OGDEN — U.S. Sen. Mike Lee has unfinished business.

As a small-government Republican, he first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010, aiming to rein in federal power. “I ran for the Senate the first time because I believe the federal government’s become too big and too expensive, in part because it’s doing too many things that it wasn’t designed to do,” he said.

When government overreaches, he went on, its ability to manage withers, and the situation, in Lee’s view, is bad and getting worse. “In many respects, many meaningful respects, they’ve gotten worse since I’ve been there. I’m running again because I’ve learned a thing or two about how to unravel this mess and I’d like to have the chance to continue to do so,” he said in an interview on Wednesday at the Standard-Examiner offices.

What’s more, he voices concern with the country’s direction under the leadership of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and the Democratic-led House and Senate. Over and over, Lee has cited inflation as the top issue on the campaign trail and he points to the spending of the Biden administration and Congress as the culprit.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

Getting more Republicans in office — Lee back in his seat, ideally a GOP majority in Congress — will go a long way in helping right the ship by putting a check on spending, he says. In Biden’s tenure, the Democrat-controlled Congress has passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, among other measures, and last year spent $7 trillion while bringing in just $4 trillion, Lee said.

“You put the other party in charge of both houses of Congress to stop this reckless runaway spending,” he said.

Lee, from Utah County, is vying for his third term, facing an intense challenge from independent hopeful Evan McMullin. McMullin, who leans to the right, has painted himself as a middleman who will be able to negotiate with both Democrats and GOPers in Congress to get things done, to move past the division that he says is tearing the country apart. At the same time, the challenger targeted what he sees as Lee’s overly partisan, “my way or the highway” approach and support of former President Donald Trump.

Lee has embraced Trump at times, though he also voted against Trump’s position more than most other Senate GOPers, and didn’t backtrack in his support.

“The economy was strong while he was president. The border was secure while he was president. Inflation was under control while he was president,” Lee told the Standard-Examiner.

Also looming in the race have been a series of text message exchanges between Lee and Mark Meadows, then-White House chief of staff, in the lead up to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. congressional vote to certify Biden’s 2020 presidential win. McMullin, pointing to the messages during an Oct. 17 debate, charged that Lee, a lawyer, had suggested to Trump’s White House that it seek out fake electors “to overturn the will of the people” by reversing U.S. electoral vote totals to favor Trump.

In his meeting with the Standard-Examiner, Lee reiterated his contention that nothing of the sort occurred. He heard that officials in some states were thinking of submitting alternate slates of electors to Congress that presumably would favor Trump as the Electoral College vote approached. As such, he wanted to determine if that were the case to prepare.

He spent hours calling officials in varied states, but says he never suggested any of them that they change their electors. No alternative slates of electors were ultimately submitted.

“In no circumstance — in no way, shape or form — did I advocate for them replacing slates of electors… I think that would have been inappropriate and also just be wrong,” Lee said.

RESPECTING THE CONSTITUTION

Lee, whose dad Rex Lee served as solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan, calls himself a constitutional conservative. His view of the U.S. Constitution — as a document meant to check federal overreach — is what drives him politically.

His parents taught him that the Constitution is “there to secure our liberty, and that we need to respect it, we need to protect it and we’re better off as a result of it,” Lee said. By and large, the Constitution serves as “a limitation on government, not on individuals.”

However, the federal power structure has morphed for the worse, Lee maintains, which gets to his aim of reining in federal authority. According to Lee’s philosophies of the Constitution, the feds are only to exercise power in a limited number of circumstances, with the remaining authority resting with state and local government. That dynamic has flip-flopped at the expense of state and local power, he maintains.

At the same time, he said, power has shifted from Congress to the president to “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats within the executive branch, which is also problematic.”

Beyond such wonky discussions, he says the approach McMullin lays out to governing — an independent negotiating with both Democrats and Republicans — is unrealistic.

Being an independent — caucusing neither with Democrats or Republicans, as McMullin envisions — would limit his ability to get key committee assignments if elected since they are controlled by Democratic and Republican party leadership, Lee said. Other independents currently in the Senate caucus with Democrats and he suspects McMullin, if elected, “will go the same direction.”

That gets to another central message from Lee’s campaign — that McMullin, though maintaining he’s an independent despite previously working as policy director for U.S. House GOPers, is actually aligned with Democrats. He’s been endorsed by the Utah Democratic Party, backed Biden’s 2020 presidential bid and, Lee maintains, received $2.5 million from Democratic donors.

“Look, as I’ve said before, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has webbed feet like a duck, in this case, it is a Democrat. That’s what he is,” Lee said.

Countering McMullin’s vision of division and gridlock in Congress, Lee said lawmakers are able to make headway. He said he’s worked with his Democratic counterparts on criminal justice reform and combatting domestic surveillance programs, among other things.

“We pass legislation all the time. It’s inaccurate to describe it as absolute gridlock. The question is not whether to compromise between the parties. It’s where and where not to compromise,” Lee said.