Rep. Celeste Maloy responds to question about Sen. Mike Lee endorsement of opponent

Rep. Celeste Maloy candidly answered students’ questions about her tight primary race at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics as part of the Sutherland Institute’s 2024 Congressional Series.
One student asked Maloy about facing Colby Jenkins in this year’s Republican primary, when she was declared the winner seven weeks after election day by just 176 votes.
Considering Jenkins earned an endorsement from Sen. Mike Lee, who Maloy works with as part of Utah’s congressional delegation, the student asked, “How does that relate to how you work with other members of Congress?”
“The primary is over,” said Maloy, who represents Utah’s 2nd District. She noted that she received endorsements from the entire House delegation, while Jenkins received Lee’s endorsement. “It does make things a little trickier, but Sen. Lee shook my hand and congratulated me on my win,” the congresswoman said.
“The Utah voters chose him. They also chose me. So now we both have an obligation to work for the good of Utahns,” Maloy added. “Politics is a rough sport. Somebody told me that it’s really fun as a spectator sport. It is garbage when you’re a participant — and he was right.”
During the nearly hourlong conversation, Maloy made the case for federalism, even though it felt like a “counterintuitive topic” since she is a congresswoman, as noted by moderator Bill Duncan, a constitutional law and religious freedom fellow at the Sutherland Institute. She also opened up about the lack of faith in Congress, and whether anything can be done to change that.
Maloy stated the government’s purpose is to protect individuals’ freedoms and not let any one branch have too much freedom to infringe on constitutional rights.
But, “It’s the nature of bureaucracies to want to grow; they want more authority … (and) to solve problems that maybe don’t belong to them,” she said. Maloy said she often declines to weigh in on state issues despite having an opinion on them. She does this because she wants to make a distinction between the two levels of government.
Permitting is a hot-button but bipartisan issue in Congress at the moment. Maloy said states are more efficient at issuing permits than the feral government, which often doesn’t meet deadlines due to bureaucracy, incompetence or party politics.
Ultimately, it becomes a burden for taxpayers. One such instance is taking place in Washington County, which Maloy represents. The county, in its transportation plan developed 30 years ago, included a road that passes through the Northern Corridor. Maloy noted a 2009 public lands bill, signed by former President Barack Obama, “provided for this road, but you still need to get federal permits since it goes through federal lands.”
“There are people in federal agencies that just don’t think you should have a road there, and so they don’t issue permits,” the GOP congresswoman said, “and taxpayers are paying for the county to jump through these hoops” by giving the federal agency more information and commissioning studies, all for the said agencies to say they aren’t satisfied. This road gets more expensive over time, especially if legal action is taken.
Her bill, the Full Responsibility and Expedited Enforcement (FREE) Act, seeks to change this. It is a federal permitting reform bill she says will streamline and simplify the permitting process.
The legislation directs federal agencies to evaluate their permits and report to Congress within 240 days with an assessment of whether a permit by rule can replace their current systems or make a thorough justification as to why not.
After the institution of the permit by rule, agencies must grant all permit applications that meet objective permit standards within 30 days.
“This is a huge departure from what typically takes place, with a permitting process that drags on years if not decades for projects that include mines, transmission lines, extraction of oil and gas, and transportation corridors,” as Amy Joi O’Donoghue reported for the Deseret News.
Another student asked Maloy about polls that show Americans have low trust in Congress. “I’m curious, as a member of Congress, how can you reinstitute faith so Americans have more trust in you?”
“The thing that’s beautiful about Congress is we are a true slice of America,” Maloy said. “You have Ph.D.s from Ivy League institutions serving with high school dropouts who started a business in their garage.”
“In that way, we reflect America, and it’s the beautiful part of our system,” she added. “I don’t know all 435 members of Congress, but everyone I know is a fascinating person. … But you put 435 people like that in a room together, we make idiotic decisions sometimes, and that’s just kind of the nature of having a whole bunch of people be part of anything.”
Maloy said she has a “fairly large family,” and it’s even bigger when you include the extended family members.
“Try to get someone to decide where to go to dinner — it’s difficult,” the congresswoman said. “We’re deciding what level of clean air you need to survive, and what vehicle emission standards we should have, and what waters in the U.S. means, and if your kids should be able to get whole milk at school or only be allowed to have skim milk. It’s insane how many decisions we make.”
It’s the nature of Congress, she said. “I don’t know if we will get super high approval ratings.” But, Maloy said, lawmakers need to communicate better with their constituents about their work, and that would help.
This story has been updated.