CEDAR CITY — In an effort to combat all-time-low voter turnout rates in Utah, Republican U.S. Senate candidates Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee and Democratic candidate Sam Granato took their debate to southern Utah Wednesday. They answered questions from an audience at Southern Utah University in the only senatorial debate in the region.
The Michael O. Leavitt Center for Politics and Public Service sponsored the debate that covered topics from federal land to nuclear waste storage.
KUTV talk show host Rod Decker, who moderated the debate, started off the event with the hot topic of immigration, with both Bridgewater and Lee stressing the removal of what they called incentives and rewards for illegal immigrants, saying that they would not support compromise in regards to amnesty.
Granato, however, said the United States cannot afford to send every illegal immigrant home and that he would be open to compromise when dealing with the work force.
"If you think the people changing sheets in Deer Valley in the wintertime or the people drilling for oil in Vernal at 10 degrees below zero are all American citizens, then you're crazy," he said. "We need to figure out what the labor force needs to be, we need to be able to treat these people right and we also need to remember our own folks at home."
All three supported earmark reform, Lee supporting a one-year abstention from earmarks of any kind.
"Congress has to go off the bottle and it has to do so for a whole year so it doesn't relapse into its addictive practices that have brought us to near bankruptcy," he said. "When that one year process is complete…I will participate in theses spending programs if and only if we've adopted permanent reform measures."
The question stemmed from SUU's science center, now under construction, which was funded in part by an earmark supported by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. Lee said if he had the choice between "virtue or the science center" his choice would be "virtue."
The debate also touched on limiting government spending and power, which all three supported to varying degrees.
Bridgewater said, "They have centralized power, they have centralized our money, they have ignored the constitution of limited government…and they're trying to take over every aspect of our lives," he said.
Granato focused more on change and redistribution of government spending.
"The federal government is out of control and that's why I'm running," he said. "We need to look at each agency, we need to clean house and we need to put the dollars where they belong."
Leavitt Center Executive Director Doug Larson said it was important for southern Utahns to hear from the candidates. He said Utah was once one of the highest participating states in elections, but in 2006, it dropped to last in voter turnout.
"Because voter apathy runs rampant in Utah, we thought it was important to expose southern Utah voters to the political process," said Leavitt Center Communication Director Dennis Busch. "We hope by bringing in the candidates, we can improve civic participation in our community."
Bridgewater and Lee will face each other in the primary polls Tuesday; the winner will face Granato in the general election.
e-mail: mitchell@dsuunews.com