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In this interview, Ben McAdams relates how he became interested in politics and what spurred him to a career in public service. He explains the role he played in attempting to bridge divides between Salt Lake City and the Utah Legislature, as well as between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the LGBTQ community. He also discusses the challenges he faced in representing a primarily non-Latter-day Saint constituency in downtown Salt Lake City. This interview was conducted on September 3, 2021, by Richard Davis, BYU professor emeritus of political science.

Richard Davis: Could you tell us about where you grew up, where you went to school, and a little bit about your family as well?

Ben McAdams: I grew up in West Bountiful, Utah, Davis County, just north of Salt Lake City. My mother was a schoolteacher. My father was a used car salesman and was oftentimes unemployed. And so our family struggled. As a child I remember times where our power was shut off, where our home was in eviction proceedings, and, you know, we had some financial struggles as a kid. My parents divorced while I was on my mission, but even leading up to that I remember financial challenges where we were lucky to receive support from the bishops’ storehouse to make ends meet and help from the ward to get our family through some tough times as a kid. And because of my mother, I came through my childhood with a deep love for learning. She always instilled in us a love for reading, a love for learning and gaining knowledge—I expect nothing less from a schoolteacher—but also an appreciation for the support of others and how important a community was to my success.

My childhood would have turned out much differently with a father that was often absent and unreliable and a difficult relationship with him, a strained relationship with my father, if it weren’t for church leaders, priests quorum advisors, Scout leaders who took me under their wings and mentored me and became father figures to me and helped me kind of figure out who I was and the moral compass that guides me. And so that really, I think, instilled in me, like I said, first of all, a love for learning, an appreciation for the blessings that I have, and an appreciation for the community that sustained me and my family through difficult times.

Richard Davis: But you went on to go to the University of Utah and then Columbia. Is that right?

Ben McAdams: Yeah. So I graduated from high school. Most of my friends from high school, my neighborhood, and my home ward did not go to college. I did go to college; I went to the University of Utah. I had to work my way through college and lived at home with my mother. My parents were divorced then. I worked usually two or three jobs at a time to make ends meet, to pay for gas, car payments, and tuition. It really was an exercise in discipline and working hard to get ahead and commitments and persistence to get through college.

It was partway through my college that I heard about an internship program—the University of Utah, through the Hinckley Institute, had internships in Washington, DC, and so that really sparked my interest. I was studying electrical engineering at the time but wanted to do that DC internship. So I was able to do that internship. I interned in the White House—in the press office of the White House—and came back with just a love for public service. I came back and started volunteering for campaigns and getting more and more involved politically, and ultimately changed my major to political science and then went to law school—Columbia Law School.

I served a mission in Brazil. Part of my political awareness and my political underpinnings come from that time in Brazil. And then married my wife, Julie. We went to high school together. We had been good friends at Viewmont High in Bountiful. And I think we’d gone to one dance together, a high school dance, but we weren’t girlfriend and boyfriend. But it was after I got home from my mission that I was interested. We started dating. She was not interested, and she went on a mission, and she came home, and it was when she came home from her mission that we were both interested in dating each other at the same time. So we started dating and ultimately got married and moved to New York, where we both attended Columbia Law School. And after finishing law school, we stayed and practiced law in New York. We were there about a total of seven years before we returned. Our twins were born in New York, and we returned home to Utah in the end of 2006. We now have four kids. So our hands are full as parents, and raising kids, and everything that comes with that.

Richard Davis: When did you first become interested in politics? So it was really this internship, or maybe it was before the internship? What prompted you to even want to do the internship?

Ben McAdams: You know, I actually think I first got interested in politics when I was on a mission. So I’m in Brazil. I’m seeing the utter poverty walking through the favelas out in the Brazil São Paulo East Mission and seeing the poverty. And then seeing the differentiator that I started seeing with people were these small things that just gave people a leg up and an opportunity in life. First of all, access to a good education, right? And I thought back on my mother and her instilling a value in me of learning and seeing that many times in Brazil people didn’t have access to a good education. There were certain things that maybe meant that they could get a better education, but oftentimes if they didn’t get a good education, they were left behind.

