Congressional candidate asks Freedom Festival to reconsider parade policy

PROVO — A candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives is calling for America's Freedom Festival at Provo to change its policy on political candidates appearing in its annual Grand Parade.

In a June 29 letter to Freedom Festival officials, Democrat Karen Hyer, who is challenging Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said the practice of allowing sitting public officials to ride in the parade while refusing challenging candidates politicizes the event.

The policy also provides an unfair advantage to sitting Republican candidates, who hold all the elected positions in Utah County at every level, Hyer said.

"Sitting public officials such as my opponent, Jason Chaffetz, and others are indeed candidates," she said in the letter. "I suggest you allow all candidates for the same office to appear in the parade, especially those categories which are of concern to large numbers of Utah (residents)."

Freedom Festival executive director Paul Warner said the policy — created several years ago by the organization's board of trustees — makes the parade nonpolitical rather than partisan.

"Our desire is to stay as neutral as possible," Warner said. "We realize that incumbents have some advantages. That's just the nature of our political process. But we're not trying to be political at all. We're just honoring the government officers and leaders by letting them ride in the parade."

While sitting officials can participate in the event, they cannot distribute campaign material, he said.

"We know that most of the incumbents belong to one party, and that's not an issue for us," Warner said. "The issue is, this is the elected person, and they may be running for re-election, but that's not why they're in the parade."

Among the list of reasons Hyer said the Freedom Festival should reconsider its policy is that it "makes a mockery of our First Amendment Constitutional rights."

"I really believe this is a First Amendment issue," Hyer told the Deseret News.

Though Hyer said she believes the exclusion is not intentional, and she does not plan to pursue legal action, she said others might in the future.

"Someday, somebody is going to say, 'Hey, let's put an injunction on this parade,' " said Hyer, who will appear in the parade as a family member, not a candidate. "I think they're leaving themselves open to this type of an approach at a later date."

Warner disagrees.

"We've talked about it from time to time, but we just don't think it's such that it should be a freedom of speech issue," he said. "We're just a not-for-profit group, and (we) don't think that's a situation that would apply."

e-mail: jritter@desnews.com