Of all the state legislature races in Cache Valley in 2016, all but one of the incumbents is running unopposed.
At a recent meet-the-candidates night, Representative Curt Webb spoke to a group of Utah State University students. He represents the South end of Cache Valley.
While some representatives in Utah are running unopposed, Webb has never run without a challenger. This year Dave Clark, also from Providence, is running against Webb.
“Well, I ran into the chair of the democratic party and said, ‘so Gena, really? Again? Why just me? Frankly, as I said to my opponent, not having an opponent, it reduces the amount of dialogue you have,” Webb said. “And so I don’t mind having an opponent from that point of view if nothing else.”
Webb’s expertise is in property rights, agriculture issues and business. He said education is extremely important to the prosperity of Utah. Although he’s passionate about these things, he also says he wants to, in a sense, get out of the way and let good people do good things.
“I was interviewed early on when I got in the legislature, and somebody said ‘do you have an agenda? What are you doing?’ And I said ‘well, am I supposed to have an agenda?’ And she said, ‘wow, that’s really refreshing.’ Because if you’re not careful, if you have an agenda of your own, you cease to be a good listener--you’re not representing the people,” he said. “You’ve got your nose down and you’re trying to do often a crusade for something else. And I try not to do that.”
At that same meet-the-candidates event on the campus of Utah State University, State House District Five Democratic challenger Dave Clark was chatting with a group of students. When asked about why he chose to enter the race, Clark said that it is about starting a discussion.
“As I looked at the situation and understood more clearly what we were faced with, which is that with four races in our valley absent my candidacy none of them would have been opposed,” Clark said. “That’s why I’m doing this. I’m not running against Curt Webb, I’m running for democracy. You can’t have a truly representative government if you don’t have a discussion and you don’t have a discussion if you have candidates that are unopposed.”
One of the issues Clark is running on is education. He said he is against the recent change to the public schools hiring policy that allows people without education training to be brought on as teachers. Clark said that he hopes his candidacy influences more Democrats to run in Cache Valley.
“I would love to see more people be willing to just engage in the process. It’s an uphill battle for Democrats in this community and Cache Valley, I don’t think there’s any secret about that,” he said. “That’s okay. Get in, get a voice. Express yourself. Be involved in the process. Encourage people to vote and give people who do vote a chance to make a choice when they fill out the ballot. I would love to see more Democratic candidates.”
