Gary Herbert

Current city of residence: Orem
Family members: wife, Jeanette
Current occupation: Utah County Commissioner

Using 150 to 200 words, please state your reasons for running for governor. What compels you to take on this tremendous responsibility?

My unique perspective as an executive official in a county allows me to see the underside of governmental decisions, as it were.  I recognize that the state has budgetary difficulties and needs to manage itself as it sees fit, but many of the maneuverings the legislature engages in, rather than solving the problem, just pass the costs of fixing it to the counties, where they end up in the laps of the taxpayer anyway. 

We’ve been very successful as a county in keeping government lean, making it responsive, and encouraging job growth, and these are things that are sorely needed on the state level.  We need a governor that knows how to make government work.  That’s what I’ve been doing, every day, for the last six years.

As a candidate for governor, what are your key campaign messages? 

There are three key things we have to do in this state:

1. We have to encourage economic growth
2. We have to boost our transportation capability
3. We have to increase our education capacity

Obviously, these three are intertwined.  If we increase our economic growth by reducing regulatory burden and boosting entrepreneurial activity – small business growth being the fastest and surest way for overall economic production to increase – we will take in sufficient revenue to fund our road and transportation projects, and keep our children learning.  If we have the right mix of transportation infrastructure – this includes mass transit and toll roads, as well as the information transportation infrastructure – business can grow more easily and diffusion of educational opportunities can increase.  If we have a well-educated workforce, labor costs stay low and business growth is encouraged, and we have the thinkers necessary to solve our transportation and education problems in the future.

Three things to keep in mind:

1. It will take a 5% growth in state GDP to reach the necessary revenue targets.  We had that from 1994-1999.  We can have it again.  We have a plan for how to get there.
2. Traffic jams are not going to be solved with more state-built roads.  Toll roads, local and regional airports, mass transit, and fiber-optic capability are going to be necessary to handle the economic and vehicular increases from 1 above.  We have a plan for how to make that happen.
3. The goal of the education system is educated kids, not per-pupil expenditure rankings, test scores, or some other artificial mark on the wall.  Pouring money into any inflexible system will cause the system to lock up.  We need smaller, more adaptive educational systems in Utah including charter schools, private schools, corporate schools, technical institutes, home schooling cooperatives – whatever will produce young adults that can think critically, adapt to a changing business environment, and innovate in our next generation of public problem-solving.  We have a plan to produce this result.

And maybe the most important thing: no governor is going to be able to stand like Moses on Horeb and dictate to the people the solutions to our problems with “Thus Saith the Lord.”  If the governor can’t get participation from all of the groups involved, he will fail.  Look at my track record.  This is what I do best.  It’s a strength we desperately need in the Governor’s Mansion.

What do you consider to be the top three issues currently facing Utah?  Please list them in order of priority to you and your candidacy and explain why they are important to you and to Utah.

See #3 above.  Our campaign is focused on the three issues above in the order we think they are important to Utah – though not necessarily how we think Utahns would rank them in a poll.  Probably a poll would put education first, but life is not a poll.  Instead of asking “what is the most important public issue facing Utah”, if we were to ask “given a choice between having one less child in your son’s class and having a raise of $2,000 this year, which would you take?” we suspect that the vast majority of Utahns would take the money. 

But the great thing is that we don’t have to choose between them.  If we take the class-size reduction the average family loses money, but if the average family gets the raise, then we get the class-size reduction along with it.  This makes economic growth the top issue, whether we realize it or not.  And we can perform the same analysis with transportation and get the same results.  This is why we have ranked our campaign issues the way we have.

The question, though, is asking something profound, and that is “what is the point of all this?  Why is this important to you?” and that is a critical question.  Will our new Governor actually have a vision of what our lives could be like in four years, and will he be able to achieve consensus toward that vision?

