The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah) June 1, 2010

HEADLINE: Dem rivals view school funding as top issue

By Brandon Loomis

In one of Utah's most liberal state House districts, you won't hear much praise for the Republican-heavy Legislature from the two Democrats seeking their party's nomination.

Anthony Kaye sees peril in the Legislature's threat to opt out of federal health-insurance reform and problems with Utah's "bizarre" liquor laws. Joel Briscoe sees a state government doing too little to encourage smart growth and discourage air pollution.

Both say Utah is hurting its children and its economic future by keeping schools at the bottom of national per-student spending rates. Both say they would protect local anti-discrimination ordinances if they are challenged on Capitol Hill.

Briscoe, a teacher who now heads the Davis County teachers' union, and Kaye, a lawyer, are vying in the June 22 primary for the nomination in House District 25 in eastern Salt Lake City. Rep. Christine Johnson, a Democrat, is retiring from the post to take a job with a South Carolina gay-rights organization.

Both candidates rank education as a top issue, and both would seek more funding for it.

"We need to find money," Kaye said. "You're going to have to enact some kind of tax or fee that's palatable to everybody."

"I'm very concerned that public education is being systematically underfunded," Briscoe said. "The people in power like a low-tax, low-services state."

Briscoe taught for 26 years, mostly at Bountiful High, before becoming executive director of the Davis Education Association. He banks on that career for expertise in seeking new funds for schools. For starters, he said, he would propose ending a sales-tax shift that siphoned higher-education money to state roads.

"We need to look at going back to more sustainable funding methods for roads," he said, perhaps "user fees [or] increasing the sales tax on fuel."

Kaye said his 17 years of experience as an attorney will give him an edge in arguing for schools, because he is a seasoned debater and knows how to write legislation without tax loopholes. He added that he has two children in Salt Lake City schools, and his wife, Elizabeth Wright, is president of the Wasatch Elementary PTA.

"I am as invested in this educational program" as Briscoe, he said.

Kaye, 45, grew up in New York and earned an English degree from Hamilton College and a law degree from Case Western Reserve University. He taught English for two years in New York's Spanish Harlem and spent two years developing a program listing public-service jobs for college graduates before going into law. He moved to Utah in 1999.

Briscoe's great-grandfather was a Republican lawmaker from Cache County. Briscoe, 53, was born in Montana while his father was stationed there in the Air Force, but the family soon returned to Utah. He received an English education degree with a history minor at the University of Utah. His wife, Christine Briscoe, teaches science to schoolchildren at the Utah Museum of Natural History. They have three grown children.

Kaye wants to ensure the Legislature doesn't roll back the housing and employment rights for gay Utahns that Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Logan and other communities either have enacted or plan to adopt.

"That's, frankly, the civil rights fight of our generation," he said.

Kaye wants to seek state funding for teen homeless shelters. On the surface this isn't a sexuality issue, he said, but some studies show that nearly half the homeless teens are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. They may be homeless because of acceptance problems in their families.

Briscoe expresses interest in expanding health coverage for domestic partners on private employers' health plans. A former counselor for Bountiful High's Gay-Straight Alliance, he said he always has sought to make children of all persuasions feel safe in schools. He ran for and won a single term on the Salt Lake City School Board partly to overturn a ban on gay student clubs. He expects a continuing battle at the Capitol and supports a proposed package of housing, employment and other anti-discrimination bills.

"I'm sure there will be a robust debate," Briscoe said, "and I support the Common Ground [gay-rights] initiatives."

Briscoe said Utah needs to put more effort into creating walkable neighborhoods and into mass-transit options to reduce air pollution.

"We call it 'inversions,' " he said. "It's pollution. It's smog. The fact is that people on the Wasatch Front live shorter lives because of it."

Kaye listed Utah's "bizarre" liquor laws as an issue that needs attention. The lack of restaurant and resort licenses, he said, hurts business growth and alienates tourists. Kaye said he doesn't object to a state liquor monopoly raising state revenues, but otherwise he would normalize liquor laws to match most of the nation's.

The winner in the June 22 Democratic primary will take on Republican Rick Raile, who won his nomination at the May 8 state GOP convention. But Kaye estimated more than two-thirds of district voters are Democratic, leaving the primary winner time to help get other Democrats elected this fall.