I want to announce my support for Lisa Cummins and Rich Cunningham for State school board and Utah senate. Vote Lisa Cummins for school board and Rich Cunningham for senate, here is why!

Lisa Cummins is a passionate person who always takes a suspicious view of government in my view.  This is a healthy perspective to have.  I feel like Lisa is the Constitutional conservative in this race.  That tells me alot of things. I feel like someone who revers the founders of our country and looks to their example is more likely to lead in a way that best benefits the people rather than themselves.  Government positions  are easily corrupted, I think this can happen slightly without those involved even knowing it.  It takes a person with deep principles, indeed one that is looking at and watching their own actions to keep this from happening. This is why I feel someone that is a constitutional conservative has an edge over other candidates at any level.  They are more likely to favor small government and empowering the individual. The principles of our country’s founding are eternal I would argue even divine.  If a person does not seek after the example of our founders from where did they gather their principles?  Might they be subject to whatever personal whim they have?  I would say possibly. I know these things are important to Lisa.  I feel like Lisa will bring debate to the office.  This is a healthy thing for the school board. It will promote more input from residents.

Next on to the Senate race.  This race comes down to who has the least negatives in my view.  I must admit I am not enthusiastic about either candidate. I am supporting Rich Cunningham for senate.  This is mainly due to too many issues I have with Lincoln Fillmore that simply make it impossible for me to pull the handle for him.   Lincoln was elected to fill the expiring seat that Aaron Osmond held.  Alarm bells went off for me about Lincoln when one of his first votes  in the senate was to impose taxes on internet purchases.  Our Utah senate has voted to increase taxes 2 years in a row during 2 separate budget surplus years in a row!! We have all heard the arguments for this.  The first one is this is an offsetting tax that if imposed will be offset by lowering regular sales taxes.  To that I would say why worry about it then if it’s just offsetting?  This is a bait and switch tactic. We have history to look at for this, in particular the utah state individual income tax.  This was  product of the depression era. This tax when enacted only effected the rich.  Thats how it got passed. The problem as time has went revenue from the state income tax has skyrocketed and impacted nearly every family. The state complains about less and less revenue from sales tax because of internet purchases.  To that I say what about sky rocketing revenue from state income taxes?

The next issue I have with Lincoln Fillmore is his vote to abolish the death penalty.  This may not be a huge issue to alot of people until we start talking about the horrific acts some of these people have committed. I can point out case by case where the crimes were so awful. I think we should have had a discussion about this as a state rather than simply rushing forward a bill to abolish this.  I raised these issues with Lincoln.  The troubling part for me is he tried to blame the federal courts for our lack of moving these cases forward and limiting appeals that lead to such high costs for the state.  The problem is its not a problem with the federal courts its a problem with the STATE courts and our state laws.   This is something instead of misplacing blame aught be reformed by the state legislature instead.  I would rather Lincoln just said, hey I don’t support the death penalty I think its a bad idea.

The last and most troubling issue I see is a conflict of interest.  Lincoln Fillmore from my understanding owns a company that operates charter schools.  From what I have gathered charter schools have private companies manage certain aspects of the operation of charter schools. Lincoln is involved with a company that does this.  The problem for me is he is voting directly and is even able to introduce funding that could benefit his business or the industry as a whole.  Or he could have inside knowledge of legislation and thus position his company to gain from this.   I liken it to a lobbyist becoming an elected official rather than being a lobbyist anymore.  I also have grave concerns that charter schools could become the next Utah Transit Authority. The state has not had a good track record of giving public money to private companies to perform a public service.  That is not to say I don’t support charter schools. I am also not saying I am against choice in education.  The opposite actually. Rather I have concerns about transparency.  These private companies that operate charter schools are not subject to the same transparency requirements public schools are.  I think its also important to note that charter schools get the cream of the crop in most cases for students.  They get students with the most involved parents.   They get students whose parents don’t mind doing extra things to better their kids education.  I think this aught be taken into account when evaluating the performance of a charter school.  I am a business owner myself and I can’t imagine also being able to vote on the nature and the amount of my revenue source.  There are other aspects as a business owner I could control for my own personal gain by positioning my business to benefit from it.   The first reaction might be for Lincoln to recuse himself on these issues.  The problem is we need a fighter for us on the west side.

Rich Cunningham doesn’t have the downside of all this.  He assures me he is going to work to get transportation needs for our area.  Specifically getting overpass interchanges built along bangerter and other infrastructure improvements. He also support equalization of school funding out here with the rest of the state.  He has also promised not to raise taxes.  So with that said that is why I am supporting Rich Cunningham.

PS also vote JJ for governor. This has already been too long so do your own research on that.