Utah
How the doctor running for Congress in Utah plans to heal America
Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of articles looking at the Republican candidates for Utah’s open 3rd Congressional District seat.
The institutions of Washington, D.C., are sick, according to state Sen. Mike Kennedy. But the party-backed candidate for Utah’s 3rd District Republican primary claims the cure for Congress isn’t found in the shock therapy of partisan showdowns.
Kennedy, a practicing doctor and trained lawyer, is more likely to prescribe the attentive bedside manner and persuasive advocacy he says served him in the state legislature over the last decade. He believes building relationships, not bombastic rhetoric, is key to ending paralysis on issues like border security, national debt and inflation — and to healing the country.
But that doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to the extent of the nation’s ailments.
“We need to recognize there’s a problem,” Kennedy said. “And the problem is elected officials … that are unresponsive to the daily needs of our citizens in the form of buying and spending on things that are unnecessary, creating inflationary trends.”
Having “diagnosed” the problem, Kennedy said the best way to “treat” it is to send the right kind of problem-solver back to Washington, D.C., to replace outgoing Rep. John Curtis.
“We need a coalition of people that are willing to actually make a difference and not be grandstanding and fundraising and disagreeable about that approach they’re going to take,” Kennedy said.
As a family physician with a practice in Lindon, Kennedy says he knows what it takes to heal the individual. And as a former malpractice attorney, Kennedy said he’s seen how the law helps heal society.
The two qualifications can come together at a higher level, Kennedy says, if Republicans in the 3rd District send the only sitting lawmaker in the race to represent them in Washington, D.C., to try “to heal that place.”
Kennedy: Reform wasteful programs to begin healing America
Fittingly, Kennedy said a healthier lifestyle for the federal government begins with health care reform. While the fights on Capitol Hill often center around the budget, they rarely touch the mandatory spending programs that contribute most to the country’s deficits, Kennedy said.
“I know Medicare and Medicaid and how there are — over and over again — systems that I see as either redundant or unnecessary that are costing our taxpayers billions of dollars,” Kennedy said. “If I can build that coalition that I keep talking about with my legislative colleagues, … we can actually eliminate programs that don’t make any difference to the quality of care.”
One way Kennedy wants to improve Medicaid — government-provided health insurance for low income families — is to remove the incentive for states to grow Medicaid rolls while relying on the federal government to pick up additional costs. Instead, the state should be given funding through block grants for Medicaid that it will be more careful in distributing, Kennedy said.
“There are ways to full freight pay for the Medicaid needs, but then make the state use its innovative capacities to utilize Medicaid money in a more effective way,” Kennedy said.
Medicare, which provides health insurance to disabled individuals and those over 65, is rife with vendor programs that increase taxpayer costs without changing health care outcomes, Kennedy said. They do this by obtaining lists of Medicare recipients and offering them free, and “entirely unnecessary,” products that have been included in Medicare payment programs, according to Kennedy.
“That’s just one of many programs that are just the same way,” Kennedy said.
But Kennedy is no slash-and-burn libertarian.
He believes there is a place for smart government programs that “Give a hand up, not a hand out.” For example, he thinks a better use of Medicare funds could be to incentivize elderly people to go to the gym and exercise instead of “passively buying” products that vendors provide.
“The reality is we can move the ball forward just gently on this stuff,” Kennedy said. “I’m not expecting cancer chemotherapy and surgical treatments immediately right away for everything. Some of this is incremental, and we have to approach it that way.”
Kennedy’s legislative track record
This incremental approach, and a willingness to “work with all sorts of people with different opinions,” handed Kennedy one of his most notable legislative achievements, he said.
In 2023, after several failed attempts, Kennedy successfully sponsored a bill that banned transgender surgeries and treatments for Utah children.
“That bill is a good example of a thoughtful civil process, working with all parties on both sides of a variety of complicated issues,” Kennedy said.
Three months after the bill passed, Kennedy’s home was vandalized in retaliation.
Kennedy was first elected to the state legislature as a House representative in 2012. He left to run for U.S. Senate against Mitt Romney, where he won at the GOP nominating convention before losing in the primary.
Kennedy returned in 2020 by winning a special election for Utah Senate, where he represents roughly 20% of the 3rd District’s population in northern Utah County, Kennedy said.
