic stories of their battles to get clean and overcome their addictions. My students have shown me the scars of abuse and neglect on their lives. I understand the role the state legislature can play in preventing abuse and making treatment available to abuse victims. More importantly, they have shown me the rewards of success, the benefits of academic dedication, and the hope borne of hard work and determination in the face of sometimes frightening odds. I am an educator because, like most educators, I want to make a difference in the world. I am now running for the state legislature for the same reason.

Dedication and hope are what this campaign is about. As Utahns, we can do better. We must do better. Our future depends on it. This year I ask you to vote your values and vote for Boyd Petersen, a socially conservative Democrat for legislative district 64. Together we will work to return sanity, compassion, and reason to our state legislature.