Then access to basic services. In Brazil, when I was there, nobody had telephones because a telephone cost five thousand dollars. You had to pay to install the line to your house, like some people today may have to pay to get fiber to the home, right? In Brazil you had to pay to buy a telephone line and get that telephone line installed to the house. And if you didn’t have five thousand dollars, you were limited in the type of jobs you could have and the prosperity. So just that lack of just a little bit of capital foreclosed so many opportunities for people.

And I came back with ideas of seeing how people can work as hard, but you have to have an open door, and the closed door oftentimes will negate the hardest work and persistence. And so, I felt in my life I had open doors and opportunities, and it wasn’t without hard work on my own and a persistence and a belief in myself that I was able to see, but I also knew that there had to be something on the other side.

I came back wanting to pursue a college degree, but it wasn’t something that I could afford. And thankfully I was able to tap into Pell Grants and low-interest student loans that made it possible for me to go to college. And still that wasn’t enough. I still had to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. But if it weren’t for some of those little, tiny cracks in the door that meant the door was open, it still wouldn’t have been enough. But I saw that in Brazil. And I just came back with this perception that I wanted to be part of helping people to lift themselves.

Richard Davis: It sounds like because of your mission you concluded that people needed both internal resources but also external resources in order to make it, and those external resources included the church but also other resources.

Ben McAdams: Societal, yeah. Societal resources. And those resources, I think, pay dividends, right? I mean, I look at my life and how much, if nothing else, how much I paid in taxes because I was able to get student loans and Pell Grants, student grants. As a young student I was able to go to college and go to law school and give back, you know. I repaid those grants that I received many times over because of the opportunities that were afforded to me because of that.

Richard Davis: So did your mission, then, or maybe other influences from prior to the mission sort of influence what party you affiliated with?

Ben McAdams: Yeah, I think both my childhood and upbringing, probably a little bit being marginalized, not fitting necessarily into the mold of the perfect family. I was sensitive and attuned to the others who maybe didn’t fit, felt like “the other.” But then also just—whether it’s upbringing as a child of a schoolteacher or what I saw in Brazil—I just felt that there was a role for government to help to create opportunities to open doors. You know, government can’t do it all, but they can do small little things that open doors and create opportunities for people. So I saw that on my mission—probably more saw a lack of that on my mission and what the lack of that meant to people. And then I came home from my mission and benefited from small opportunities like a grant, you know, that helped me to lift myself, if I was willing to work hard for it.

Richard Davis: And when you worked at the White House?

Ben McAdams: I don’t know that I would have said at the time that I was a Democrat, but it probably shaped my perceptions in a way that made me, I would say, a centrist. I felt that government has a role. It can’t solve everything, but it does have a role. And that probably made me where I am—a centrist, moderate Republican, conservative Democrat—but believing there’s a place for that role and a place for government as limited and that you don’t supplant individual hard work and self-reliance, but you make sure that that hard work is rewarded with opportunity.

Richard Davis: So who influenced you? You said you worked in the White House, but what leaders, religious, political, influenced you in terms of your career and your faith as well?

Ben McAdams: So the day that I arrived in Brazil on my mission, they picked us up from the airport, and they took us to the mission home, and James E. Faust was at the mission home. He was an apostle, speaking to the church then, and it was the first time I’ve ever met a church leader in person, and so he became a bit of a celebrity to me, and as I read up on him, he was, of course, a Democrat. I would say—his teaching, who he was, the life he lived—became an early influence on me as I was trying to figure out my philosophy of the world and where I fit into it. That was a meaningful experience for me.

Let me just take a second on my mission just generally, and why I believe that was such a life-changing event for me. As a kid who grew up without financial means in a family that didn’t fit the perfect mold, I left on a mission feeling like I was subpar—that I, you know, did not have the personal background or means to be equal to everybody else. And you get out there on a mission where you are stripped from the socioeconomic status of your family. You’re all wearing white shirts and suits, and it doesn’t matter where you come from or if your father is important or not. And I got out there, and it was just me, and it came down to, “Was I willing to work hard and put in the time to do the job well?” I went out with a self-defeatist attitude and realized that I could actually do anything that I wanted. I wasn’t behind. Not only that, but I could do anything that I put my heart into. And so the mission also shaped me in that sense, to realize that I wasn’t a victim, that I could shape my own identity and shape my future through hard work. That was really an experience that mattered to me.

