Candidates for Utah attorney general debate at Southern Utah University

Oct 1, 2024, 8:33 PM | Updated: 9:01 pm

Candidates for attorney general, left to right, are pictured in this screenshot from the Utah Debate Commission's debate Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 with Rudy Bautista (D), Derek Brown (R), Andrew McCullough (L), and Michelle Quist (UU). (Utah Debate Commission)

(Utah Debate Commission)

BY EMMA KEDDINGTON

Former Producer/Reporter

SALT LAKE CITY — Four candidates for Utah’s attorney general position took the debate stage at Southern Utah University Tuesday evening in the election to replace current Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.

Listen to the full debate here 👇

According to polling numbers released by the Utah Debate Commission, Republican Derek Brown is leading the race at 43,6%, Democrat Rudy J. Bautista follows at 26.8%. Michelle Quist of the Utah United Party is polling at 7.8% and Libertarian W. Andrew McCullough is polling at 6.3%.

A transcript of portions of the debate has been modified for brevity and clarity.

MAURA CARABELLO: Why do you want this job? And why are you the most qualified person to be Utah’s next attorney general?

MICHELLE QUIST: When I was a little girl, I would sit at the floor of my grandfather’s chair and look up at his service revolver and medals that hung on the wall. I would ask him questions about his service. He was in the FBI under Hoover, in Vegas when the mob started. We would ask him to tell us stories, but he wouldn’t tell us any. He wouldn’t sensationalize or politicize his service because politics do not belong in law enforcement.

That is why I am running for Utah attorney general. The Utah attorney general’s office has been politicized for far too long. It has become something it never should have been up for sale. And some on this stage want to keep it that way, but I don’t. I want to reform the office. I want an attorney general with an independent voice to return integrity to the office.

RUDY BAUTISTA: I’ve been a defense attorney here in the state of Utah for 25 years. Prior to that, I served as an officer in the United United States Navy and also in the Merchant Marine. I’m running for attorney general because I’ve had enough. Just like most of us of politics, of politicians, and as the good old boy system, we need someone in the attorney general’s office who understands that the job is one thing only, and that is to protect and serve the people of the state.

Not the legislature, not the governor, not any corporations or special interest groups. I am the only candidate that has refused to accept any financial contributions. I’m doing that to ensure that we have no position whatsoever, that the attorney general can be beholden to any donor and want to make sure that the office is run with integrity and honor.

DEREK BROWN: I’ve spent the better part of this year traveling all over the state. I’ve had… Thousands of conversations with people about this specific role which you’ve heard so much about. And there are three themes that emerge in all of those conversations.

People want someone who will protect the most vulnerable, including children… From issues like federal government overreach, and will protect the state on issues involving crime and some of the things that we have seen.

My background is not only in law firms and working with judges, but I also have experience working in the political arena. Because fundamentally, this is a position that involves politics. But more important than that, it’s a position that involves leadership, setting a vision and a direction for what is the largest law firm in the state of Utah.

ANDREW MCCULLOUGH: Next month it’ll be 51 years that I’ve been practicing law in the state of Utah.

I say that because you have to retire at age 75 if you’re a judge. I’m 76… so I have more legal experience than any judge in the state of Utah. I’m pretty pleased with myself on that, actually. And I tell the judges sometimes when they disagree with me, what I see the attorney general’s office needing to do is… A kinder, gentler government.

I would like to see the government of the state of Utah be kinder and gentler to its citizens. I would like law enforcement to understand… that the bill of rights is [not] something to avoid, to get over, get around, but to cherish. And I want to see individual rights supported.

Role of the attorney general

CARABELLO: What is the proper role of the attorney general in state government? Is this office a check on the governor and the legislature, or should they be working in tandem with those branches?

BROWN: Because my fundamental philosophy of government is that the genius of our system is that we have power not given to the right person, but diffused among many people, not just within the branches, but within the actual branches themselves.

