Utah Senate 22 Race

Heidi Balderree was elected in October 2023 in a special election to replace Senator Jake Anderegg and is already up for reelection.

Heidi Balderree – Qualified at convention

Heidi Balderree was elected in October 2023 in a special election to replace Senator Jake Anderegg. She currently serves as the Social Services Appropriations chair and on the Health and Human Services and the Transportation committees. Previously she was the Utah County GOP Secretary and was the Chair of the Utah Planning Commission for almost 3 years. Heidi has a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management and a Bachelors in Anthropology and Spanish.

When asked what books she is reading or has recently read, Heidi listed –
Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier – Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey
Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink – Seth M. Siegel

Heidi recently sponsored legislation to remove occupational license late fees for deployed military personnel. She also sponsored legislation to change the signature time period from 30 to 45 days for certain ballot initiatives to bring it more in line with similar laws. She worked with Rep Burton to cosponsor better retention bonuses for soldiers to reenlist with the national guard, which is funded by the state. Another bill she cosponsored extends the law allowing minors to operate small businesses without a license to include all high school students.

She would like to continue working on income tax reform and cosponsored a tax cut. Heidi would also like to work on more East / West transportation in the district. She knows that people don’t want roads cutting through their areas but feels she has good working relationships with the mayors and will be able to find solutions.

Heidi was one of the sponsors for a petition opposing expansion of the county commission to include more members and a mayor. Instead she favors a five member commission working at ¾ time. She loves feedback and encourages constituents to contact her.

Emily Lockhart – Qualified through signatures

Emily Lockhart has an MBA from BYU with an emphasis in Supply Chain and Operations with a minor in Information Systems and Data Analytics. She currently works for SME Steel as a continuous improvement manager. Emily said she brings a wide breadth of experience to the table. Previously she was former Senator Anderegg’s campaign manager in 2012. She also worked with her mother when she was the Utah House Speaker and has been on the Lehi planning commission for almost 3 years. She loves to give back to the community.

Emily emphasized her strong data analytics background. If you don’t have the training and skill-set you can miss the what is between the lines. She is very interested in health and social services and wants to help people become more self-sufficient and self-reliant. Emily is also interested in transportation and thinks that the cities should proactively report the number of approved units so transportation funding can be more responsive. We need to grow responsibly while respecting property rights.

Emily also said that we need to focus on public education. She firmly supports parental choice and vouchers. They are like scholarships to promote more school choice and the use of funds can be audited.  She believes that parents should be in the driver’s seat of their child’s education. She also believes that strong public schools greatly benefit our communities. We must continue to invest in our teachers and students to ensure that our public schools are an excellent choice for parents to make for their children.

Garrett Cammans – Qualified through signatures

Garrett Cammans graduated from BYU with a degree in physics and an emphasis in teaching. He has lived in Lehi for almost 10 years and is concerned about how all the growth is being handled.

Garrett said that Alpine School District has struggled to keep up with the growth and the class sizes are not suitable for early education. He said they should be no more than 25-28 students and wasn’t sure where they were in previous years but knows many are in excess of 32 students. He added that children per household is much higher in Utah. Garrett said that there is no suitable plan to keep up with high growth areas, like northern Utah County. He wants to manage the growth in such a way that we don’t lose the desirable traits of living in Utah County. He wants to work closely with city planners for a better and more sustainable plan.

School choice and vouchers are very important issues for Garrett. He believes that more vouchers will help reduce class sizes by having more students going to private schools. Garrett said that we currently can’t hire enough teachers and there is a lot of burnout, especially amongst elementary school teachers. There is also a lot of red tape to building new schools and having more students going to private schools with vouchers won’t have a net decrease because of the new students. He does favor a split for Alpine school district and said the board isn’t accountable enough to parents. 

He thinks that cities need to do more to consider how zoning changes affect schools but also wants to keep autonomy at the local level and not the state. Garrett said that growth might need to be slowed so schools can catch up though. Traffic and roads are also important issues. There have been some large and flashy projects but members of the district didn’t think they were a huge value. He added while some funding is needed, some of it is also politics at the city level and you need cooperation between the state and local governments. We need to prioritize certain projects and large impacts can be made with small projects. He suggested that the sidewalk could be removed from Pioneer Crossing and another lane could be added without displacing any current homeowners or businesses..

Garrett said that he didn’t aspire to office and doesn’t want to get embroiled in politics but would rather find simple solutions to community problems. He sees opportunities to both improve and preserve Utah. He said we need somebody with more business sense and thinks there are a lot of places we can cut funding but didn’t want to mention anything specific but said he looks forward to discussing these at organized debates, cottage meetings, or through 1-1 communications.