OGDEN – Amid a sea of Republicans, one lone Democrat holds elected office in Weber County’s partisan slots – retired Ob-Gyn Dr. Rosemary Lesser has represented Utah House District 10 since mid-January 2021.

Lesser hopes to secure a second term this November, facing off against Republican Jill Koford, a small businesswoman who has been active in the Weber County Republican Party for about 10 years and enjoys substantial backing from GOP legislative leaders.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project ranked House District 10, which spans parts of Ogden, South Ogden, Riverdale and Washington Terrace, as borderline competitive. That means Democrats sometimes win the district even though Republican voters hold the majority at 55.65 percent compared to Democrats’ 44.35 percent. 

Weber County Clerk Auditor Ricky Hatch said there’s been no big surge in voter registrations so far – at least nothing like the noticeable uptick in 2018 when medical cannabis was on the ballot.

“Overall registrations have increased about 5 percent since the Primary,” Hatch said of 2022, adding that “interest compared to other midterms is rather stagnant.”

Weber County has approximately 115,000 registered voters, of which just over half are Republicans, and one-third are unaffiliated. In 2018, Proposition 2 to legalize medical cannabis drew 80,745 votes compared to Sen. Mitt Romney’s race at 80,469. But 80 percent voter turnout is nothing to scoff at.

“It seems like we are more interested in medical cannabis than (we are in) our senators,” Hatch quipped by text.

On the issues

Certainly there’s plenty at stake in this midterm election. But which voters will actually feel the push to show up and try to make a difference?

We asked Lesser and Koford to weigh in on a few key issues. Here are their responses:

Abortion

Koford: I think our trigger law is good. There are some conversations that need to be had. It’s a very emotionally charged issue … when you sit across from someone and start listening to stories, things become a little more nuanced. And so for me it’s about having those conversations and hearing the voices of the people.

We don’t want to criminalize women who have become victims. 

Lesser: My objection to (Utah’s) original trigger bill is that it was put in place at the 11th hour in 2019 without input from the medical community. 

As an obstetrician who spent my career caring for pregnant women, I’m concerned that the intervention for irreversible damage is not a medically accurate description because of the scientific inability to predict how irreversible a complication will be.  I believe (the trigger law) did not reflect the values Utah holds for women’s lives and health. 

Sales tax on food

Lesser: I proposed removing the sales tax on food (HB 165) on the floor of the house this past session … and have already opened a bill file (for the upcoming session). 

Sales tax goes into the general fund, so by eliminating the grocery tax, we’re not impacting income tax revenue that goes to education. So this is a way we can give tax relief and not impact revenues for one of our most important expenditures as a state – educating the next generation.

Koford: We have a $1.4 billion tax surplus in Utah right now. (Lesser’s) bill only removes a small portion (of the food tax), which is the state’s. It doesn’t affect what local municipalities are doing and so our food would still be taxed. We need to look at ways to really give important meaningful tax breaks to the citizens of Utah. The state is in a good position financially. And with a surplus, that tells me people are hurting and it’s time for the government to cut and give some of that money back.

Parental control in K-12 Education

Koford: Book banning is a very slippery slope. I also think that there is subject matter that doesn’t necessarily need to be in our K-12 schools. The conversations that need to happen between educators and parents are important … the last thing I’d ever want is for children to feel less-than in our schools, to have some sort of curriculum or dialogue in a classroom that makes them feel that they can’t achieve or are less-than because of where they come from and who they are. 

Lesser: First of all I think we should be concrete in stating that Critical Race Theory is a legal theory that is not part of K-12 curriculum.

Social Emotional Learning – although recently given that label – is something that teachers and parents have embraced since the initiation of schools, that how a child responds to their social environment impacts their ability to learn. This is nothing new … and it isn’t a reason to be fearful that it’s altering schools as we know them.

I don’t object to a parent having individual objections for their own child. But I don’t think that one parent should have the ability to decide for every other child. We have a set of standards that our local and state school boards formulate with very specific intent to train the next generation of thoughtful citizens. 

Bullying & Youth Suicide

Lesser: This is a huge problem in our country and certainly in Utah. We need to continue to push to identify bullying in all its forms – it can be pretty subtle and hard to get a handle on. 

It’s an insidious problem that has been going on for a long time. Extra layers like social media add a lot of complexity. I don’t think it’s been fully addressed, nor do I think it will ever be solved until we get to a more respectful society for each other.

Koford: As a mom of two daughters, the education experience for my girls was absolutely different from that of my son. He wasn’t bullied, my girls were. 

My oldest was physically bullied in college. When she sought help she got blown off, and was told she needed to figure it out. That serves no one. For people to say “that’s just mean girls, that happens” – that doesn’t work for me.

Our kids are suffering, and we need to be giving them the skills to cope and move forward and be successful. It’s not something we can assume we’ve done enough on – there are ways to improve the situation.

Toxic politics

Koford: One of the talking points on my website is about civility. There was a time in my life when we could have a conversation about politics and agree to disagree, we could passionately debate issues without attacking people. We’ve got to get back to that because that’s where the most important ideas come from. 

Lesser:  Gov. Cox came up to Weber County a few weeks ago. He’s starting to apply some new labels in the people he works with – are you going to be a builder or a breaker? I love that because It’s exactly my philosophy that I’m committed to be a builder. That’s what our state and country need moving forward, more people building and less people spending time breaking.

