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District 1 Congressman Blake Moore Talks With KPCW About The Election And COVID Relief

Blake Moore For Congress

Next week, Utah’s District 1 Representative Blake Moore will be settling into his new role in congress representing Summit County and a large swath of Northern Utah. He talked with KPCW about his background, the election and plans for his move to Washington.

Newly elected Representative Blake Moore said his background working in intelligence for the federal government in Washington DC and abroad and the public policy work he did with Dan Jones and Associates made him a good candidate to run for the District 1 Congressional seat. He emerged out of a 12-person republican primary challenge to win the seat in the general election. Nine-term Republican Rob Bishop announced his retirement earlier in the year.

Moore has three young children and plans to get a small place in DC, which is not paid for by the US Congressional budget office.

“We’ll get a place back there that’s big enough, a small one bedroom, so they can all sleep on top of each other, the three boys in the sofa bed. But we’re not going to disrupt too much of their lives for the moment. I will do the more back and forth travel. My travel commuting is part of the congressional budget and that’s typical for pretty much all offices.”

With Donald Trump refusing to concede, the accusations of election fraud, and the divisiveness in Washington and throughout the country, Moore says he is disheartened. He does not believe the election was rigged, which has been a claim made by Trump and some Republican members of congress. He said overall, Utah’s mail-in election process is valid. He said he doesn’t begrudge using legal methods to challenge results, but he believes Joe Biden won the election in November.

“I would have to be willing to call in my own election to admit that. I think that many Republicans did really well across the country and that would also need to be called into question. Utah has done a good job and should communicate our best practices It’s not saying that we have a rigged election but there are ways to improve going forward.”

Moore believes current legislative practices won’t solve America’s biggest issues because federal bills are too large and try to solve too many issues. He said an example is the $2.3 trillion bill recently signed by the president. It covers the anticipated COVID relief package of some $900 billion along with the federal funding needed to keep the government operating. He also believes certain issues should not be partisan.

“You know we can’t solve specific issues with big, huge, omnibus, large, legislative bills. Add in certain special projects that really aren’t germane to the topic at hand. And that’s a big issue. We need problem solvers and pragmatic folks to be able to go back and make decisions not off of partisan issues. The pandemic shouldn’t have been a partisan issue. We need to be able to target our relief efforts directly towards that.”

Moore said Congress should not politicize COVID relief funding. He did not support Trump’s public statements claiming the stimulus checks should be more than $600.00 per person.  Moore believes the payments should target people who have a legitimate need for assistance.

“We have measures in place for unemployment. More money for stimulus checks, I don’t think solves the problem. And often times it goes to folks that actually don't need it. My parents for example. They’re retired. They have their fixed income. Their expenses haven’t changed. I don't think they need a stimulus check and there are other areas that do. And so, that’s what I’m trying to communicate is that we need to be more strategic and targeted with this relief. That just throwing too much out there would be more debt that’s going to cause too much inflation that’s going to be bigger issues for our society in the near future.”

Moore told KPCW he looks forward to serving and communicating with all his constituents, even those that did not vote for him. 
 

KPCW reporter Carolyn Murray covers Summit and Wasatch County School Districts. She also reports on wildlife and environmental stories, along with breaking news. Carolyn has been in town since the mid ‘80s and raised two daughters in Park City.
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