Utah Public Radio published this article in collaboration with the Sanpete Messenger as part of its election coverage.
EPHRAIM—Mike Kennedy, who has defined himself as a principled Republican, and Jonny Larsen, who describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat, pretty much talked their party lines during a 4th Congressional District debate Oct. 8 at the Snow College Eccles Center.
During the debate, which was moderated by Doug Wilks, executive editor of the Deseret News, the two candidates expressed sharply divergent views on the war in Iraq, healthcare, access to assistance programs such as food stamps, public lands and immigration.
But they had some things in common, including getting through difficulties in their youths and appreciating the neighbor-helping-neighbor Utah culture.
Kenney and Larsen are running for U.S. Congress in the newly configured 4th District, a largely rural district which includes western Salt Lake County, the west side of Utah County, and all of Tooele, Juab, Sanpete, Millard and Sevier counties. The winner will be Sanpete County’s new congressman.
After a court ordered Utah boundaries redrawn, Rep. Burgess Owens, the county’s current congressman, faced running in a Democratic district or possibly facing Kennedy in a primary. He decided not to seek reelection.
Two other candidates—Taylor Wright, a Libertarian, and Steve Burt, who is unaffiliated—are also running in the 4th District. However, the Utah Debate Commission, which sponsors debates in statewide races, voted not to include candidates not affiliated with the two major parties, in this year’s debates.
Early life challenges
Kennedy said his father was an immigrant who was naturalized during the Reagan administration. “I’m a firstgeneration American,” he said. “I was a free-school-lunch child….My parents divorced when I was young. As a result, we had significant financial challenges.
“But through hard work and determination, I went to college. I went to medical school. I went to law school.” He said he and his wife “have built a family and a life.” He said the American dream is still alive and well, “and I’ve lived it.”
“I grew up in a trailer park,” Larsen said. “We ripped out food stamps to pay for groceries. I even went through Utah’s foster care system. And my grandma rescued me. And she was afforded this opportunity because of her social security and her union pension from the teamsters”.
Larsen joined the Marines at 17, served two tours in Iraq, including time in combat. After he returned to Utah, he got a degree in math and physics from the University of Utah. Neighbor helping neighbor
Larsen said he now owns a home and knows all his neighbors. “And those community values, knowing your neighbors, being able to know what they go through, is exactly what Utah understands.”
Both candidates talked about Utah being the top state in the nation in charitable giving. “The fact (is) that our people are healthy, they help each other, and every year, shockingly but not mysteriously, our state government balances its bud - get,” Kennedy said.
Gasoline prices
The moderator asked the candidates what they would do to bring down gasoline prices. That led to discussion of the war in Iran.
Kennedy didn’t deny that high gas prices are a symptom of the war in Iran. But he said the United States had learned that Iran has ballistic missiles that can reach 2,500 miles. “If this despotic regime were to get nuclear weapons, that would be a threat to the world,” he said.
“The most immediate thing that we can do right now (to bring down gasoline prices) is end this illegal war,” Larsen said. He noted that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Under the War Powers Act, the president can wage for 60 days. After that, the law says he must get approval from Congress. Yet Larsen said Kenndy had voted against bringing the war to a vote in Congress six times.
“To tie the president’s hands in the middle of a national security crisis is not the right thing for us to do,” Kennedy responded. He said Americans need to support President Trump “in trying to move forward and help not only the United States but the whole world.”
Healthcare
Wilks asked both candidates about healthcare. Larsen, a cancer survivor, said he was very lucky to have access to U.S. Veterans Administration healthcare system. The system isn’t perfect, he said, but “it’s better than what most everyone else has right now….I know it’s something that we can bring to every American to make sure they have the same kind of healthcare at a lower cost.”
He also called for restoring the federal subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) but cancelled under President Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”
He said removing the subsidies increased insurance costs to “thousands of dollars a month” for many people. And, he said, one in eight residents of Sanpete and Juab counties can’t afford insurance.
But Kennedy said, “…When Obamacare passed, we saw some of the worst mistruths quoted and forced on American society that I…have seen in my adult life…” He said the bill “was written by insurance companies for insurance companies.”
Obamacare, he said, led to physician practices and other healthcare organizations being consumed by large institutional investors. Prices went up, he said, “because Washington, D.C. got more involved in healthcare than it’s ever been.”
