No political experience information on file.

No caucus information on file.

Independent Contractor, Solar Industry, present

No organizational membership information on file.

Reason for Seeking Public Office:

Why am I running? Most of the people I know say that our state legislature has become completely incapable of representing their interests and indeed most public opinion polls agree. I'm running because those interests are not abstract; they are personal. When we demand clean air, we are coming from a place where air pollution is causing real, physical, irreparable harm to our bodies and the bodies of our children.

When, as a political statement, our lawmakers refuse to expand Medicaid, real people, people I know, will go bankrupt or often die when they get sick. When our lawmakers refuse to listen to the majority of Utahns who approve of the use of medical marijuana, they are not only ignoring medical professionals, they are inflicting needless suffering on thousands of our citizens. This must change, now.

When our lawmakers allocate tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to pay for theatrical lawsuits meant to deceive the public, or to build coal ports in other states, they do so at the expense of our students and teachers. Sadly, Utah is dead last in per-pupil spending in the nation. Education is a social investment and the return is a prosperous future.

When a woman earns $.70 for every dollar made by a man doing the same job, it presents a real and present hardship on half of our population. A father like me has real concerns about the economy his daughter will inherit. When our lawmakers continue to push for the expansion of fossil fuel development in the state, they are saying to our children, "We would rather prop up a dying industry for a few more years and leave you a wasteland for your future than stand up to the fossil fuel companies who finance our campaigns." Expanding fossil fuel extraction in this day and age when we have scientific consensus on the health impacts of air pollution and manmade climate change is no different than the parent you see smoking in the car with kids in the backseat and the windows rolled up.

Every year that our lawmakers refuse to recognize the inalienable rights and inherent dignity of LGBT community members, we lose many young people to suicide. One is far too many. Why would we let this happen?

These issues are real. They are urgent, and I don't have a "wait-for-someone-to-fix-it" bone in my body. That's why I'm running.