Democrat Brian King announces run for governor to “stand up” for Utahns
On Monday, Dec. 4, Democrat Brian King announced his plan to run for governor in the 2024 election.
So far, two other candidates, both Republican, have announced their plans to run. Current Gov. Spencer Cox declared his candidacy for 2024, along with Phil Lyman, who currently represents District 69 in the Utah House of Representatives.
According to a notice of election document from the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s office, it costs $964.50 to file to run for governor. The declaration of candidacy filing period begins Jan. 2, 2024. Election Day will be Nov. 5, 2024.
King was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2008 and is going into his 16th session this January. He currently represents District 23, which covers parts of Summit and Salt Lake counties. Before the redistricting that followed the 2020 census, King represented District 28.
During his time in the House, King has led bills for gun violence prevention and domestic violence prevention. He has also fought against bills such as ones banning abortion.
“I’ve been privileged, and I’ve been proud to advocate very aggressively against some terrible legislation in Utah,” King said.
Because he can’t both run for governor and stay in the House, the 2024 session will be King’s last session as a representative. He said he has loved his time in the state legislature and will miss it, but he decided to run for governor because of issues he thinks need to be changed in the governor’s office.
“I’ve also grown so concerned about the extent to which we don’t have good representation that reflects the diversity of opinion about all sorts of things here in the state of Utah that I just don’t think are being addressed and dealt with,” King said.
King was born and raised in the Cottonwood Heights area with four older brothers. His father worked as a lawyer, and he said his mother was active in political and legislative affairs. He went to Cottonwood High School and then studied at the University of Utah.
He graduated from law school in 1985, and since then he has practiced law in Salt Lake. He has had his own firm for the last 20 years, and he and his wife Ann have four daughters.
“I represent folks who have had denied life, health and disability claims,” King said. “I sue insurance companies for individuals, which is sort of a David versus Goliath mentality, and it ties in well to my work up at the legislature.”
King decided to run for state legislature after he had spent time lobbying at the Capitol for the Utah Trial Lawyers Association. He got the opportunity to run for a House seat after Roz Mcgee left.
“I think it was an opportunity to be involved in stuff that I’d always been interested in,” King said. “In a way, that allowed me to represent a district, an area of the state, and the district I still represent now is a remarkable group of people.”
He ran unopposed in the 2008 election after an opponent dropped out of the race.
As a part of his platform in his campaign for governor, King will be addressing issues such as reproductive rights, gun violence, domestic violence, income tax restrictions and public education.
“Reproductive rights are hugely important,” King said. “These are things that are the most private, personal decisions that we as human beings make in our entire lives, and they have repercussions throughout our entire lives.”
King also highlighted the goal of promoting diverse voices across the state.
He said he is running to offer an alternative to what is currently happening in the state government — an alternative that embraces the diversity and the life experiences of all Utahns in a way King said hasn’t been seen much in the past few decades, either in the legislature or the governor’s office.
As a Democrat running in a prominently Republican state, King acknowledged it will be more difficult to be elected to the office than it would be if he was a Republican candidate. King said he hopes to be a candidate that anyone, regardless of their party, can vote for.
“I want to avoid party labels. I think that one of the things that has become very clear to me, and I hear it over and over again, is that we have a tendency to black and white issues. We have a tendency to say, ‘I’m such and such, and you’re such and such, and therefore, I’m right and you’re wrong,’” King said. “I want to move away from that.”
King quoted a phrase Cox has been using frequently lately — “disagree better” — and altered it slightly for his own purposes, saying “disagree for the better.”
One thing King said he hopes to do in the position of governor is to stand up to the state legislature, specifically in the most extreme elements of the legislature.
He said as governor, he would be willing to veto bills from the legislature that are “just bad policy.”
King and all four of his daughters attended the U, and he said growing up, he would often visit Logan and Utah State University because he had an uncle that taught at USU. He said he is grateful for the higher education institutions that Utah has and the variety of fields of study students in Utah can pursue.
King said students and youth in the state deserve someone in the governor’s office who will stand up for them and their special interests.
“I have a greater opportunity to continue to highlight issues that Utahns care about, and that I think, quite honestly, are being ignored or being put on the back burner too often, because we don’t have as good a diversity of political opinion and policies across the state as I would like,” King said.