Solutions, he said, include telehealth, requiring doctors and hospitals to post their prices, and health savings accounts. “Bring the consumer back into the healthcare debate and you will find costs will go down.”
Assistance programs
The candidates also had a fairly sharp exchange about assistance programs such as food stamps. “Is it the federal government’s job to…feed everybody, to house everybody, to charity and welfare everybody?” Kennedy asked.
When the federal government steps in, “everybody else backs out,” he said. The end result is programs that create problems for the states and communities that receive them.
Larsen said Democrats would rather feed 100 people rather than let one go without food. But Republicans would allow 100 people to go hungry to make sure one person they don’t think is deserving doesn’t get that benefit.
“The idea that any Republican, let alone myself, wants people to go hungry is nonsense,” Kennedy said. “But I also believe the federal government has a responsibility to be careful with tax dollars. And if you’re an able-bodied, working-age adult, you should go out and get and job before you get food stamp benefits.”
Colorado River and Great Salt Lake
The candidate agreed, at least in principle, about the need for Colorado River states to continue negotiations until they reach agreement on an updated Colorado River compact.
And they agreed the Great Salt Lake must be restored to health. Larsen called for the federal government to help farmers develop more efficient irrigation systems. “And we can take the conserved water and help move it to the Great Salt Lake.” He said when water levels in the lake rise, there is more snow, which contributes to the mountain snowpack.
Kenndy said President Trump and Republicans in Congress “are working to get a billion dollars into this state to help the Great Salt Lake survive.” He said other Utah representatives, Celeste Malloy and Blake Moore, (both Republicans) are working with him to get the funding through congressional appropriations committees.
Public Lands
However, Kennedy and Larsen were at opposite ends of the spectrum on public lands. Kennedy did not go so far as to say federal land should be turned over to the states. But he said, “The best people to manage the land are the ones that are closest to it. That includes tribal interests as well as local communities. And I have worked diligently to try to get the land as close to the people as possible.”
“I think public lands must remain in public hands,” Larsen said. “My opponent actually said earlier this year that our public lands are being treated like a museum. I think that this is the wrong way to be looking at our public lands.
“There is wildlife and an ecosystem that we have to protect…(Public lands) allow cheaper grazing rights for our ranchers….” And he said, Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), federal money given to counties in lieu of property taxes on public lands, helps pay for schools, police, sheriffs, county buildings and roads.
Immigration
Toward the end of the debate, moderator Wilks turned to immigration. “We often hear descriptions of the U.S. immigration system as broken with different stakeholders arguing we should prioritize border security, humanity or workforce needs. Would you agree it’s broken? And if it’s broken, how would you fix it?”
“It’s often thought that Democrats don’t care about our borders,” Larsen said, “and I’m here to tell you that’s false. I care very much about the security of our borders, and I don’t want people who want to come in here, commit crimes, or sell drugs or anything horrible like that.
“But I’m also reminded of what’s on the Statue of Liberty. ‘Give me your poor, your hungry and your tired.’ We offer the land of opportunity and liberty and freedom. Our immigrants, for the most part, while they’re here…are paying taxes into the system. They don’t get the benefits from that, though, until they become naturalized.
“We need to improve the process, make it less bureaucratic, bring it back to an easy time where you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to actually become an American.”
Kennedy said, “Biden and the four years of nonsense and reprehensible behavior where they opened our borders to more than 10 million people…is a terrible policy. I’m proud of President Trump and the current administration for securing our borders such that the criminals, the gangsters are not coming across our borders. Our citizens are safer.
“The second thing is we need to make legal immigration easier. And I’m dedicated to that...And finally, we need to deal with the more than 20 million people that are in this country illegally. And I’m working on it. It’s going to take a while.”
Through the debate, Kennedy’s refrain was, that he wants “to make Washington smaller and Utah stronger.”
In his concluding statement, Larsen said, “I would like to address all the Republicans. If you’ve been listening and you feel like, wow, I kind of actually agree with that Democrat, I’m pleading with you to put down your party identity politics.
“I swore an oath to the Constitution that never expired. I want you to be part of a country coming together instead of coming apart…I’d like to ask you, ‘Would you like a blue dog or a lap dog for this administration?’”
