Civility reigned supreme in the only debate for Utah’s 2nd Congressional District seat ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Republican Rep. Celeste Maloy and Democratic challenger Nathaniel Woodward laid out their visions for the vast geographic region that spans from downtown Salt Lake City through farming communities of the Great Basin and into rapidly growing St. George in Washington County.
The debate, which took place Oct. 14 at Utah Tech University, was sponsored by the Utah Debate Commission. The night largely featured a good-natured and respectful back and forth from both candidates and FOX 13 anchor and moderator Max Roth. Indeed, one of their biggest disagreements revolved around an Applebee’s restaurant in Cedar City — the southwest Utah community where Maloy was born.
“I think it's time for a rural person to be in Congress from Utah,” Woodward said. “If your town has an Applebee's, I have a hard time accepting you as rural.”
Maloy later countered that the Cedar City Applebee’s is within the bounds of the 2nd District, while Woodward’s hometown of Price is not.
Maloy won this seat in a 2023 special election after former GOP representative Chris Stewart resigned. She then earned the Republican nomination during the June primary election in a race that went to a recount. She defeated challenger Colby Jenkins by fewer than 200 votes.
Woodward is an attorney who serves as chair of the Carbon County Democratic Party. A committee of state party members voted to nominate him for the race this spring after previous candidate Brian Adams dropped out following criticism that he did not represent the party’s values.
While the candidates found some common ground on developing new energy options and building housing to make Utah more affordable, they disagreed on hot-button issues like abortion, immigration and how to manage Utah’s public lands.
Public lands and housing
The state recently filed a lawsuit in an attempt to take control of 18.5 million acres of unappropriated federal lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.
Maloy has made government overreach one of her top issues. In response to a question about the use of public lands, Maloy said she supports the state’s lawsuit and said it asks the right question.
“That question is: should the federal government be able to hold land in perpetuity that hasn't been designated to a specific use? And I think it's fair to ask the Supreme Court to answer that question,” she said.
Woodward also supports the idea of transferring some federal land to state control, but said he’s not on board with the lawsuit.
“My hesitancy with this lawsuit is the people who are bringing it,” he said. “I would like to see this act led by people who live on the public lands.”
That’s because so many lawmakers are either developers themselves or connected with development companies, he said. People living in places with lots of public land like Carbon County have more skin in the game, so they should have a larger voice in what happens to that land.
The public lands discussion overlapped with another pressing issue in Utah: housing.
Recent proposals, such as the HOUSES Act from Utah Sen. Mike Lee, have called for building homes on federal land. Both developers and conservationists say that’s likely not a silver bullet for solving the state’s housing crisis.
The candidates spoke in favor of the idea of opening public lands to housing, just in different ways.
Woodward proposed reopening the Homestead Act — an 1862 law that distributed 270 million acres of public land to private citizens. He envisions using the land to create brand new communities that could be designed from the ground up.
“There's lots of space to grow and build new towns, so what better way to address inflation than to create more cities in which to house people?” Woodward said. “Let the newer generations — the Gen Z and the millennials who have been priced out of the market — literally go and manifest our own destiny.”
When answering reporter questions after the debate, Maloy said the state’s lawsuit over public lands could help address the shortage.
“If we got some of these public lands — especially that surround the towns in Utah — it would allow for expansion,” Maloy said. “We will still be limited by water, so we'll have to make policy decisions about that. But I would rather have that problem than the problem of no land and no water.”
Energy
The candidates also largely agreed on the need for Utah to increase its energy resources with an all-of-the-above approach. That would include carbon-free renewable options, such as enhanced geothermal systems, where the 2nd District is a prime spot to build.
Growing up in Carbon County’s coal country, Woodward said he understands the potential consequences of moving away from fossil fuels without having other energy resources to fill that gap.
“If you're going to close one plant, you're going to destroy an entire culture, an entire community with that decision,” he said. “So when we have options like geothermal, I am excited.”
Maloy said it’s up to the state to decide its own energy policies, but she supports the federal government investing in research that makes it possible for private companies to develop new types of power plants.
“I'm proud that we're doing that in Utah,” she said, “because it's clean renewable energy, and we have the resources for it.”
Gov. Spencer Cox recently released his plan, dubbed Operation Gigawatt, to double the state’s power production from both fossil fuel and renewable sources over the next decade. The Utah Legislature, however, has been slow to pursue some renewable alternatives like geothermal.
Abortion
The candidates highlighted sharper differences on the issue of abortion.
In August, the Utah Supreme Court decided to keep an injunction in place that prevented the state’s abortion ban trigger law from going into effect following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, meaning that abortion remains legal up to 18 weeks of pregnancy. That case is still making its way through lower courts.
“I would love to see the whole country be pro-life, but I support the ability of states to pass their [own] laws,” Maloy said. “I hope [other states] learn from Utah and decide to protect the right of life.”
Woodward said there should be room for a civil dialog about the details of abortion rights and regulations, but ultimately he errs on the side of individual choice.
“I am not a woman, and it is not my place to tell a woman what she is allowed to do with her body,” he said. “It's a pathetic use of power to spend our time in legislative bodies discussing this between men.”
He described the idea that his daughter might someday be denied that type of care because of a male lawmaker’s viewpoint as “sickening.”
Term Limits
One final point of contrast between the two candidates was how long they think members of Congress should hold their jobs.
Woodward said he’s firmly behind term limits and would spend no more than six years in office if he’s elected.
Maloy used to be in favor of term limits, she said, but changed her mind after working in policy. She now believes that limiting representative’s time in office would shift more power to lobbyists who aren’t accountable to the public.
Election ballots will be sent to Utah voters starting Oct. 15.
Voters need to have their completed ballots postmarked by Nov 4th. They can also return them to an official drop box or polling place by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 5th.