Christensen reveres 'founding principles'

He next points to two bills — which also became state law — that require the teaching of civics and character in public schools.

"I want our younger generation to assume the rightful place as a well-informed and engaged citizenry — we rely on that for our self-government to work," he said.

Utah high schools have emphasized training students for success in the workplace, which is fine. But civics and character can't be put aside. "We don't teach these things in one class. They are to be woven into everything we learn," he added.

Finally, Christensen has been at the forefront of the Legislature's continuing battle over parental rights.

He became an early advocate for the parents and grandparents of Parker Jensen, a Draper child who wanted to refuse certain cancer treatments after a juvenile court judge ordered the treatments.

Christensen followed up that fight in more recent legislative sessions, even to the point of having one of his more aggressive bills vetoed by GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. earlier this year.

"You have to assume that parents have the right to raise their child to the best of their abilities," Christensen said, and only in cases of clear and present child abuse should the state step in.

The lawyer

A conservative firebrand wasn't necessarily projected by the young LaVar Christensen, born and raised in Southern California to parents who moved from Provo to San Diego during World War II because of his father's military assignments.

The Christensen family settled in Upland, then a small town at the foot of the mountains east of Orange County. His father, Jim, served on the City Council and was later elected mayor.

In 1968, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan asked his dad to run for the California Senate. A teenage LaVar worked the campaign and was fascinated by Reagan when he came to campaign for his father.

But theirs was a Democratic area, and Republican Mayor Jim Christensen lost a close race, he son recalls.

There were but a few things in young LaVar's world — sports, voracious reading of biographies and history, school and church.

"I played basketball and baseball — was on an undefeated high school state champion basketball team."

After high school — Christensen was named the "most wittiest" of his senior class and was class president — he served a two-year LDS Church Spanish-speaking mission in Colorado. The mission area was geographically huge, encompassing Utah's Uinta Basin (where he now stands for election), parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wyoming.