Targeting conservatives

The UEA, once a powerful lobby on Utah’s Capitol Hill, has openly admitted they “only” support moderate Republicans and Democrats.  This makes it easy to figure out which seats need some shakin’ up – just look at the list the UEA donates to.  According to the Deseret News, Vik Arnold, UEA director of government relations and political action said “We actually give about as much to keep good (GOP) moderates in the Legislature as we do to elect Democrats — it is a top priority for us” to continue to oppose some of the policies of “the radical right wing” of the Utah Republican Party.”

Stripped of their ability to have automatic payroll deductions funneled from teachers to the UEA PAC, donations have dropped by half.  The UEA went to court – all the way to the Supreme Court – and lost.  While they continue to assert their ability to be a player on the Hill, they were outspent in candidate donations in the last election cycle by more than 2 to 1 by pro-voucher group, Parents for Choice in Education and are seeing a decrease in their ability to control the Hill.  This last session, one of their associated groups – the PTA – stopped a bill that would also allow PTO’s, but did it by misleading some powerful members of both the House and Senate.  It seems probable that they will find much less traction the next time they approach the Hill.  The next session – and campaign cycle – will be interesting to watch, as the UEA targets conservative legislators and other groups target moderate Republicans and Democrats.

Bennett on the campaign trail

Recently, Senator Bob Bennett met with “community leaders” at a breakfast in Provo.  Hitting the campaign trail early and hard, he spent the morning sharing his views on why he should be sent back to Washington DC.

He said we have a very popular president, but the pendulum always swings back the other way.  He himself ran on a platform of change, but once he got there, he realized how slowly change actually happens. Obama is also finding that out now – he thought he could change everything in DC and but has now had to adopt the Bush policies in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Change happens very slowly.

Senator Bennett said we are in as serious a recession as we have ever seen – if we look back to the recession in the 1980′s and don’t remember how hard it was because Ronald Reagan helped pull us out of the mess left by Jimmy Carter.  He said “we need to take a much more serious look at where we are, which means we need to focus on for reducing entitlement spending” and said the 3 biggest entitlement programs are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  He said “I voted against the stimulus bill, against the omnibus bill, against the budget and ‘all of that’”.

Right now, our federal budget is $2.2 trillion and mandatory spending is $2.2 trillion, meaning every dime is already committed before it gets to Congress.  He said the only way to balance the budget without touching mandatory spending is shut down everything except medicare, medicaid, SS and interest on the national debt – obviously not a realistic solution. People who say that we need to cut the budget aren’t addressing the right issues – the issue is “how do we stop entitlements”?  We stop extravagant promises.  Senator Bennett said it is easy to fix social security – he’s been working on it for years.  His plan keeps current benefits as they are, then would maintain that same level for their children and their grandchildren, not a HIGHER benefit for the kids and grandkids.  “It’s not a real cut”, he says, ” just keeping benefits on the same level”.

One of the folks in the room said to him “Your detractors are saying that you are not the conservative you used to be” and mentioned a recent radio ad that dropped the word “conservative” 7 or 8 times.  Senator Bennett admitted it was deliberate and said in his defense: “I believe that free market forces work better than government. I’ve always been on the side of free markets – I supported the first payment of TARRP funds, but that’s the only vote I’ve cast that didn’t qualify. I believed Mitt Romney who said the entire free market system would have collapsed if we didn’t prop up the banks.  I still believe it and still defend it and so does every conservative economist who has ever come before the banking committee.”

Former state Representative Jim Ferrin said “The tragedy to me are the events that led to it – how many years did we have problems accruing in Fannie and Freddie?  How is it that Congress did not know the cancer was growing?”  He also pointedly told the Senator “You have not succeeded in stopping the crap from hitting the fan.”

Senator Bennett admitted that in hindsight there might have been problems, but the fundamental problems were – according to him – over-inflation, “bubbles” – specifically the housing bubble, and mania.  He said it was “not our fault – people got greedy” and further stated that “we will not get out of this until home prices stablilize as a dwelling, not an investment”.

Another audience member asked: “Are you really a conservative and can you be trusted?”  Senator Bennett asked: “What’s your definition of a conservative?”.  He then explained: “My definition of a conservative is Ronald Reagan’s.”  He said he thought Reagan was a dangerous flake on the right. He had gone to a job interview with RR and saw there was going to be an offer. He stopped the campaign manager and told him that “I am not a true believer”.  The campaign manager told him “Don’t worry, neither is the governor”

“I have become a complete convert”, said Bennett, “and believe Ronald Reagan was one of the truly great presidents of our time.”   Bennett believes optimism is the hallmark of a true conservative and Ronald Reagan was fundamentally optimistic.  The other two hallmarks of a “true conservative”, according to the Senator, are patriotism – it’s OK to be an American – and being about solutions.

“I have been criticized because I don’t shout as loudly as others”, he asserted,  “but I am optimistic, I am patriotic and I believe in solutions”.

Bennett now faces three challengers, all claiming to be more conservative than he – Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Tim Bridgewater and Cherilyn Bacon Eager.

