Claralyn Hill

PROVO — The eighth Democrat in Utah County, Provo attorney Claralyn M. Hill, announced her candidacy for a state House seat at noon Tuesday.

Hill, 59, is married to Ned C. Hill, dean of the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University.

"I am really proud to be from Utah County. I love our county. I love the people who live and work here," Hill said in her speech to about 75 people in a conference room at the Provo City Library at Academy Square.

Claralyn Hill is running for House District 62. Currently Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, who was appointed to replace Jeff Alexander, is filling the seat.

"We deserve to have the best representation that reflects the intelligence and goodness of the people here," Hill said.

"I am asking for your vote because I am more qualified and knowledgeable than the incumbent. I am more in touch with my community than the incumbent. I am more free of vested interest and closer to your values than the incumbent. I am less partisan and more moderate than the incumbent," she said.

"I promise you that if you elect me I will work hard and be effective," Hill said.

Daily Herald, February 25, 2008
George Handley

As a college student twenty years ago, I traveled behind what was once known as the Iron Curtain and saw firsthand how a single-party system creates a culture of public disengagement with politics. I learned that democracy without political plurality is not the rule of the people but the rule of hardened tradition and capricious power. Political competition keeps parties answerable to the people about what they are doing and why.

In Utah County, however, I believe we have seen a slow and steady erosion of democracy. We have seen many Republicans chosen for, not elected to, office and many who have never run against opposition. Without a single statement from LDS church leadership to back it up, we have heard for years the empty claim, if not the unspoken assumption, that "good" Mormons can only be Republicans. This, a myth that makes reason stare not only in a plural society like America but in an increasingly international church, not to mention in a party as apparently inhospitable to Mormons as Mitt Romney's party is. Perhaps Romney's fate stings, but his spurning by the evangelicals comes as no less an assault than that experienced by Mormon Democrats in Utah culture for some time. Recently, I read one Republican incumbent in Utah County express "surprise" that a Democrat, and fellow Mormon, would choose to run against him. Surely such surprise is a symptom of a broken system.

Freedom depends on diversity. It is not secured through staid tradition, chauvinism, censorship, or intimidation. Consensus that relies on habitual and categorical trust of some and distrust of others is a threat to the free flow of information and to freedom itself. Freedom is secured in a culture that acknowledges diversity of opinion and celebrates genuine exchange of ideas. In a culture of exceptional homogeneity of belief, the preservation of political openness is even more vital. I suppose this is the same reason why the LDS church depends on councils, counselors, and auxiliaries. It impoverishes a church, as it does a plural society, for anyone to feel shamed merely because of a difference of opinion, as if holding a minority viewpoint were necessarily a symptom of following the wrong spirit.

Ken Peay

BENJAMIN — Kenneth Peay, former Utah Highway Patrol commander in Utah County, has announced he will run for the Utah Senate on the Democratic ticket. Peay said he understands the needs of the county better than the current representative, Mark Madsen.

Peay grew up in south Utah County and currently resides in Benjamin.

He said his main concerns are growing crime, need for health insurance for every Utahn, as well as better schools and roads. Treatment and rehabilitation are needed for nonviolent drug abusers, he said. He recognized the need for growth in the county but also said the growth needs to be controlled with better infrastructure. An advocate of mass transit, Peay said he would move to create more alternative transit opportunities in Utah County. He also said he will work to improve public schools.

Peay also said that his years of service as a law enforcement officer will help him be a good senator.

David Huff, a longtime friend of Peay and an administrator at Spanish Fork Junior High School, said he knows Peay will do the job well if he is elected.

Daily Herald, February 22, 2008

Democrat Kenneth Peay announced Thursday that he's running for the Utah State Senate District 13, which is now held by Mark Madsen, R-Eagle Mountain.

Peay worked in law enforcement for 31 years, retiring as the commander of the Utah Highway Patrol in Utah County. He was born in Payson, grew up in Benjamin and graduated from Spanish Fork High School. He has a bachelor's degree from Southern Utah University and a master's degree from Brigham Young University.

He and his wife, Cecile, have three children and four grandchildren.

Deseret Morning News, February 16, 2008
Tad Walsh

 PROVO — The Western States Presidential Primary proved once again that Utah County is a political red zone.

Really, really red.

Last week, Utah Valley voters flocked to the polls to cast ballots in the presidential primaries. Nearly 87 percent chose to vote as Republicans. The Democratic primary drew a meager 8,448 of the more than 62,000 Utah Valley residents who cast ballots.

In another year, that might have thrown a scare into the growing number of moderates who have announced they will run as Democrats this fall in a well-coordinated offensive aimed at the Republican stranglehold on Utah County's seats in the state Legislature.

Scared? No. Plenty humble, sure. How could a Democrat be anything but humble in a county where a Democrat hasn't won since 1994?

But scared? Not this year. Not in The Year After the Great Voucher Vote.

You remember vouchers. In a referendum last November, an avalanche of votes negated the 2007 Legislature's decision to provide school vouchers.

The voucher defeat was, believe it or not, more impressive than Utah's love affair with Mitt Romney, which was astounding. Romney captured 90 percent of the votes in Utah's Republican primary. Add in all the votes cast in the Democratic primary and Romney earned 62 percent of all ballots cast by Utahns last week.

Deseret Morning News, February 15, 2008
Richard Davis and Larry Brown

Both privately in sessions with Republican and Democratic leaders and publicly through Elder Marlin Jensen in a recent speech, LDS Church general authorities are signaling Republican and Democratic leaders that "'the element of humanity' should be reintroduced to the state's immigration debates." We wholeheartedly agree, particularly since that has not been the approach of state Republican leaders recently.

For example, on Feb. 7, a scant month after the church's admonition to state leaders, federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement stormed a Lindon manufacturing plan and arrested 57 undocumented workers. U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, a Republican, authorized the Lindon raid. Tolman claimed his office would show compassion for the families of the arrested men.

By compassion, Tolman must have meant separating husbands and fathers and their paychecks from their terrified wives and children.

By compassion, Tolman must have meant labeling the workers as criminals and slapping them with bail set at $7,500, an amount they can't possibly raise, assuring their continued incarceration (at taxpayers expense), separation from their loved ones and probable deportation.

Unfortunately, the response from the state Legislature has not been an expression of compassion. Instead, the Legislature is moving quickly in the opposite direction. The House voted to repeal in-state college tuition benefits for the children of illegal documents who attended Utah high schools. Also, the Legislature is putting SB81 on the fast track to passage.