Now that he’s turned his eyes toward Congress again, Kennedy promises potential constituents that he’ll pursue creative solutions to the country’s most difficult issues. But he says he can’t promise he’ll find willing partners.
Where does Mike Kennedy stand on border security, Ukraine?
Many of his would-be congressional colleagues are too preoccupied with fundraising and winning reelection to recognize common ground on issues like immigration, Kennedy said.
The sustained chaos at the southern border demands a national security response, Kennedy said, and he thinks he could unite a majority of lawmakers around heightened fentanyl detection measures and a policy that automatically bars migrants from entering the U.S. if they are found “with a trace of fentanyl on them.”
On foreign policy, Kennedy is supportive of selling military resources to Ukraine or forcing Russia to pay for it by seizing their assets. But Kennedy draws a line at sending U.S. troops to the embattled ally.
His willingness to back Ukraine in its defensive war against Russian President Vladimir Putin comes from statements by legislative leadership with top-secret briefings saying that if the U.S. doesn’t support Ukraine, then Putin’s expansionist ambitions will require a much greater American response later on.
“I’m very concerned we may be at the beginning of World War III,” Kennedy said. “Brutal dictators should be hit heavily early on to prevent them from continuing to expand and making the problem worse.”
Convention winner
Kennedy is the only candidate on the 3rd District primary ballot that did not attempt to qualify via signature gathering. Instead, he advanced to the primary after talking with all the state delegates he could and winning their support in a landslide at the state GOP nominating convention on April 27 with 61.5% in the final round of voting.
The victory makes him the party-backed candidate and has brought “wind to the sails” because of access to party resources, money and volunteers, Kennedy said. The candidate also counts on endorsements from Utah’s top legislative leadership, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper.
Before the convention, Kennedy had raised more money than any of his competition, with over $341,000 in total contributions — not including a $156,000 loan he gave his campaign. But some of his opponents have invested much more of their personal wealth into the race.
Former Sky Zone CEO Case Lawrence has poured nearly $1.3 million of his money into his campaign, making him the biggest dollar candidate in the race, with Roosevelt Mayor JR Bird close behind with a $1 million loan.
Voters will decide between five candidates in the June 25 Republican primary election, that includes Kennedy, Lawerence, Bird, State Auditor John Dougall and commercial litigator Stewart Peay.
On Nov. 5, the Republican nominee will face off against Democratic candidate Glenn Wright.
I don’t know if I believe in ghosts. But I very much believe in ghost tours.
Ghost tours are one of my favorite spooky season festivities. “Isn’t spooky season over?” you might ask. I, for one, don’t think so. The weather leading up to Halloween was unseasonably warm and it never truly felt gloomy enough to really get into the haunted spirit. But now, the week when we turned back the clocks, it’s been freezing in the mornings and I’ve felt existential dread every day at 1 p.m. when the sun starts to set. So I’m feeling gloomier and spookier than ever, and ready to think about how my town might be haunted.
I’ve done a lot of ghost tours in major cities, often to the chagrin of my travel companions. I forced my mom to take a Jack the Ripper tour with me in London. I’ll be honest, that one was more gruesome than I had anticipated. My husband had to tromp around Chicago with me for the mobsters and murder tour, which again, was pretty detailed about the specific ways the “ghosts” had been murdered. And I signed my friends and myself up for the official Savannah, Georgia, ghost tour. Which was, once again, gruesome.
These big, touristy cities all seemed to have plenty of gnarly stories to fill hours worth of guides’ tales while walking around their downtowns. It’s something that would never work in my small Utah city, I assumed. Foolishly.
So I was surprised and delighted to learn that there was a Draper, Utah, ghost tour available. I was so excited that I signed up without realizing I would be out of town for the last available tour date. When I reached out to cancel my reservation, the tour guide, Anna Sokol, kindly offered a private tour for when I was back in town.
This was Sokol’s third year doing the tour. Sokol — a history and spooky story enthusiast — started offering the free service while she was still in high school, believing she could gather enough spine-tingling stories about historic Draper to put together a tour. She was correct.
Now, as a freshman at Brigham Young University, Sokol has stayed committed to the tour and commuted back and forth from Provo to Draper to entertain the ghost-curious Draperites on many October nights.
