Policy, Philosophy & Thoughts

Drew in 2007 taking the oath of enlistment for his third term of service, this time changing uniforms and transfering into the Utah Army National Guard. Note: Drew Howells is a medically retired veteran of the United States Air Force, the Utah Air National Guard, and the Utah Army National Guard. Use of his military rank, titles, images, and photographs from his service does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Fo

A healthy society is not held together by economics and law alone. It is held together by meaning, shared stories, creativity, and the ability of people to see themselves— and one another— as fully human. That is where faith, culture, and the arts live. They are not side projects. They are civic infrastructure. I strongly support religious freedom alongside a firm separation of church and state. Faith can be a source of meaning, moral grounding, service, community care, and b

I am not anti-market. I am anti-rigged market. Markets only work when there is transparency, real competition, and meaningful consent. When profit depends on confusion, hidden fees, manufactured complexity, or the fact that ordinary people have nowhere else to go, government neutrality stops being neutral. It becomes complicity. At that point, what we are calling a market is not really a market. It is extraction with better branding. People live with that extraction every day

If our economy runs on someone’s labor, then our policies should make sure that labor buys something back— stability, dignity, and a real path to a decent life. That is the center of how I think about the economy. Growth that looks good on a spreadsheet while leaving working people exhausted, insecure, and one emergency away from collapse is not success. It is deferred failure. Too much of our economic conversation lives in abstraction— markets, productivity, efficiency— with

My position on LGBTQ equality begins with a line I am not willing to blur: human dignity is not negotiable. It is not conditional. It is not something to be weighed against political convenience, public discomfort, or someone else’s theology. Equal protection under the law is not a favor granted by the majority. It is a baseline obligation of government. Utah has a long history of what gets called “compromise” on LGBTQ issues. Sometimes that has meant good-faith coalition-bui