I came home from my mission, and I’m studying electrical engineering at the University of Utah. I was really good at math and science, and I loved math and science. So I thought, “Well, you know, looking at my financial instability as a child, this is a great career, one that can be reliable, and I’m going to go into that.” And I got into it, and I kind of realized I didn’t really love it. I was good at it, and math and physics just came naturally to me. In fact, I got an A in quantum physics. So that was the highest level of physics that I took, and my quantum mechanics professor was one of my letters of recommendation for law school. But I didn’t love it. I missed the human interaction and wasn’t in love with that. But I was taking a Political Science 101 class that was just an elective that fit a general requirement. And that class was taught by Dan Jones, a prominent pollster who just passed away. Dr. Jones became a mentor and a friend to me, and I loved his class. I just loved every part of his class.

It was January 1997. Bill Clinton had just been reelected to a second term as president, and Dan Jones said, “Clinton’s second inaugural is next week, and I want everybody to watch it.” And I was sitting next to a good friend of mine; we were friends in high school. I went on to become the president of the College Democrats at the University of Utah. This friend of mine went on to be president of the College Republicans at the same time. And he said to me, “I work for Delta Airlines, and I can get us a buddy pass, and we can fly to Washington, DC, and we could go to the inauguration.”

I’d never traveled, other than my mission, out of Utah. We jumped on an airplane without a place to stay, no money really to stay in a hotel. But we flew to Washington, DC, hustled up some tickets to the inauguration, and I thought, “Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit our nation’s capital.” And I went with this friend of mine, this Republican friend of mine. We went to the inauguration and experienced one of our sacred events of democracy, from a political perspective, of the inauguration of the United States president. It was a really impactful moment for me, and that’s, I think, where I cemented my interest in going on and doing an internship. And just one thing after another—opportunities to work on campaigns and to be involved in politics and public service.

Richard Davis: So you said you came back to Utah from New York, and it was about that time that you must have decided to run for office. It wasn’t long thereafter that you did run for office. Tell us about that and why you decided to do that.

Ben McAdams: Yeah. So I had been practicing law in New York. We came back to Utah, and I was practicing law with a firm here in Utah. So I had done my White House internship, and then also while I was in the U, I did an internship with the Utah legislature. I’d gotten to know a handful of people, and I’d stayed in touch during the time we were in New York. So when I moved back, I was practicing law with the firm Dorsey & Whitney here in Salt Lake City, and Ralph Becker was elected mayor of Salt Lake City. I had known him from his time in the legislature when I was a college student, and Ralph approached me and said that he was building out a team. And Salt Lake City is known to have a usually contentious relationship between Salt Lake City government that is less in the center, more liberal, and the state legislature that’s more conservative, and even some antagonistic relationships with the church, you know, just based on some of the politics from that. And Ralph said that he wanted to heal those divisions. He wanted to be a mayor that governed, that got stuff done rather than always being a “culture warrior.” He wanted to heal some of those divisions and work on behalf of the city, and he asked if I would come and work for him as his director of Government Affairs and External Relations. And, you know, I thought at the time, “What a great opportunity; a city in a state that I love—to be in the middle of that charge of healing a relationship between Salt Lake City and the LDS Church and Salt Lake City and the legislature!” It just spoke to me, felt like a calling so to speak, right? And I said, “Yes, I’d love that opportunity.” I went home and told my wife that Ralph Becker just offered me a job to be his government affairs person, and she said, “That’s great. What does it pay?” And I said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve already accepted it, but I don’t know what it pays.” So my wife says that I’ve never been offered a pay cut that I didn’t take. It did turn out to be a pay cut, but I was interested in the job of public service and interested in this opportunity.