We met in Draper Historic Park near the gazebo the day after Halloween, where she handed me the ghost detector she usually hands to children on the tour. Sokol was equipped with a binder full of dates, images and newspaper clippings, and a head full of Draper’s scariest stories. She began by pointing out the statue of Ebenezer Brown, the pioneer who settled in Draper in 1849. His life wasn’t any spookier than a typical pioneer, but, according to Sokol, a few generations down the family line, Brown’s great-great-great-grandson murdered his wife and tried to plead insanity. His plea failed when it quickly became apparent that his motive was long-held misogyny.
Next, Sokol showed me a home built in 1918 to house World War I veterans. It’s been a number of different businesses over the years and now functions as the coffee and soda shop Bubbles and Beans. It was Sokol’s high school job at the shop, and a spooky encounter she had there, that piqued her interest in Draper ghosts in the first place.
“We always knew it was a little haunted,” she told me.
One day, when she showed up for work, she found a few police officers outside the house talking to her co-workers. They had called the police after hearing footsteps in the attic and assuming there must be a squatter inside. But when the police went to the attic to investigate, they found that the layer of dust that coated the floor remained undisturbed. This was confusing news to Sokol’s co-workers, who had used a selfie stick to raise a phone up to the window of the attic and captured a dark and blurry picture that showed the reflection of two eyes. But when they went to show the police the photo, it was gone from the phone.
Virtually every business in the area has similar spooky stories, Sokol learned when she asked the people in these places to share. The employees at the salon around the corner from the soda shop told Sokol about the ghost they believe haunts the space. They have named her Myrtle. Sokol showed me the Sorenson home, once occupied by a woman named Martina. Martina enjoyed sitting in her yellow rocking chair and listening to baseball games on the radio up until her death in 1954. Years later, some teens attempted to break into the Sorenson home, but were deterred when they spotted the silhouette of a woman in a rocking chair, and heard the faint sounds of a baseball game.
But it was in the small cemetery between many of the houses-turned-businesses where Sokol shared the town’s spookiest stories. There were stories of teen troublemakers taunting spirits and regretting it when a malevolent spirit allegedly revealed itself. Stories of visions of the deceased at vigils and bright images in the sky. The most unsettling story, however, had no supernatural elements, but instead revealed how gruesome history is on its own.
Moroni Clawson was murdered and initially buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. His body at the time was unidentified, so a kind-hearted police officer purchased clothes for Clawson to be buried in. When Clawson’s brother later claimed the body and requested to have it moved to Draper, officials exhumed the coffin. And they were startled to find Clawson’s body unclothed within.
Clawson had been the latest victim of the grave robber Jean Baptiste. A search of Baptiste’s home revealed he had been robbing graves for years, and nearly 300 plots were violated, many of them belonging to women and children. Baptiste was exiled to an island in the Great Salt Lake. But the exile didn’t last long before he fashioned a raft out of the door and sides of his shack, escaped and was never seen again. It was a gruesome and upsetting story.
And it numbered among the best I’ve heard on any ghost tour. Because the best ghost tours, led by the best guides, reveal that history doesn’t need any supernatural elements to make our hair stand on end. It’s plenty spooky on its own, so long as it’s presented correctly. And can, sneakily, imbue a respect for the people and places of our towns’ histories. “It makes life special to know the background of the buildings and the people who came before us,” Sokol explained.
“I love history,” Sokol told me. “And I think it’s just so much more palatable and so many more people are interested if there’s a spooky element to it.”
She loves history so much that she’s committed to doing the tour until the day she dies. “I love that it’s accessible,” she said. “I love that I can just say, come to Draper Park at 6:30 the weekend before Halloween and I’ll teach you a little bit about history. I’m an enthusiast.”
Next year, I’m taking everyone I know on the tour with me. Because I think it’s important to know the history of where we live. And it’s fun to feel spooked every once in a while.
Until then, I’ll be watching for updates at @draperhistoricghosttour on Instagram.
TUCSON, Ariz. — — Tobe Awaka had 12 points and a career-high 18 rebounds, Koa Peat scored 18 points and No. 13 Arizona rolled to a 93-67 win over Utah Tech on Friday night.
The Wildcats (2-0) overcame a sloppy start and some defensive breakdowns by shooting 57% from the floor to win their 24th straight home opener.
Anthony Dell’Orso had 15 of his 18 points in the first half to spark Arizona out of its funk and Brayden Burries finished with 18 points. Peat hit 6 of 7 shots in the follow up to his 30-point college debut in Monday’s 93-87 win over defending champion Florida.