I have one.  I can see a Utah where small business growth leads the nation, and where everyone that wants a job can get one or create one for himself.  I can see a Utah where we have the ability to locate a business or a house where it makes economic sense to do so, and where we do not have employees forced to spend 14 hours a week on I-15.  I can see a Utah where every child that wants an education can get one, where teachers feel appreciated and are compensated appropriately, and where we do not simply meet some mystical national standard for bubble-sheet production, but have children that can learn and think and innovate.  I can see this.  I can get the participation of the necessary groups to make the vision a reality.

That’s the Governor’s job.

What are your most important business or political accomplishments? How would those accomplishments help you be a more effective governor?

Under my leadership over the past 13  years, Utah County has received significant positive recognition including "America's Most Livable Community," recognized as Utah's best managed county, and one of the best managed in the Nation by a statewide taxpayer watchdog group.  Under my leadership, Utah County has the 2nd lowest certified tax rate and is the lowest cost county government, per capita, in the State of Utah - all while being the leader in economic growth for the state in the last dozen years. 

I have been elected by my peers as President of the Utah Association of Counties, recognized as Utah's Most Outstanding county elected official, and last fall in Milwaukee, at the National Association of Counties Convention, awarded the Outstanding Republican County Elected Official of the Year.  If I can do for the State of Utah what my peers and I have been able to accomplish in Utah County, everyone should be very pleased with a Gary Herbert administration.

Here’s the salient point – I’ve done this.  On a smaller scale, yes, but I’ve done it.  I’m not extrapolating my legislative experience and saying that would make me a good executive.  I’m not extrapolating my being CEO of a corporation and saying that would make me able to fill a government post.  I’m talking about actually having done the job that I’m applying for.  I realize that I’m looking for a promotion.  But I am making a vertical move in the same field, not a lateral move from some other unrelated department.  I’m not saying that I’ve been a great salesman so I should now be made head of engineering.  Legislation and execution are as different as shearing sheep is different from computer repair.  They both involve using the hands, but that’s about the only similarity.

Post a set of job qualifications for governor the same way you would for any other job, and you will see that there is exactly one candidate in this race that meets them.  Gary Herbert is that candidate.

What are your most important civic or community accomplishments or involvements? How would those accomplishments help you be a more effective governor?

See #5 above.

What skills, talents, and strengths do you have that enhance your ability to be an effective governor?

As I mentioned before, I build consensus.  I don’t dictate.  I can lead, but I lead with the followers in mind, doing the things that we can agree on and get team support for.  We have to face this – and I think neither party is doing this well – that we’re not going to solve problems by steamrolling the infidels on the other side.  Haven’t we learned this by now?

The governor has to be able to speak calmly and rationally and make his case before disparate and often antagonistic groups of people. This is what I have done for thirteen years as County Commissioner.  There are hardly more disparate groups than the people of San Juan County and the Legislature in Salt Lake, but as the President of the League of Cities and Towns, my job was to get those two groups to get together and move toward something they both wanted.  I did this.  It can be done.  It has to be done.  And I can do it in the Governor’s Mansion.

Why do you belong to your political party? Why is your party the right one to lead Utah at this time?

The Republican Party is the party of do it yourself.  That’s a Utah principle.  It’s the party that recognizes that there are rarely any right answers in public policy, but there are lots of wrong ones.  So the Republican Party encourages people to come up with their own solutions, and tries to get government to restrict this process as rarely as possible.

Sometimes this results in some confusion over whether Republicans care about people.  Of course they do, but they recognize that just as one disciplinary approach will work with one child, but a different one is required for another, government cannot impose top-down solutions on people without stifling growth and accountability.  Solutions to our problems come from the place where the problems are, and generally, when government tries to solve them from above, greater problems result.  It’s like trying to do brain surgery with mittens on – you might be able to stop the bleeding in one spot, but you’re going to leave a mess in dozens of others.  The only way to do the job right is to give people the freedom to do it themselves.  That’s a Republican principle.  It’s a Utah principle.  And it’s my principle.