There aren’t a lot of people who are both active members of the church and Democrats who can be in this space to heal and be part of this dialogue, and so I felt like I had a unique skill set where I could give back to my city and my community. And that was the charge, and I took the job, and it pretty quickly got very difficult. So one of the things that Ralph Becker had campaigned on was that if he was elected mayor of Salt Lake City, he was going to propose ordinances to protect against discrimination in housing and employment against LGBTQ people, right? You couldn’t be fired from your job or evicted from your home if you’re gay. And he announced that this is one of the things he was going to be pursuing, and my second day on the job I got pulled aside by a state senator who stuck his hand on my chest and said, “You’re working for that new mayor. You tell him that if he goes ahead and does that, I’m going to run legislation that will overturn those protections. We don’t want those here.”

And so, with the charge of healing a divide between the legislature and the church in Salt Lake City, we had a pretty big issue that was going to be really hard to handle. And the way this maybe would have been handled in the past is Salt Lake City gets on a soapbox, pushes it through, it gets overturned by the legislature. It’s a big food fight, and that’s the end of it.

And I just thought that there will be consequences to that—to a food fight like that. First of all, I think of the divisions that would be driven into families, right? Of a harmful dialogue instead of a healing dialogue about maybe an LGBTQ member and their family of faith, and I didn’t want to see that division come into those families. It would be harmful for our state, our tourism, and our business. It would be something that would make national headlines of overturning those protections, and so I went to the mayor and said, “I don’t think these should be overturned. I think we should take the time to do this thoughtfully and to build the support so that it can be lasting.”

So I started traveling the state, meeting with state legislators in their homes, in greasy spoon diners in their districts and talking to them about it, and really found three groups, I would say. The first group said, “We’re going to vote to overturn it.” But I found another group of lawmakers who said, “Really? You can fire somebody because they’re gay? That doesn’t sound right. I didn’t know you could do that; that sounds wrong.” Even if they said they’re not supportive of LGBTQ people, they shouldn’t be fired from their job. And I found a third group of people who said, “I think local government should be able to do what they want to do. I wouldn’t want that in my community, but if Salt Lake City wanted it, they should be able to do that.” So we built support. I talked to people at the church; I was talking with their attorneys. I was talking with the Chamber of Commerce, the business community, talking with Equality Utah and advocacy organizations to try and find that middle ground that could get everybody on board.

When Salt Lake City adopted these protections, it was November of 2009. The first person to speak in support of these ordinances was a representative of the LDS Church, and the second person to speak in support was a representative of Equality Utah. People had been used to food fights and now suddenly we had a success. And so it was about a month after that that my state senator, who was openly gay, announced that he was resigning from the legislature. I announced that I was going to run for his seat. And so I somewhat jokingly say, “The district that elected the first openly gay state senator in Utah turned around and elected its first openly LDS senator in forty years.” And I’m the first active member of the church to represent Temple Square in my lifetime. And that was kind of my launch into public service, and I came in as somebody with the reputation of a bridge builder, a good listener, who could find and build consensus on hard issues.

Richard Davis: So you won that election, and then you later ran for mayor of Salt Lake County, right?

Ben McAdams: Yeah. In 2012 I ran for mayor. It was a tough year. Salt Lake County is a Republican county. Mitt Romney was running for president, so a lot of people said that with the Romney coattails it meant I had no chance of winning. I campaigned on my reputation as a bridge builder, someone who had proven myself reaching across party lines to build consensus on difficult issues, and I went on to win that election by 10 percentage points.

Richard Davis: Did you feel like this bridge building was really kind of an extension of, for you, the gospel?

