MILLVILLE – At the behest of state Representatives Casey Snider (R-Paradise) and Mike Petersen (R-North Logan), Cache County GOP delegates flocked to Ridgeline High School to meet congressional candidate Karianne Lisonbee on Thursday, Mar. 26.
A five-term Republican lawmaker representing Clearfield, Lisonbee is the only serious competition challenging U.S. Rep. Blake Moore for the 2nd District seat in Congress.
Petersen led off the event by announcing his endorsement of Lisonbee, adding his voice to that of Snider – the Legislature’s majority leader – and Speaker of the House Mike Schultz (R-Hooper), both of who had previously endorsed the candidate.
“I’m thrilled for this chance,” Petersen explained. “I don’t endorse people very often, but I do endorse Karianne.
“I think we would all be very wise to give our votes to her,” he told the delegates.
Lisonbee said that she is running for Congress because she has been “bitterly disappointed” at Moore’s record in Washington over the past six years.
“I’m concerned about the ‘finger in the wind’ approach that he’s been displaying in D.C.,” she emphasized “and his involvement with Proposition 4.”
Proposition 4 was the 2018 voter referendum that created an independent redistricting commission to oversee new congressional boundaries in Utah. After years of legislative maneuvering and litigation, that measure has resulted in the creation of a court-ordered Democratic enclave in Salt Lake County.
Although he has since ended his involvement with the anti-gerrymandering effort, Moore was originally a co-chair of the Better Boundaries group that announced earlier on Mar. 26 that they defeated a GOP attempt to gather voter signatures to repeal Proposition 4.
“In 2018,” Lisonbee charged, “Moore said ‘that the politicians should not be able choose their voters.’
“Now, he’s living in Salt Lake City by the county club and choosing the conservative voters here in northern Utah to represent.”
Under the statewide redistricting map ordered by 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson, Moore now lives in the hotly contested 1st Congressional District. By state law, however, congressional candidates can reside anywhere in Utah.
Rather than facing the stiff opposition in that Democratic bastion, Moore has elected to run in the newly created 2nd District where he can claim incumbency.
The first test of Lisonbee’s candidacy will be at the upcoming State GOP Convention on April 25. In a promise guaranteed to win the support of the assembled delegates, Lisonbee drew applause when she pledged that she has never gathered signatures in an election and never would.
Prior to 2014, Utah’s convention-caucus system was the only path for candidates to the nomination of their political parties. That year, however, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 54, allowing candidates to ensure that their names appear on their party’s primary ballot by collecting voter signatures.
Lisonbee is running as a convention-only candidate, depending on GOP delegates to award her their nomination at the State Convention.
Having had a troubled relationship with die-hard conservative GOP convention delegates in the past, Moore has already submitted more than the 7,000 voter signatures needed to put his name on the June 23 Republican primary ballot.
Asked bluntly about her chances against Moore, Lisonbee didn’t pull any punches.
“Blake has never faced a viable GOP challenger in his campaigns,” she said, meaning someone who can raise money and actually win the Republican primary. Lisonbee said she plans to meet both of those challenges.
Snider also spoke in support of Lisonbee’s candidacy, praising her toughness in the Utah Legislature.
“Here in Cache County,” he said, “we’re reasonable and conservative. Those are qualities also reflected in Karianne Lisonbee.”