The 1st congressional district will have a new representative for the first time in nearly 20 years. Congressman Robert Bishop announced last summer that he would not run for re-election. The candidates who want to replace him squared off in a debate last week.
The two candidates, Republican Blake Moore and Democrat Darren Parry disagreed on many of the topics — like public land use and military funding — but they did agree there needs to be more bipartisanship in politics.
During the debate, Parry said members of congress need to vote based on their conscience rather than solely with their political party.
“We have got to get the partisan politics out of this,” Parry said. “We've got to make decisions that reflect our values.”
And Moore said he thinks lawmakers should look for more things they agree on.
“If you were to put 100 people in the room, you'd be able to find common ground, and then you build from there,” Moore said. “I wish that was the way that our policymaking worked.”
Looking at the COVID-19 pandemic, Moore said the federal government should help small businesses that need economic relief.
“We have to be able to go in and create the smart regulation that allows for small businesses to not be overly burdened, to not be too concerned with extra liability. So they can have the ability to go and thrive out of this,” he said. “That's where the focus is on a strong economic recovery.”
Parry has a similar perspective, but added he thinks while there should be deregulation for small businesses, the government can also offer critical assistance.
“The more regulations we put on small business, the harder it is going to be for them to succeed and them to go forward,” Parry said. “But I think in ways that the federal government can help we should, and programs like the Small Business Administration can help.”
Parry says the stimulus packages only assistance large businesses, while vulnerable people in the country need more help.
“The people that have been most affected by this virus are our service entry level workers. Those workers that work paycheck to paycheck. They're the first that lost their health care” he said. “We have got to do a better job taking care of the most vulnerable in our societies. And that is those frontline workers. That is the Small Business In this owner here in Utah, so I'd love to see stimulus go to them, because it's going to help most Utahns.”
Moore, on the other hand, said the government should be more strategic about taking on any extra debt.
“Any additional stimulus that's done, we have to do this in a very stratified or strategic approach” Moore said. “We blanketed the economy with kind of mass money going everywhere, right? That caused some initial conflicts where we were incentivizing people not to work.”
You can hear the entire debate at kpcw.org.