Ben McAdams: I think that’s what we are charged to do—to see the best in others, and that’s where I would always start with somebody who disagrees with me. I’m always going to start with giving them the benefit of the doubt. We have different ideas about how to best serve our community, but I don’t have all the answers. But my motivations are pure, and somebody who completely disagrees with me and thinks my ideas are awful, they disagree with me because their motivations are pure also and they want to do what’s right for our community. I think in politics you can learn from people who agree with you, people from your own political party and people from different political parties, and I’ve always found that that exercise of building consensus usually means that my ideas get better, and our solutions that we propose get better by listening and forging consensus, rather than an arm wrestle where the strongest side wins. When you listen and work to build a consensus with broader support, our ideas get better, and our solutions are more effective and more lasting. And I do think that stems from my background as a member of the church. On a mission that’s certainly what you do, is you listen and learn and try to find common ground with people who are coming from different perspectives, and what a great training for politics!

Richard Davis: So you had lots of decisions to make as a state senator, as a member of Congress, as a mayor. Did you seek inspiration in order to make these decisions?

Ben McAdams: I always asked for inspiration. Because my faith is such a strong underpinning of who I am. But I tell my kids that God is not a helicopter parent. He doesn’t micromanage us in everything; he wants us to learn. A good parent is going to allow their kids to make mistakes, to do things that are stupid, and not dictate every move that we should make. So I don’t ask God where I should go for breakfast in the morning, what tie I should wear, you know. And some things I think he expects me to study out in my mind. It’s not meet that we are commanded in all things; we study it out in our minds and try to make the best decision we can, and he’s going to let us succeed or fail and learn from our mistakes.

And so I always ask for inspiration. I also expect and understand that he wants us to do the best we can after seeking learning and knowledge from every resource that we can find to make the best decision we can. And sometimes they’re going to be bad decisions. Sometimes bad decisions have consequences, and we learn from our bad decisions, and we come back and try to do better. And in my public service I certainly know that I’ve made mistakes. I’ve cast votes or made decisions that I regret, and that’s on me. I don’t think that’s because I was lacking inspiration. I always ask for inspiration, but I believe that ultimately I’m responsible to make decisions that I believe are right.

And that’s where I think reasonable people who seek inspiration in their public service can arrive at different conclusions, right? I mean, that’s the process that our Heavenly Father wants us to go through, and he does want us to learn through trying different ideas, trying different solutions—some that work and some that fail. The process of life is one of learning from our own mistakes, and in order to learn from our mistakes we have to be allowed to make mistakes.

Richard Davis: What is the role of religion for a representative who wants to get inspiration and wants to do the right thing that the Lord wants them to do, but at the same time they have to represent a constituency?

Ben McAdams: Yeah, I think sometimes it’s hard for the public to understand. My faith is foundational to who I am. It is the lens through which I see the world; it’s the life experiences that make me who I am today. And you’re never going to separate my faith from my character and my decision-making, and the basis for which I make decisions. When I am serving as a public official, I’m not elected to represent my faith. I’m elected to represent a constituency, not all of whom are members of my same faith. And so, while my faith is the foundation of my character, and that’s the foundation of my life experiences, and how I view the world, and that informs my decisions, it’s different than when I’m acting in the role of a public servant. I represent the people of Utah, the people of my district, the people of my county, and I’ve got to make the decisions that are, I believe, in the best interest of that broader constituency. So I think that it’s important to separate. You know that sometimes the church as an institution has perspectives on certain pieces of legislation, tax policy, or things that aren’t really gospel but certainly affect the institution. And I would always say the church, just like the University of Utah or Delta Airlines, another major constituent entity of mine, is always welcome to share its opinion, and I’ll take that seriously, and I’ll take that into account. But then I need to make a decision based on the constituency that I represent. I’m not making a decision as a member of the church. I’m making the decision as a public servant, and that’s the lens through which I need to ultimately make that decision as what’s best for the constituency. And it’s nuanced, right? And politics isn’t always a place where nuances are welcomed or tried. But some people would say separation of church and state. Well, you’re not going to separate the life experiences of a mission and a childhood and the life experiences that make me who I am. You can’t take that out of me, but I also recognize that. The church has never come and told me, “We want you to vote this way.” But if they did, I’d have to look at the totality of circumstances and make a decision that was right for the constituency that I was elected to represent.

Richard Davis: Did you face a conflict in representing between your religious faith and what your constituents wanted? Was there a situation, and, if so, how did you deal with it?