And then there were three

Three non-incumbent contenders for Bob Bennett’s seat, that is. Yesterday afternoon, Joe Pyrah of the Daily Herald, broke the story that Cherilyn Bacon Eager is entering the 2010 Senate race.

Cherilyn is a long-time conservative Republican activist, has held numerous leadership positions, has spoken out in many venues on family values, fiscal responsibility and free market principles. She brings with her political know-how, an knowledge of the issues, a long history of standing firm on conservative values and some very excited supporters. As she pointed out yesterday, there are only 4 Republican women in the Senate and two of those frequently vote with the Democrats. She believes that the time is right for a strong Republican woman candidate.  Stay tuned as this Senate race continues to unfold.

Sotomayor nominated for Supreme Court

Sonia Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Today, she was nominated for the US Supreme Court – a lifetime appointment. As expected, she leans left politically, although not as liberal as some had feared.

Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York, to Puerto Rican parents. She obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as an Assistant District Attorney in New York for several years before entering private practice.
In 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated her to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. On June 25, 1997, she was nominated by former President Bill Clinton to the seat she now holds. Then Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch voted for Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Second Circuit and with solid Democratic support, and about half of the Republicans, Sotomayor was confirmed on October 2, 1998

Concerns are already being raised about her written and taped statements about creating policy from the bench, something that is not the purview of the courts. Her nomination will likely sail through, however.

Chaffetz’ Memorial Day remarks

Early in the morning, Congressman Chaffetz, joined by acting Governor Gary Herbert, Representative Craig Frank and Pleasant Grove mayor, Mike Daniels, paid tribute to the men and women who have given the upmost measure of devotion.

Memorial Day tribute

What a lovely tribute for Memorial Day, courtesy of Touched by an Angel and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Memorial Day thoughts

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” Arthur Ashe

Today, amid the barbecueing, yard work and trip up the canyon, please take the time to remember those who have served to keep this country free. I have stood in cemeteries in France, where row upon row upon endless row of white crosses mark the final resting spot of thousands of Americans who died serving others in the cause of liberty. One of those crosses is for my father’s uncle, who served in the US Army.
My grandfather worked in the shipyards in Honolulu in December 1941. My father spent a year in Vietnam in the 60′s, flying for the US Air Force. My brother is a pilot today and was deployed to Iraq at the beginning of the current war. All of them returned home alive – and all of them lost friends and colleagues who paid the ultimate price to preserve liberty.

We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights. ~Felix Frankfurter

Today, let’s remember those families who are NOT in danger of forgetting that cost…and from my family to yours….”Thank you”.

New Utah County GOP steering committee

Utah County’s new executive committee announced the five additional members of the steering committee. They are:

County Party Education Officer – Adrielle Herring (previous County Organization Officer)
County Party Finance Officer – Corey Norman (previous Chris Cannon district director)
County Organization Officer – Paul Ure (Realtor)
County Volunteers Officer – Colby Green
County Public Relations & Media Officer – Matt Barber (Former Spanish Fork City Council member)

It looks eerily like the “old guard”. It will remain to be seen whether real change has come to the Utah County GOP or not.

Interim Day Summary

First interim day of 2009 was Wednesday.  The big news of the day had nothing to do with committee meetings or the special session.  The Patrick Henry Caucus, tapping into the growing unrest in our country, officially launched themselves with a press conference and rally and out on the steps of the Capitol, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff officially announced his run for US Senate.

The ethics committee meeting held their first joint meeting – equal bi-partisan representation and both House and Senate.  Interestingly, most of the meeting was spent with the folks from legislative research talking about “the philosophy of law” and how difficult it was going to be to even define the direction the committee should go – broad?  Narrow?  Somewhere in between.  Right now, we have broad language – no legislator shall exert undue influence, for example.  What is undue influence?  How do you know when it has been exerted?  Who determines that?  Narrow definitions are problematic as well.  The example that was given was this:  A new rule says no legislator shall yell at a lobbyist in public.  What is yell?  What if they naturally have a loud voice?  What if they are trying to make themselves heard over, say, 500 people gathered in the rotunda for a rally?  And what is a public place?  Outside House chambers?  What about behind the chambers?  Outside?  In the parking garage? Seems to me that the interim might be spent trying to pin down semantics….

The other committee I attended was the Health Care Reform task force.  Speaker Clark told the committee and the members of the public in attendance that he does not want to hear “No, because”, but “Yes, if”.  One thing that stood out to me in the make-up in the committee was an apparent lack of input from consumers and other non-physician health care providers.  I hope that is not indicative of a lack of desire on the part of the committee to include all parties at the table.

The special session in the afternoon was smooth and quiet.  In fact, as Joe Pyrah points out, there was more sauntering than there was actual work.  Folks behind the scenes told a different story, however.  Ric Cantrell, Chief Deputy to the Senate, relayed how he had spent at least 60 hours over the last few weeks preparing for that short little special session.  He and the others that helped him did a good job of making it look easy.

Quote of the day

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always ‘against,’ never ‘for’ anything.

Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964