[Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers] How I am voting tomorrow

By Natalie

Not a lot of surprises here...

State Treasurer: Richard Ellis. He's got the experience, he knows how to do the job, I know him and trust him. Walker seems intent on expanding the role of State Treasurer. We don't need that - we just need someone that knows how to invest money. Ellis does, Walker doesn't.

State Senate: I will be voting for Dan Liljenquist. This letter explains my concerns with Ron Mortensen. The tone is harsh, but it is all true.

State House: Becky Edwards. South Davis County needs a representative that is a leader; someone that will fight for our schools, our children and our families. Our current representative has not led out on these issues. I trust Becky. We get to choose between business as usual or something new. Business as usual isn't working for anyone except Greg Curtis. And, people keep talking about how responsive our current representative is. I was a state delegate. I never heard from him. Not a letter, not a phone call. Yeah, I get his email updates, but he doesn't answer my letters, or the letters from my friends. I'm ready for a change.

Davis School Board District 1: This is an easy one now, but a hard one in November. We get to vote for two candidates to advance. I am supporting Barbara Smith and Polly Tribe. Both are honest, hard working, intelligent women who want the best for our schools.

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Posted By Natalie to Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers at 6/23/2008 03:56:00 PM

Who is Running a Frugal Campaign?

Dan Liljenquist is into overkill. He appears to have outspent Ron Mortensen more than 12:1 on his campaign for things like $400 for Google Earth Pro. Purpose: Voter mapping software. So, Dan took advantage of Google Earth Pro's ability to import spreadsheet data in order to visualize and target the right demographic. While I'm certain that the result he got from the software was stunning, there are cheap as in free ways of doing the same things that I've used myself using Google Maps. Clearly not as cool, but just as effective.

Is Liljenquist going to be as liberal with taxpayer dollars as he is in his campaign expenditures? Also, note the $11,000 loan he gave to his own campaign.

Family Empowerment?

I received the pink flier from Edwards campaign some time ago and have come to some conclusions on where I differ from her. If I had to vote just on this one piece of literature, here is why I choose Neuenschwander.

The section subtitled 'Family Empowerment' lists bills that if decided the way Edwards wanted would have done nothing to empower families. The first graph in this section says:

"SB 53 - Initiative and Referendum Petition Amendments. Most of the time, local elected officials get it right. But when they don't, initiative and referendum are the citizens' recourse for undoing unpopular decisions by their government (example: the voucher referendum last Fall). This bill took away the rights of citizens to challenge land use and zoning decisions that might have huge impact on their families' way of life. Whether the issue is big-box stores or other developer-driven issues, the public's control over their established neighborhoods has been lost."

I ask, what does this have to do with families specifically? The campaign seems to be painting with some broad strokes, or they expect that people won't read far past the words, "Family Empowerment" before they decide Edwards-good, incumbent-bad. The mention of vouchers, where vouchers don't appear to apply to the overall bill is just code for this sort of thing.

The second paragraph:

"HB 17 - Child Support Bond. A big problem when marriages fail is delinquent child support. This bill would have given the court the power to order a parent, chronically delinquent in child support monies, to post a bond for up to 36 months of child support. Where agreements to pay child support are made as a condition of granting a divorce, taxpayers have a substantial interest in their enforcement, because otherwise children suffer and costs of welfare go up."

It looks like Edwards should have created a category called "Court Empowerment", because that is exactly what the flier claims this bill would do. Again, no "Family Empowerment" here.

The remaining three examples of bills would have created more government programs, government training for court personnel, and additional categories of conduct--all to do things that individuals, and in particular, families are capable of doing themselves.

If Edwards really wanted to empower families, and more specifically, parents then she would support things like home schooling, or school choice based more upon "a parents say-so" than government red-tape. However, she considers the activity of parents moving their kids between Woods Cross and Bountiful to be "..."gaming" of school residency requirements".

Edwards does not cite a single instance in which she supports empowering parents over empowering the nanny-state.

Is Becky Edwards a Democrat?

There's a bit of controversy stirring over whether Becky Edwards is or was ever a Democrat. Check the comments on a recent post of mine for a reference.

Well, this could be settled if Becky would just come out and lay out her past votes, and party affiliations.

Becky?

Child Identity Theft

KSL has a story on the risks of child identity theft. I neglected to announce the Identity Theft evening on this blog, so as penance here is KSL's take on it.

KSL