Gun Rights

Lesser:  I would support restrictions of automatic weapons, weapons of war in the hands of minors who do not even have the ability to drink alcohol in our state.

I think that background checks should be required for the sale of weapons no matter who the vendor is. 

Also we should have some aggressive red flag laws that would allow family members to have guns taken away from a person they judge to be a risk. Family members are our first line of defense for some of the folks who have experienced anger issues and are weaponized. Having a lethal weapon in their midst when they aren’t particularly rational is just a recipe for disaster.

Koford: For me it’s about responsible gun ownership. That means if you have weapons in the home, you’re educating those in the home on how to use that tool. We have responsibilities that go along with all of our freedoms, and I think we don’t talk about duty and responsibility very much any more. But those two things go hand in hand. 

Homelessness in Ogden

Koford: Just from a strictly humanitarian standpoint, we always need to do more to help those who need a hand-up. That’s part of being a member of a community.

Do those things need to come from government? I’m not sure. We have some really amazing charities in Ogden that are doing great things. Family Promise is an amazing nationwide model that helps move people out of homelessness by giving them tools to change their situation. 

I’d love to see more of that kind of thing. When you have programs that are close to the people, they respond and recognize that helping hand. 

Lesser: 

I am enthused about some of the projects that are underway throughout our community – permanent supportive housing, also a YCC project that will provide housing to domestic violence survivors. And there are some remarkable private enterprise things happening below the radar in Ogden – Raquel Da Silva’s Family Promise program, also PAAG – these are remarkable programs that not only facilitate housing but they go the extra step in helping people feel that they belong and are valued as human beings. 

I think that all of these efforts need to be conducted in parallel by a support system that values the personhood of the individual experiencing homelessness.

For some people on that financial brink, homelessness can be one catastrophe away from living in their cars. 

Follow the $

Campaign finance disclosures for these two candidates look markedly different, with Koford garnering much of her post-primary support from dominant state Republican leaders. 

Her biggest contributions since mid-June include $22,500 from the Northern Utah Legislative PAC, $10,000 from the Utah House Republican Election Committee PAC and $10,000 from House Speaker Brad Wilson’s Leadership PAC. 

Heading into the June Primary, Koford kicked in $15,000 of her own funds in the form of a loan.

So far Koford has received $109,001 in donations and spent $75,628. 

As of Oct. 1, Lesser brought in $125,952 from a lengthy list of small and medium-sized donors and spent $56,019. 

Lesser’s largest donors include the Utah Women and Politics PAC ($15,000), her husband David Lesser ($5,000), Utah Investment Network ($2,500) and Education First Utah ($2,000). Education First Utah also gave Koford the same amount.

The Utah Women and Politics PAC launched right after the 2016 presidential election. 

“Many of us went back (to DC) for the Women’s March and we came back and felt we needed to make some change in our own community,” said the PAC’s co-founder Cindy KIndred. “We’re bipartisan but our mission is to move the needle at the state Legislature and to bring more balance. So Rosemary Lesser fits that profile perfectly.”

In a surprise and unexpected twist, Lorraine Brown – Koford’s Republican challenger through the party’s convention and primary – threw her support behind Lesser in August.

Brown, an attorney whose focus is family law, had sharp criticism for Utah’s Republican-dominated Legislature.

“I’m concerned that the Legislature is dominated by developers and real estate magnates … that have pushed economic interests over social interests,” Brown said, lamenting Utah’s air pollution, traffic congestion and financially strapped cities and towns. “It’s time we pay attention to life on the ground, to the families that bear the brunt of this.”

And in Brown’s mind, the candidate best connected to life on the ground is Lesser, not Koford.

“There’s nothing wrong with Jill, but she’s become tied with this extreme element within the party, and she is also vulnerable to this corporate lobbying interest that will require her to vote consistent with their agenda,” Brown said. “So It’s not really a voice for District 10. It’s another voice in favor of the status quo.”

To be clear, Brown – a lifelong Republican – did not become a Democrat in the process.

“I have not left the party, I still consider myself a Republican. If anything I feel like the party has left me,” Brown said. “It has been taken over by conspiracy theorists and a radical element that honestly is undemocratic and threatens the foundation of our democracy.”

Kindred is of a similar mind regarding the importance of this year’s midterm election. 

“Where the world is right now, nobody can be passive,” Kindred said. “I do believe our democracy is at risk. To quit is to just hand it over.”

What’s next

On Thursday, Oct. 6, the Weber County League of Women Voters will host a question and answer session with Koford, Lesser and other state House and Senate candidates beginning at 6 p.m. at the Pleasant Valley Library in Washington Terrace. 

More information about Lesser and Koford can be found on their websites: rosemarylesser.com and votekoford.com.

Mail-in ballots should begin arriving in voters’ mailboxes around Oct. 18. People can also vote in person at the Weber Center (2380 Washington Blvd. in Ogden) on the four business days prior to Election Day (Nov. 8).

On Election Day, two voting centers will accommodate in-person voting: the Weber County Fairgrounds at 1000 N. 1200 West in Ogden, and also the Ogden Valley Library at 131 S. 7400 East in Huntsville.