Awaka dominated inside all night and so did Arizona, which outscored Utah Tech 58-24 in the paint.
The Trailblazers (2-1) had some good moments offensively after an ugly start, but wore down against the bigger Wildcats. Ethan Potter led Utah Tech with 15 points.
Arizona followed its impressive win over No. 3 Florida by committing five fouls and three turnovers in the opening 4 1/2 minutes against the Trailblazers.
Once the Wildcats and Dell’Orso got rolling, Utah Tech had no answer.
A starter most of last season, Dell’Orso came in firing off the bench, hitting consecutive 3s during and 18-2 run that put Arizona up 31-16. Dell’Orso had 15 points by halftime and Arizona hit 16 of 30 shots, but had a hard time shaking Utah Tech.
The Trailblazers took advantage of defensive breakdowns by the Wildcats, using a couple of short runs to stay within 44-37 at halftime.
Burries converted a three-point play that made it 56-44 with about 4 1/2 minutes into the second half and Arizona led be double figures the rest of the way.
Dell’Orso and Burries each hit three of the Wildcats’ seven 3-pointers.
Utah Tech plays at Arizona State on Sunday.
Arizona hosts Northern Arizona on Tuesday.
——
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The Utah Jazz have had an encouraging start to the season, largely thanks to the contributions from Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George, and fourth-year big man Walker Kessler.
Unfortunately, news broke on Wednesday that Kessler will undergo season-ending surgery to address a torn labrum in his shoulder. The news is a devastating blow to a Jazz team that is looking to progress towards its long-term goals this year after finishing with the worst record in the league last season.
Without Kessler, the Jazz are now extremely thin at the center position, with just veteran big man Jusuf Nurkic a natural at the position.
With that in mind, let’s discuss some options for where the team can go from here.
Kessler has already missed several preseason and early-regular-season games, and in his absence, the team has leaned on Nurkic, who has started over 400 games in his 12-year NBA career. Additionally, the team has turned to Kevin Love, the former NBA champion, to soak up minutes as an undersized center.
Neither offers the rim protection nor the lob threat that was so valuable to making the team function. In fact, both are poor defenders at this point in their careers. Along with that, neither project to be with the team long term, which makes investing big minutes for either less than ideal.
The Jazz have a couple of young options in Kyle Filipowski and Taylor Hendricks, but they both have limitations. Filipowski can execute offensively at a high level while playing the five, but the team bleeds points with his lack of rim protection.
Theoretically, Hendricks could provide more rim protection, but he’s struggled defensively since returning from the devastating ankle injury that all but eliminated his sophomore season. Getting him minutes at center throughout the year could be important, but the Jazz haven’t put him there much.
While less than ideal, the Kessler injury could be beneficial in one way: the team will lose more games and be set up better in the lottery standings, especially if they don’t make a move to bolster their center group.
There are practically no quality NBA centers available on the free agent market. However, the Jazz could look at a few different options for finding a more traditional center.
The most popular, and obvious, would be going down to the G-League and signing former 6th overall pick Mo Bamba, who’s playing for the Salt Lake City Stars and spent training camp with the team.
While he never lived up to the billing of a high lottery pick, Bamba can protect the rim better than any option the team currently has. He can also stretch the floor a bit and has more vertical pop than Nurkic or Love.
The biggest problem here is that the Jazz would have to open up a roster spot to sign Bamba and don’t have any clear candidates to waive.
The last, and least likely, at least in the short term, option is to go out and trade for a quality center.
Now, I doubt they would (or should) trade draft picks or premium assets for a center, given where they’re at in their rebuild. Finding someone who can help the team play how they wanted to with Kessler could be beneficial for the rest of the roster.
For example, Goga Bitadze, Orlando’s backup center, is part of a frontcourt-heavy Magic team and is signed to a team-friendly deal through 2027. He could be a short-term solution at center who wouldn’t impact winning at a level where you’d have to be concerned about impacting your draft pick, and could be a valuable backup going forward. There’s no sense that he’s available for trade at this point, though.
Regardless of what direction the team takes, Kessler’s injury is a massive gut punch. Hopefully, he’s back healthy and clicking on all cylinders next season.
Be sure to bookmark Utah Jazz On SI and follow @JazzOnSI on X to stay up-to-date on daily Utah Jazz news, interviews, breakdowns and more!
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