LOGAN – The façade of polite decorum came off the local race for the 3rd District seat in the Utah Legislature during a town hall gathering at Utah State on Oct. 5.
Unlike the previous League of Women Voters forum where Utah Public Radio host Tom Williams lobbed softball queries, incumbent Rep. Jason Thompson (R-3rd Dist.) faced pointed questions from an audience that was mostly partisan, if not outright hostile.
Although he acknowledged that some of his supporters were there, Independent candidate Patrick Belmont sat in what he described as a “patient and respectful manner” in the town hall audience, enjoying the show.
Thompson began the evening with introductory remarks about his efforts to address issues including education policy, public school absenteeism, child-care, artificial intelligence, data centers and government accountability during his single term in the Legislature.
But the town hall attendees quickly dragged the gathering’s discussion to Belmont’s favorite issue – the environment.
After wringing a reluctant acknowledgement of the reality of climate change from the Republican candidate, one attendee practically demanded an apology from Thompson for the failure of the Utah Legislature to counter White House messaging that continues to deny the environmental consequences of climate change on a nearly daily basis.
Thompson avoided that trap, then stuck to his guns defending what he called a common-sense “all-of-the-above” approach to alternative energy sources.
“I believe that we should transition to the cleanest energy source possible as soon as it’s viable and our citizens to afford it,” he explained.
When audience members suggested that ideal source was obviously wind- and solar-power, Thompson called relying on those options as a sole source for baseload energy an “ideological trap” that could potentially force Utahns to pay California-level energy prices.
“We’ve put trillions of dollars into developing wind and solar power with the expectation that we would have a viable form of baseload energy,” he argued. “That hasn’t happened … because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine.”
“If I have constituents who can’t turn on the heat during the winter and can’t afford to pay their electric bills because I’ve fallen into an ideological trap rather than following a common-sense approach to get us where we want to go, then I’ve made the wrong decisions for those constituents.”
Switching to the offensive, Thompson also used the town hall as an opportunity to unload on what he called “dark money” from out-of-state political action committees attempting to influence the 3rd District race
“Dark money has no place in our politics,” he said, referring to alleged contributions from out-of-state PACs to Belmont’s campaign. Similar complaints have been raised by former state Rep. Dan Johnson, local historian Ross Peterson and former Logan mayor Holly Daines in letters to the editor to Cache Valley Daily.
Thompson claims to have been the target of what he calls several misleading and negative mailers funded by out-of-state groups in recent days.
“It’s atrocious,” Thompson argued. “Because of the antics that are going on, people are losing confidence in the institution of voting and even being involved in politics.
“I’m fed up with it,” he added.
The incumbent Republican will also host a community dinner at Lower Foods from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
Lower Foods is located at 700 South Highway 91 in Richmond.