Daily Herald, June 30, 2011
Billy Hesterman

PROVO -- Utah County Democrats spoke out Thursday against the Republican delegates who voted for a resolution urging state lawmakers to repeal an immigration reform bill (House Bill 116), as well as Republican lawmakers who have fought against the bill.

Will Matheson, Utah County Democratic Party chairman, was joined by Jose Inclan, chairman of the Utah County Hispanic Democratic Committee, on the steps of the Historic Utah County Courthouse in Provo. They said that the immigration debate had taken a radical and dangerous turn where civility, truth and compassion had been replaced by fear, misinformation and persecution.

"Elected Republican legislators of this county are out of touch with the majority of its citizens. Rather than representing the majority of Utahns' interests, they have consistently chosen to represent fringe extremist interest groups and delegates," Matheson said. "When major religious organizations, businesses and a 61 percent majority of Utahns are all opposed to the repeal of House Bill 116, and the GOP delegates still push even farther to the right, you know that something is wrong."

Salt Lake Tribune, June 30, 2011
Donald W. Meyers

Provo » Utah County Democrats are urging the Republican-dominated Legislature not to repeal the state’s new guest-worker law.

Standing in front of the Historic Utah County Courthouse, Democratic leaders argued Thursday that HB116 opponents represent a minority of Utahns who do not recognize the complexities of immigration reform.

“We invite Utah County legislators to reconsider radical positions on the topic,” said Jose Alcan, chairman of the Utah County Hispanic Democratic Committee, “and ask Utah County residents to continue to show charity to their neighbors, while simultaneously demanding that Congress aggressively pursue much-needed comprehensive immigration reform.”

Alcan — joined by county Democratic leaders Will Matheson and Robert McMurray — said the party plans to launch a public-education campaign to confront fiery immigration rhetoric, encourage legal immigrants to obtain U.S. citizenship and promote candidates to take on legislators seen as anti-Latino.

Daily Herald, May 10, 2011
Billy Hesterman

Will Matheson, the new chairman of the Utah County Democrats, will have his work cut out for him.
Matheson, a BYU student and former president of the BYU College Democrats, was named chairman at the Utah County Democratic convention last week. He now faces the task of growing and energizing the small number of Democrats who reside in Utah County.

"My goal is to continue increasing the votes cast for local Democratic candidates in Utah County and win seats in 2012," Matheson said. "I want to get the message out there that Republican dominance in Utah County is unhealthy and unrepresentative."

Matheson said he feels that legislators who currently represent the county have been essentially elected at the convention level and not in general elections. He says he hopes to work hard to create a competitive two-party system where the county's elected officials are held accountable.

"Their constituency is a small group of extremists and political activists," he said. "They do not intend to represent the views of the average Utah County voter."

Daily Herald, March 15, 2011
Billy Hesterman

Utah County Democratic Party chairman Richard Davis says Utah's mostly Republican lawmakers missed out on funding public education, showed disrespect to the public by approving bills that limit public's involvement in government, and that lawmakers should have left immigration for the federal government to fix.

They did not provide a vision for education," said Davis. "I'm not sure they can do that."

While the Legislature was able to fund public education higher than the governor had requested and even allocated money for growth, Davis says the Legislature lacks a vision of a long-term plan to fund Utah's students. Davis went on to say public education can get lost in Republican lawmakers minds as they cater to, what he says, Republican delegates who mostly home school their children, or whose children attend charter schools.

"All the Legislature did was keep public education from falling further behind," he said.

Deseret News, October 7, 2010
Hal Miller

Last year, Utahns for Ethical Government (UEG) launched an initiative to pass real ethics reform in the Utah Legislature. The initiative would have ended gifts for legislators, created a citizens' ethics commission with real teeth, and given citizens a role in legislative ethics investigations.

Republican legislators quickly criticized the initiative as unnecessary. Republican Party leaders panned the initiative. Sen. John Valentine complained that the intent of the initiative "is to punish legislators." However, party leaders became worried when polls showed that the overwhelming majority of voters favored the initiative.

In response, the Republican-dominated Legislature passed a bill, claiming it to be serious ethics reform. Their bill, however, was the equivalent of the "fox guarding the hen house." The same legislators who opposed the initiative didn't complain about their own version of ethics reform. Perhaps it was because the new law avoided punishing legislators while at the same time giving them a pass on ethics reform.

The new law passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature isn't real ethics reform. It is only a sham.

Daily Herald, October 6, 2010
Joe Pyrah

The second verse is the same as the first for county Democrats who are pushing for ethics reforms among state lawmakers.
A number of the party's candidates publicly pushed for specific change on Tuesday, similar to a push they made in 2008.

"This has been on the public consciousness for some time," said Don Jarvis, who is running against Republican Dean Sanpei for House District 63.

Jarvis pointed to recent headlines about Gov. Gary Herbert who took donations, then had office meetings with donors who then won state contracts. Herbert has vigorously defended himself, saying there was no wrongdoing.

Wrongdoing or not, Jarvis said Herbert's stand against campaign donation limits creates a bad perception.

"That may not be enough evidence for a jury to convict ... but it's certainly enough evidence for the jury to want to convict," he said.

The party is proposing three reforms to the system:

Deseret News, October 1, 2010
Steve Baugh

A few weeks into the school year and parents are again painfully reminded that Utah spends far less than other states on educating our children. A visit to the typical Utah classroom drives home that point. In Utah, spending on the average child is about $3000 less than what that child would receive in another state. We hear that Utah has the lowest per pupil spending, but what does that really mean for our children's education?

The student-teacher ratio in Utah elementary schools is more than double what it is in many other states. That means each Utah child has to share his or her teacher's attention with over twice as many other students as would be the case for that child in some other state! Many studies have shown that smaller class sizes can be more effective for learning, permit teachers to get to know individual students better, and contribute to fewer discipline problems in schools.

The problem isn't just what happens in the classroom. It affects a child's overall school experience. For example, Utah's guidance counselors are responsible for over four times the number of students as the national average for such counselors. That means each student gets less time with a guidance counselor helping them with their academics and their future plans. Those of us who have been parents of high school students know how harried those school counselors are when they have so many students to assist.