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KAYSVILLE — Kaysville Mayor Katie Witt, former campaign member for Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, announced Monday she’s running for the 1st Congressional District seat now held by the retiring Rob Bishop, R-Utah.
The mother of three, whose family took in refugees fleeing from Communist regimes in Vietnam and Poland, said pride in country is one of the most motivating factors for getting into the race.
“I think that what really compelled me to run is the need to expand opportunity, preserve freedom and reignite American patriotism,” she said. “We are the luckiest people who walk the face of the earth and people forget that.”
Witt detailed her candidacy plans in a YouTube video.
She said she grew up watching the nightly evening news, appreciating the free speech and free press contributions even more than some because of her father’s job as a reporter for the Associated Press.
“We want families to thrive. Freedom is universal,” she added, pointing to protests unfolding in Hong Kong.
Like Morgan County Councilwoman Tina Cannon, who announced her run at Bishop’s seat earlier this month, Witt stressed she wants to bring Utah values to Washington.
“If we are going to change what comes out of D.C., we need to change who goes into D.C.,” Witt said.
Witt was elected as Kaysville’s mayor in 2017 and served on a city council in Colorado. In 2008, she led Romney’s caucus campaign, which he earned 100 percent of the eligible caucus delegates.
Under her leadership as mayor, according to her biography, Kaysville for the first time developed a 20-year comprehensive road and building plan without raising taxes.
Southern Davis County remains one of the fastest growing communities in the state, and Witt said it is essential the area develops community-wide access to broadband, with a wide offering of Internet providers to increase competition and keep prices low.
Witt said she sees access to broadband through a fiber network is the “Transcontinental Railroad” of modern time that will link people and cultures and foster an even more diversified economy that also allows people to stay in communities with their families.
“Broadband technology is going to revolutionize this country,” she said, adding that a multi-million infrastructure bond is in the works for the fiber network, which includes additional household and business monthly fees for access.
Witt served on the balloting committee at the Davis County GOP Convention and as an elected leader of the Women’s State Legislative Council. She was also elected president of the Kaysville Rotary Club.
Witt said the exploding national debt is a big concern to her, as well as the preservation of religious freedoms.
“I am a bold pioneer,” she said. “I think I am needed in D.C.”
Witt has three children and is married to Dan Witt. Her candidacy website details more information about her.
