On Monday night, retired KSL radio show host Doug Wright’s gentle but resolute voice introduced the debate between Rep. Mia Love and Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams as an effort to “educate voters and encourage the civil exchange of ideas.”
Before the six-minute mark, Love referenced Bernie Sanders twice to compare her legislative record to Sanders’. What was Sanders’ relevance? Are Utah votes so cheap that all an incumbent must do to fend off a challenger is blow a partisan dog whistle?
No. Love wasn’t blowing the dog whistle because it was easy. She did it because her legislative record fails to compel.
Dave Hansen is Love’s campaign manager but, before that, he served Sen. Orrin Hatch. Whether you agree with him or not, Hatch has an illustrious record of legislative achievements, such as fundamentally changing habeas corpus law, co-sponsoring the Children’s Health Insurance Program and being one of the last few bipartisan Republicans who were longtime friends with the likes of Sen. Ted Kennedy. When campaigning for Hatch, Hansen had something tangible to work with, a substantive basis upon which to anchor his candidate’s positions.
That doesn’t exist here. With Love, he developed a script that grasps at wildfires (everyone hates wildfires), school funding (everyone loves schools), stopping “taxpayers’ obligation to perpetrators of sexual harassment” (who knew this was an issue?), “preventing sanctioned individuals from accessing our personal financial records” (sounds scary) and providing access to credit to Utah families (deregulated predatory lending). All were too vague to demonstrate a substantive legislative accomplishment, so Hansen handed her the script that reminds voters McAdams is a Democrat, a member of the same party as Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi.
While her claimed voting record is vague, her voting record is clear: She voted with President Donald Trump 95.7 percent of the time, with the caveat that she showed up to vote. She voted more than her colleagues in 2017, but that’s because she had a lot of cleaning up to do. Her legislative activity was minimal in her first years in Congress, co-sponsoring bills in the 22nd percentile of House freshmen in 2015 and 26th percentile in 2016.
Love, whose parents emigrated from Haiti, did challenge Trump after Trump referred to Haiti as a “s---hole.” She said, “The president’s comments are unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values. This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation.” Love was right, but she was silent in the preceding months when Trump said he grabbed women in the genitals, challenged Federal District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s impartiality presiding over cases involving Trump because of Trump’s Mexico policies (Curiel was born in Indiana), or entertained the possibility that Nazi sympathizers may be fine people. Her willingness to stand up to Trump is consistent with her voting record; she does it when its serves her.
So, does McAdams’ Democratic affiliation brand him a Bernie Sanders or Nancy Pelosi in the making? No more so than other Utah Democrats such as Cal Rampton and Scott Matheson, or Montana Democrats Steve Bullock and Jon Tester.
Counterintuitively, McAdams and the rest of those Democrats have a better track record of fiscal conservatism than Love. McAdams oversees a balanced budget in Salt Lake County. Love oversees, and voted in favor of a tax bill that contributed to, what is now the largest national deficit since 2012, and is on pace to exceed it.
In educating voters and encouraging the civil exchange of ideas, actions speak louder than words. Voting may be boring, but it’s important. Get educated, consider each candidate’s actions, check the mail for your ballot, fill it out and mail it back.
| Courtesy Taymour Semnani, op-ed mug.
Taymour Semnani is general counsel for a private equity firm in Salt Lake City.