In the Executive Branch, we have a check on the governor and the other branches, which is the attorney general. The attorney general is independent and that’s the way that it should be.

I fundamentally view the attorney general as responsible to the people who elect that person. There are 43 states like us. Some states actually appoint the attorney general. That’s not something that I would support because I think fundamentally, you are accountable to the people that put you in that position.

And if the voters are the ones that elect the attorney general, the attorney general is accountable to the voters.

MCCULLOUGH: The attorney general is independently elected in Utah, and I’m here to be heard on my ideas. If I should by some miracle get elected, I’m not going to be beholden to somebody who disagrees with me.

I think that the attorney general can do a lot of things. I think he can go to the legislature and he can say this law that you’re about to pass is dumb. He can also say that it’s unconstitutional. He can also say that it’s too expensive.

He can also say a lot of other things to try and talk them out of it. And then if it has to be defended, he can certainly use his bully pulpit again to explain to the courts what is necessary. I don’t think he has to do exactly what the governor tells him to do, and he certainly doesn’t have to do what the legislature tells him to do. He needs to make his noise, and I intend to make noise.

QUIST: The attorney general is one of the five elected executive officers, constitutional officers in Utah, and as such, she should represent the people of Utah.

And we have not had that in decades. We have not had an attorney general speaking to the people of Utah explaining what the legislature is doing. We saw that with Amendment D. We saw [the] legislature put a proposed amendment on the ballot that was confusing and actually deceptive to the people.

And we had a silent attorney general say nothing, absolutely nothing. We need a nonpartisan, independent attorney general who is willing to speak up and say to the people of Utah, this is what the legislature is doing, this is how it will affect your rights, so that the people can then engage with the legislature. We don’t have that because we don’t have an independent attorney general. That’s what we need.

BAUTISTA: The attorney is to do all of the above. When laws are passed that are constitutional, the role of the attorney general is to defend them.

The role of the attorney general is to work with the politicians to make sure that the laws are drafted properly and are following the will and dictates of the people. But the role of the attorney general is also to keep them in check.

Unfortunately, time after time, laws are passed that are unconstitutional and they deprive us of our constitutional rights. Both federal and state ones. And the attorney general has been nothing but a puppet for the last three administrations.

Wasting our taxpayers money litigating cases that should never have been litigated. Outside counsels should never have been hired. This has all been a waste. And as attorney general, their role is to protect the citizens, and it’s also to protect the pocketbooks of the citizens and to bring an end to frivolous lawsuits.

Ballot initiatives

CARABELLO: Recently there has been some controversy around ballot initiatives and the power balance between representational government, which is our legislature, and direct to people lawmaking. Is it important to maintain unfettered, non repealing citizens initiative rights?

BROWN: One of the hallmarks we talked earlier about, the hallmarks of our system of government, and that is that you have an AG that is separate and apart from the government or the governor, rather, and they act as a check and balance.

Another check and balance that we have is that direct initiative process that we have where people can pass laws and then the elected officials can amend, alter, repeal and change those laws. We’ve seen it go both ways where they’ve been. People have passed something, the legislature’s amended it and vice versa.

For over a century, we’ve had this system of checks and balances in place. I think it’s healthy. I think it’s essential. One of the concerns I had is the supreme Court decision that said we’re going to take it back. So I was very supportive of the legislature convening to specifically give the people of Utah the ability to decide if they wanted to reinstate that. And there were a lot of people really concerned about giving you, the voters in Utah, the right to make that decision. I had no concerns with that. I still don’t.

MCCULLOUGH: I was on the committee that ran the civilization forfeiture initiative several years ago, and I was on the committee that ran the marijuana initiative and we won both of those. And it was terribly important.

Civil forfeiture, taking government taking of property is just a terrible idea. And the idea of ruining lives over marijuana when we’re surrounded by legal states is a terrible idea.

The legislature came in and whitewashed our efforts in both cases and I was frustrated about it. But this particular time, the one that’s recently the Supreme Court says, look, you went too far this time.

