In Utah House District 53 (part of west American Fork and east Lehi), incumbent Kay Christofferson is running unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Note that for his current term Rep. Christofferson serves House District 56. Boudaries changed somewhat and the resulting district was renumbering in the recent redistricting.

Incumbent Representative Val Peterson is running to represent the new District 56, which also includes part of American Fork.

Kay Christofferson

Kay has served in the legislature for 10 years and is running for his sixth term. He is unopposed in the Republican party and wanted to talk about several bills he worked on this last session.

First was a bill to modernize public employees in the executive branch. This adds both pay for performance and allows employees, below the supervisor level, to have complaints dealt with in half the time by removing the need to go to a director. The bill also adds training for supervisors. The Utah Public Employees Association and governor’s office were both in favor of it.

The second was to have agencies review fees, evaluating whether they are covering their costs and whether they are too high.

The third was to have UDOT manage UTA construction projects, then hand them over when they are finished.

A fourth bill allowed for crimes that can be charged as felonies to go straight to district court, bypassing justice court where there is less expertise to handle them.

During the interim he has a bill to start cutting tax incentives to certain groups. The government shouldn’t put their finger on the scale. When you incentivize one company or industry, it hurts another.

When asked about HB 11, the transgender sports bill, he said that they had enough votes to override the governor’s veto, but he wasn’t sure why Senator McKay overrode the bill sponsor with a last-minute substitution. They did allocate $500,000 to defend the bill in court, but he is unsure what will happen if that money runs out.

Kay also said the State put a lot of money in education, salaries, wages, transportation, and infrastructure, but it might not be enough to keep up with inflation.

John Mulholland lives in American Fork, Utah. His writing on Utah politics has appeared at Utah Politico Hub. See his report on interviews with candidates for other offices here, including: Utah County Sheriff, Utah County Auditor, Utah County Clerk, Utah County Commission Seat A, Utah County Commission Seat B, and Utah County Attorney.

If you’ve written on a topic related to American Fork politics or government and would like to be a guest contributor at AFElection.info, inquire via e-mail at david @ rodeback.com.