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SALT LAKE CITY — In a distinct shift in tone in the 4th Congressional District race, a new TV commercial from Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, goes after Democrat Doug Owens for his involvement in a legal battle that ended a decade ago.
The 30-second spot that began airing Tuesday accuses Owens, an attorney, of having "teamed up with Rocky Anderson and a radical environmental group to sue Utah and stop Legacy Highway in the middle of construction."
Saying the 2001 lawsuit filed by Anderson — then the mayor of Salt Lake City — the Sierra Club and Utahns for Better Transportation cost taxpayers millions of dollars, the commercial ends with the message: "Doug Owens. He's not on our side."
Owens labeled the commercial misleading in an interview with KSL Newsradio's Doug Wright and said he "stood up for ordinary Utahns who wanted to make sure that highway got built according to the law."
His actions resulted in "a better and safer highway," he said. "I'm proud of what I did."
But Love told Wright that Owens' "track record shows he's more on the side of big special interest and environmental groups." She said the lawsuit left "Utah taxpayers on the hook" for the expenses associated with delaying the project's start until 2006.
Work had started on what was planned as a six-lane freeway in 2001 despite opposition over wetlands and other environmental issues, but it was stalled by a court-ordered injunction.
The project resumed with a larger price tag after an agreement was reached to build a four-lane highway with a lower speed limit and restrictions on trucks, as well as a large nature preserve.
The TV commercial marks the first time Love has run a negative ad against Owens, who came within 5 percentage points in 2014 of winning the seat that had been held by Rep. Jim Matheson, a seven-term Democrat who did not seek re-election.
In the 2014 race, Love frequently criticized Owens for negative campaigning because he focused on statements she had made during her unsuccessful run against Matheson two years earlier.
But last year, her campaign manager, Dave Hansen, said this would be "a more aggressive campaign, depending on what he does. I think some of his positions and some of his past may need to be brought out."
Owens spokesman Taylor Morgan said it is surprising that Love would launch an attack ad, especially at this point in the race. "If anything, it shows that Mia Love's campaign must be worried."
However, Hansen said that's not the case. "Absolutely, it's not because there is any downturn in the polls or anything like that," he said of the decision to run the commercial.
A UtahPolicy.com poll released last month gave Love a 13-point lead over Owens and the race was recently moved from being categorized as a toss-up to "lean Republican" by the Cook Political Report, which monitors races nationwide.
University of Utah political science professor Tim Chambless called the new Love commercial "a curious overreach" because it deals with a 15-year-old controversy that mainly affected another congressional district.
Even Anderson, a controversial figure during his two terms as mayor, has been out of office since 2008, the same year the Davis County highway opened, Chambless said.
"That raises a question, why, why run this ad? Apparently, it's because they don't have anything stronger to run against him or they'd run it," he said. "What it tells me is that their internal poll indicates the race is a lot closer."
Anderson, whose picture appears next to one of Owens in the commercial, called it "a very cheap, deceptive political ploy" and said while he supports Owens, he doesn't remember his involvement in the legal fight.
