Republican Rep. John Curtis has represented Utah’s 3rd Congressional District since 2017. He is being challenged this year by Democrat Devin Thorpe, a former businessman, writer and speaker.
For this guide, Rep. John Curtis and Devin Thorpe responded to KUER’s candidate survey and interviews with KUER. The information below is based on the survey, interviews, KUER's past reporting and publicly available campaign information
Federal Pandemic Aid
Thorpe
Wants any future funding to go only toward keeping people employed and helping small businesses.
Curtis
Supports another round of financial aid, but wants the money to go only to those still in need, like the hospitality, airline industries and small businesses.
Affordable Care Act
Thorpe
Does not support attempts to repeal or cut the law, but does support reforming it. Wants to protect coverage of pre-existing conditions and subsidizing insurance premiums. Says he’s “agnostic” on how to bring down healthcare costs and will vote for anything that comes to the House floor that helps the country lower costs.
Curtis
Supports replacing the Affordable Care Act with something that lowers health care costs for Americans. Wants to incentivize preventive care, like increasing Health Savings Accounts, and give patients more control. Curtis introduced a bill earlier this year to expand access to health savings accounts.
Police Reform
Thorpe
Supports a “nationwide comprehensive data collection system,” more funding for social workers to respond to mental health emergencies and more accountability for police misconduct.
Curtis
Introduced a bill earlier this year that gives money to police departments for de-escalation training and community outreach programs. Did not vote on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in June. Says most law enforcement officers are good people, and if there are laws that incentivize bad behavior, he would support changing them.
Climate Change
Thorpe
Wants to extend tax incentives on electric cars and solar panels, create tax incentives for electric charging infrastructure, create loan guarantees for utility-scale renewable construction and create federal-guaranteed loans for renewable construction.
“Climate change presents a unique opportunity: to create millions of jobs in clean energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing.“
Curtis
Wants to incentivize the development of new eco-friendly technologies that would be cheaper than technologies that emit more carbon, similar to the way that natural gas has become more cost-effective.
“I'm trying really hard to be a spokesman for the conservatives that we do care about the environment.”
Public Lands
Thorpe
Wants to adjust the money that the federal government pays for control of public lands to give local communities more compensation.
“Through thoughtful solutions, which include input from local governments and sovereign tribes, we can create public land policy that will enable us to live, work, and recreate on our land, all while protecting our beautiful landscapes for future generations.”
Curtis
Sponsored legislation that transferred management of some public lands in Emery County to the state and transferred ownership of some land to local government entities.
“We pulled environmentalists, ranchers — every stakeholder out there together. A group that normally does not get along or agree — we got them to agree on how these million acres should be used.”