Dear Delegate,
I want to give you a view into what has made me who I am.
I learned first-hand the destructive power of socialism while living in Czechoslovakia just after the wall fell, and I saw the people left to rebuild after decades of total government control.
What I experienced was a society whose economic, moral, and social fabric had been shredded by decades of government intrusion into every aspect of people’s lives. Families had been impacted, communities destroyed, businesses wiped out, private property seized.
As a candidate for U.S. Senate, I want you to understand more about me than you can learn through 3-minute speeches and shiny ads produced by slick political consultants. I have those too, but I know they tell you very little about who I really am.
Here we stand today, in the United States of America, with a government whose actions have already done much to destroy the moral and social fabric of society, and are threatening to finish off the economic underpinnings of a once thriving middle-class. Small businesses have been strangled by massive overregulation and inflation, on the heels of government edict declaring the operations of big donors “essential” and most others “non-essential.”
Our Founders would have been horrified at the level of trust many today choose to place in government. Our system was established to ensure that power checks power, but too many have decided that is an unseemly process.
And thus we find ourselves over $34 trillion in debt, adding another $1 trillion every 100 days, with some Americans still fearing disagreement as more harmful than actual moral and physical destruction.
I live in a town in Utah founded by my third great-grandfather, Ebenezer Brown. My parents were born and raised in Utah. I was born and raised in the same area of upstate New York where Ebenezer was born.
My parents always taught their children to work hard. I started delivering newspapers on my bike as a young teen, early in the morning before school. I babysat, waitressed through high school, and paid my way through college.
I came to Utah to study at BYU 36 years ago, later graduating in political science from the University of Utah. No rivalry there, in my house!
Shortly after returning from Czechoslovakia, my husband and I were married, over 31 years ago. Understanding the fact that this state is great because of our strong and stable families, and prioritizing family in our own lives, I stayed home and raised our five boys for over 20 years, even when it wasn’t financially easy. And I was engaged in my community.
As my children grew, I started writing for conservative politicians all around the country, and about ten years ago started working for the Utah House Majority and later, for Senator Mike Lee.
Wow, did I learn a lot about public lands! And a whole lot more. These experiences allowed me to even more deeply understand policy and more importantly, policy within constitutional constraints. I learned from the best.
After all, the Constitution is simply the document that protects us from the power and force of government. Unfortunately, we’ve reached a place where too often, those we elect don’t view it that way. And the more of our economy the government drives and subsidizes, the more regular people begin to enjoy destructive dependency as well.
I had a conversation not too long ago with a gentleman about my age, from an inner city back east, as he drove me in an Uber. Somehow, we ended up in a conversation about public lands. He was shocked to hear that in Utah the federal government controls ⅔ of our lands. He was horrified as I told him stories of individuals imprisoned for relatively minor violations on federal lands, and even prosecuted for use of private lands in ways the federal government wanted to control through convoluted reasoning re. WOTUS (Waters of the United States).
By the time our drive was over, he was fully on board with getting the federal government out of the land business in Utah. He had, in his own experience, seen government overreach within his own community, and he had seen it ruin people’s lives around him. Sometimes, we just need to know how to talk to people and how to help them see why our concerns aren’t that different from theirs.
Near the end of the Trump administration, while working for Mike Lee and with individuals and businesses around the state, I repeatedly heard about contingencies being put in place on the chance that Trump were to lose the election. Ranchers, miners, and those in the oil and gas industries all knew that their ability to function would be significantly impacted by administrative policies from the executive branch (president). This is not the way this nation was meant to operate.
My husband and I chose to raise our family in Utah. We love this state. Our ancestors sacrificed to build this society that has provided such opportunity for so many, for so long.
I’m a Utahn because I chose to be. It’s where my roots are. It’s where my family’s roots are. It’s where my values are widely shared by the people around me.
As I talk with delegates in communities around the state, it’s easy to see that this is a state with broadly shared values.
My personal life is illustrative of the culture of Utah, which begins with responsibility and stability within our homes. It begins with a fundamental focus on God and family, hard work, love and service to neighbors, the seeking of knowledge and truth on the journey, and a willingness to build a community of competence based on these values.
For too long, many in our society have looked to Washington to solve our problems rather than turning inward – to ourselves, our neighbors, our communities. This has weakened our culture. It has broken down what once was strong.
The tide must be turned and there is only one way to do it – to build from within. As we build from within ourselves, our families, our communities, and then our state, we WILL become stronger.
Government is not the answer. It was never meant to be. The U.S. Constitution lays out the governmental framework for human flourishing and progress, if we will only respect it.
I spoke with a Republican recently who told me he doesn’t like talk of the Constitution and while he’s not willing to do the work of changing it, he wants his elected officials to defy it. That is not ok.
We must expect more of those we elect.
Our nation will only survive and thrive with the expectation of integrity, both among The People and among those we elect to represent us. Politicians who speak soothing words while defying their own constitutional limitations betray every single American.
In order to do the hard work of turning this country around, we must elect those who are willing to stand strong in the face of opposition.
We must elect those who fundamentally understand the basis for our Constitution and aren’t so easily confused by narratives driven by lobbyists or those seeking greater governmental control.
We must elect those, not who are interested in “getting things done,” but who know how to “get the hard things done.”
This is not a time for more politicians.
This is a time for regular people who’ve done the real work in their own communities. People who’ve seen the swamp and who’ve consistently defied it.
And for that reason, I hope you’ll vote for me, Carolyn Phippen for U.S. Senate, to work with my former boss and friend, Senator Mike Lee, representing you in Washington.
In just the past few years:
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I led the first working group in UT on state solutions to fight Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), successfully.
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I was a part of the team fighting back against Utah legislatively expanding Obamacare.
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I’ve advocated for 2A protections in the state, both at the legislature and behind the scenes.
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I was part of a multi-group effort to support and pass legislation in UT banning vaccine passports, i.e. the presentation of medical records in order to engage in commerce.
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I worked with friends to fund/implement a texting campaign to all registered Republicans in SL County to encourage the SL Co Council to overturn the mask mandate. We also worked with mayors to encourage them to publicly speak out against the mandate.
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I brought Harriet Hageman to the state a month before her congressional win in WY to speak about her work protecting individual liberties against federal encroachment.
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I brought FL Secretary of State Cord Byrd to the state to meet with elected officials about his efforts re. election integrity/data security in FL over the past two decades.
I am committed to working hard for you as your next U.S. Senator, and as a convention-only candidate, I need your vote. I am asking for your support at the State Convention on April 27 so that, together, we can do the hard work necessary to restore this nation.
For a Better Nation,
