Author Archives: ptmadmin

I felt a great sense of loss after separating from Sutherland Institute just over two years ago. A lot of work had been put into building its conservative brand and reputation. Furthermore, an impetuous and unceremonious firing only heightened my feelings of loss. It was stunning and it hurt. But, as with most of life’s trials, there was a silver lining, a liberation of sorts that perhaps many conservatives and Republicans should experience.

Shortly after separating I received a call from the Governor’s office inviting me to stand with Governor Herbert at his press conference introducing the Healthy Utah plan. Sutherland was opposing the governor’s plan. I accepted the personal invitation nonetheless. In fact, I went on to defend the plan rather aggressively. It was the right thing for Utah – and, as it turned out, it was the conservative thing. Opponents of extending eligibility for Medicaid ended up supporting “expanding” it anyway covering fewer people for more money. read more

Nobody could accuse me of being a lackey for public education. Not only did Sally and I home school our six children, K-12, but professionally I have pushed for parental rights, local control and self-reliance in education throughout Utah. I supported school vouchers and tax credits before that. I’m infamous for authoring a lengthy essay titled Saving Education & Ourselves: The Moral Case for Self-Reliance in Education.

In that essay I wrote, “government schooling does indeed have a proper role in society, but it is a limited and welfare role,” and I concluded the essay with the following recommendations: read more

Over my lifetime, like all of you, I’ve had the chance to work with great colleagues who have become dear friends. One of these friends of mine is Janice Shaw Crouse – a beautiful lady, inside and out. Janice has her Ph.D., was a presidential speechwriter for Bush senior, an appointee by Bush junior as an official US delegate to the United Nation’s Children’s Summit and the Commission on the Status of Women. Janice was a longtime senior executive for Concerned Women of America and she’s a very accomplished author and speaker. I trust her judgment and her heart. read more

When I was growing up, I knew very little about races and racism. I was born and spent the first nine years of my life in the Bay Area, the east Bay Area, the Oakland side – the real Bay Area. Dad owned several delicatessens at the time and they all served very working class people of all races. While we lived in a very white neighborhood our churches and schools were a racial mix of Asians, especially Japanese, blacks, Hispanics and us.

I suppose racial sensitivity was high living so close to Oakland in the 1950s and 60’s. Maybe that’s why everyone seemed to get along where I lived. But I have to think as well that we got along because we didn’t have class distinctions, even if racial tensions were high inside the big cities. read more

As if it matters at all, the Clinton campaign has created a new support group in Utah: Mormons for Hillary. The initial group is comprised of over 100 Latter-day Saints who say they are voting for Hillary – 120 founding members to be exact.

At the forefront of this new group are self-identified Republicans, such as attorney David Irvine. I say “self-identified” because typically Republicans, such as Irvine, are rarely viewed by others as Republican – mostly they are called RINOs, Republican in name only. But even that doesn’t matter. read more

For a good five or six years over the past decade I have encouraged the state Legislature to reign in the power of the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA). Recently, and surprisingly, the State Board of Education had the same thought. The State Board proposed to end the control UHSAA has over school athletics by controlling the transfer process.

UHSAA has purview over all extracurricular activities in Utah schools – music, science, vocational programs and, of course, high school sports. For every other extracurricular activity a student is free to transfer to any other school to pursue those activities. But not if the student is an athlete. In fact, state law rules that any student can transfer to any school for no reason if the transfer school has space. But not if the student is an athlete. read more

If Donald Trump was not having enough trouble in Utah, a former Colorado congressman and Trump supporter just added to his woes by taking on the LDS Church. Like many Americans, Tom Tancredo opposes illegal immigration – a big reason why he loves Donald Trump. It’s anybody’s guess why Tancredo thinks he is the guy to take on, or even lecture, the LDS Church about immigration policy. But, for whatever reason, he picked up the gauntlet.

In a recent piece he wrote for Trump’s ad agency Brietbart News, Tancredo writes, “It is an open secret in Washington, D.C. that the Mormon Church supports open borders and lax enforcement of immigration laws. Many Mormon politicians have been supporting amnesty and open borders for decades.” Well, that is news to me. I’ve been a Latter-day Saint for 38 years now, pre-dating Ronald Reagan’s immigration policies. I’ve spent most of those years working in and around Washington, D.C. and I’m not aware of this “open secret.” read more

I was 19 years old when I first imagined anything political. Back then, young and foolish, I was a libertarian, meaning I hated authority and I smoked pot. For two years, in the late 1970s, I also was a dues-paying member of the John Birch Society. I attended monthly meetings and read their material that was readable (some of it wasn’t) because somewhere in the deepest recesses of my young mind I just knew politics was corrupt and selfish wealthy businessmen were pulling the strings of governments around the world. read more