This particular initiative was to change the form of the government. And that’s more important than the marijuana thing or the civil forfeiture, and you can’t undo that. And I think that was a brilliant decision. I read it carefully.

QUIST: What Mr. Brown just said is completely wrong. For over a century, Utahns have had the right to use the initiative process to reform government without government infringement. M for over a century, that means that the legislature cannot come in and repeal or amend.

That is what the Supreme Court held. The legislature did not like that. And they put an amendment on the ballot and they deceivingly wrote a ballot language that didn’t explain to the voters what they were voting on. That was deceptive. And they didn’t even follow the constitution institution that required them to publish it for two months before.

For any attorney in this state, much less on this stage, to support that is ludicrous. That’s all I have to say.

BAUTISTA: To all forget that as a republic, a democracy, we are accountable to the people and the people only. Absolutely. Citizens have the right to change the law and to enact the laws. A

nd many of our key issues, abortion rights, for example, should be left to the public in a whole, not the representatives who many times go against their own constituents. We forget that legislatures, sometimes they barter. Hey, vote for this now. Vote for that. It’s a game.

And when we are dealing with rights of people and the wishes of people, the buck stops there. The voters should have the final say, and that is the law. That is what many people have sacrificed. Whether it was to get the right to vote, whether it was for civil rights, whether it was defending this country in wars. Too many have sacrificed to let it go.

Calendar access

CARABELLO: Will you make your calendar open to the public?

BROWN: Absolutely.

MCCULLOUGH: Yes.

QUIST: Yes.

BAUTISTA: Yes.

Closing statements

BROWN: I am running for four reasons. Alex, Zach, Eliza and Spencer. Those are my kids.

What kind of state are we going to leave to them? We are at a critical juncture here in Utah and just and nationally.

What we do in the next few years will have a major impact on the kind of state that we give to our children. Is it safe? Is it effective? Is it prosperous?

I have earned the respect and the trust of leaders like our former governor, and they have endorsed me. People like the former governor have endorsed me because they know that I’m someone that can do this. As attorney general, my hope is that I can earn a your trust as well.

MCCULLOUGH: I want to reiterate my thanks to the commission to bring me into this. When you guys called me on the phone, I asked if it was a joke. Are you really calling a libertarian? Yes, we really are. And we really want to hear from you.

Thank you so much that you have been listening to me.

But what I want to continue to do is to preach for freedom. I want to continue to preach the Bill of Rights.

I want to continue to preach kinder, gentler government. I want to continue to preach less oppression. If I were to spend four years doing this, I want people to say at the end of it, I feel more free than I did when Andy got in. He’s really accomplished something and he’s helped me live my life the way I want to live it. If I can even do a tiny little bit in that respect, I will be the happiest man around.

QUIST: You need an attorney general who will represent you. Not D.C. lawyers, not lobbyists, not political insiders. It doesn’t even matter who the attorney general is running for the partisan office.

We need an attorney general who is independent, not one who has a campaign funded by dark money lobbyists, big tobacco, big oil, or other big companies or developers with a history of our attorney general’s campaign.

These type of donations concerns me. We need reform. I’ve given you examples of the type of attorney general campaign of a type of attorney general government that we could have with independence.

BAUTISTA: When I graduated college, we had a saying… loosely translated, to judge a person by their deeds, not their words.

My entire life, whether going to a service academy, whether being commissioned as an officer in the Navy, whether going to law school and working as a public defender, and then going on in private practice and being a successful business owner, has all been dedicated to one thing, serving the rights and protecting us all.

I will continue to do so. I would like to bring the same thing to this state and bring a cloud of shame away from us. I believe, from what I’ve heard, all of us wish to do that, and I’m proud that we’re all here doing such.But I ask the people, the voters, to judge us by our actions. And I’ve demonstrated an entire life of protecting and defending, and I will continue to do so as attorney general.