Dem candidates make pitches in Sunnyside

By ANDY HISLOP
Sun Advocate Contributor

Two Democratic candidates spoke last week at the Sunnyside Union Rally.
James Courage Singer, who is running for U.S. Congress in Utah’s Third Congressional District, joined Tim Glenn, who is running for State Representative in House District 69.
   Singer is a 35-year-old sociology professor at Westminster College. The guiding principle of his campaign is social responsibility.
“The principle upon which so many other pro-social behaviors rest,” he says. He decries the “myths the people in charge are telling. As inequality grows it makes it harder to have a better life. The system we have makes it harder to get ahead,” he said.
   He is running a grassroots campaign, “no superpac money, no dark money.” He wants to talk to miners and workers in rural areas. He advocates for strong labor unions. He supports a single payer healthcare system and affordable education.
“I have $50,000 in student debt, I’m still paying off,” he declared. He has a Masters degree in Community Leadership and is working on his Ph.D. in Labor Markets Social Policy.
A Navajo, he “was raised with a social responsibility to protect the environment. We need to do a better job of managing public lands,” he said. “Coal’s important but its a wet industry in a dry land. My grandfather worked in the uranium mines; these policies are unsustainable,” he said. “This area needs to develop more renewable energy.”
He believes in comprehensive immigration reform. “My wife’s from Venezuela, she had to live in the shadows, it made it easy for her to be exploited,” he exclaimed. “The promise of democracy is to welcome others.”
Tim Glenn lives in Green River. He is the director of The John Wesley Powell River History Museum and Emery County Democratic Party chair. He is passionate about public lands and the people who live in rural areas.
“Rural Utah deserves a reasonable voice for the protection and management of federal lands. We need to make state resources more available and accessible to our communities,” he said. He is against the “giveaway of federal lands to the state. Its not the answer, its bureaucratic, its exploitation,” he said.
He is frustrated by the way tourist tax dollars are spent. “Two thirds on marketing, one third on infrastructure. Most of the money doesn’t come back to our communities,” he said. He wants to change this policy.
Rural Utah should be given more choice on how this money is spent, he said.
“The impact on our lives is not necessarily beneficial,” he stated.
Glenn took aim at a local business group, the Business Expansion and Retention program.
He said the programs’ efforts are noble, but wonders how they benefit workers.
“BEAR’s a good program, but how does it impact business? Where’s the long term sustainability,” he asks. “Are we actually improving the lives of workers?”
Glenn is planning on attending East Carbon Community Daze this weekend.