Republican party celebrates victories
Across the state and in Cache Valley, Republicans won the majority of positions up for grabs in the 2004 election.
Rob Bishop was the incumbent for the 1st District U.S. House of Representatives. He beat Democrat Steve Thompson to win the seat for his second term.
Bishop is from Brigham City and has spent 28 years as a public school teacher and 16 years in the Utah Legislature. He would like to improve education through school choice and accountability. He would also like to return educational control to the state level.
Lyle Hillyard won the seat to represent District 25 in the Utah Senate.
“I’ve learned that the best way to campaign is to perform well,” said Hillyard.
Hillyard said he favors Utah income tax reform to make it more progressive and also favors competency-based standards in the public school system. However, Hillyard doesn’t plan on taking on as many bills in this term as he has in past terms, “I plan on doing more training of new senators,” he said.
“My political agenda this session is to help things come together,” Hillyard said.
Craig Buttars beat Democrat Tim Hutson and Libertarian John Elwell to win the District 3 seat in the Utah House of Representatives.
“There are two things we’ll be looking at in this term,” Buttars said. “For the next couple of years, we’re going to be dealing with water rights and coming up with a responsible way to find funding for transportation.”
Fred Hunsaker won the District 4 seat by defeating Democrat Wendell Morse.
“We’ve had a good race,” Hunsaker said. “We’ve had tremendous support from so many people. I feel so indebted to so many people who have worked and supported me.”
Public and higher education are priority issues for Hunsaker.
“If public education does well, it prepares students to do well in higher education,” Hunsaker said.
Hunsaker said he would like to be involved in tax reform.
“I don’t want tax reform to be an excuse to raise taxes,” he said. “I want it to be based on merits.”
Scott Wyatt won the District 5 seat in the House by defeating Democrat Mayor of River Heights, Victor Jensen.
Wyatt has four main points he will be focusing on in the upcoming session, better education for children, increase funding for the college professors, Utah’s economy is business-friendly to grow and protecting Cache Valley.
“I will protect our beautiful valley and our way of life,” said Wyatt. “There are a lot of ways to do that, that don’t require money.
Darrel Gibbons, Cory Yeates, Kathy Robison and John Hansen were all running for re-election to the Cache County Council. All four candidates won.
Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. defeated Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. in the race for governor.
“We are honored and humbled by your support,” Huntsman said on Tuesday night.
“My pledge to you is we’re going to keep giving it our very best. We want to revitalize the economy, and we need to pay the bills for education.”
Huntsman said he has goals to improve the environment in Utah for small and medium-sized companies. He said he would also like to recruit more capital businesses to Utah and seeks to improve education by more efficient funding, compensating teachers, increasing local control and endorsing school choice.
Bob Bennett won the seat in the U.S Senate by defeating Democrat R. Paul Van Dam. Bennett has served the state of Utah in the U.S. Senate since 1992. He said he supports funding for Utah farmers and will continue to secure money to fight the six year drought.
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