Ben McAdams: Yeah, I think, maybe two. First of all, I talked about those nondiscrimination ordinances, right? And, as originally proposed by the mayor, the church had issues with them. They wouldn’t have supported them as drafted, and if I had just said, “The church opposes it; therefore, I’m out,” Salt Lake City would have still adopted those ordinances; they would have been shut down by the legislature. Utah would have made national press and got a black eye for rescinding the right for people to not be fired from their job if they’re gay. So, rather than say, “I’m going to ignore my church,” or “I’m going to blindly just shut down the discourse on this,” I said, “I’m going to continue to engage—figure out how to make it fit. How to satisfy legitimate concerns raised by the business community, legitimate concerns raised by people of faith, and legitimate concerns for people who just wanted to put a roof over their heads and provide for their families.” We’ve got to be able to figure all that out. So that was probably a conflict early on, and I stayed at it until we resolved the conflict.

Another one that I would say is always coming up in Utah is alcohol policy. I’ve never had a drink of alcohol in my life. I represented Salt Lake City and then Salt Lake County—a lot of people who drink alcohol. And I tried to find the right policy that stops underage drinking; we don’t want to promote underage drinking. Whether you drink or not, we have to agree that it’s not good for teenagers to consume alcohol. We don’t like drunkenness or drunken driving and some of the other negative aspects of alcohol, but find a way that allowed those adults who chose to drink do so responsibly. And it was also another one where the right answer is hard. There are conflicts in that case between my perspective as a member of the church and the constituents that I represent. My answer was always to stay at it until we find a way to satisfy legitimate concerns and to reach consensus and agreement.

Richard Davis: Did you have church members come to you and assume that because you were a church member that you were going to take a particular position that you, as you just described, maybe you didn’t take because you were representing the broader constituents?

Ben McAdams: Yeah, I think, maybe. You know, as a Democrat in the church I’m always a little bit of the black sheep, all right. I’ve always lived in great wards with people who—they know me, they know my wife and my kids, and so I don’t feel that we’ve ever been necessarily—what’s the word? shunned—because I’m a Democrat. So I think probably on that level they probably expect me to be the “heretic” because I’m a Democrat already, so low expectation on that level. But I think where there may be preconception and prejudice about what attitudes I might take primarily come from my fellow Democrats who think that I’m going to toe the party line on a particular issue and are surprised when I don’t, right? When I became, as a practicing member of the church, a straight married father, a returned missionary, the chief negotiator for Salt Lake City on LGBTQ protections and housing and employment, people were surprised at that, right? They didn’t expect that. They expected me to take a different path. And I’m actually proud of that path.

If we hadn’t succeeded on that, I think Utah would have charted a different course, right? Utah has been held up now as a model, nationally, of a conservative state with deep commitment to faith that has found a way to make space for people, for LGBTQ people. I don’t believe that faith and allowing somebody the dignity of a job and putting a roof over their head are inconsistent. And we’ve proven that with the support of apostles in the church. We’ve proven that we can figure that out, and if we can do it in Utah, I believe we can do it elsewhere. So, you know, I’m proud of some of that public service that I think has been a service to my church, service to my faith, and to the state of Utah that has helped us. I’m proud to have been one of several people who were part of charting of a different course for our state, and actively deviating our trajectory in, you know, a positive, conclusive direction.

Richard Davis: So what lessons have you learned about politics and public service and government that you’d like to share?

Ben McAdams: You know, public service has its own rewards, and I have a few memories of people or places that remind me of why it’s worth it. So here I am—I just lost a major election, and there are times, right after that election, where I think, “What did I do? I just spent thirteen years of my life in public service, and what do I have to show for it? I lost an election at the end of the day.” But then I think about it, and I look back on some of the places where I made a difference, people who I impacted—probably people who never know that I had an impact on them, that don’t know my name, don’t care, may not even vote, but I had an impact for good on them.

An area that I think about with this is some of my work around homelessness and addiction. I was a strong proponent as mayor for creating opportunities for treatment for people who are in addictions, many of whom are homeless and suffering from substance abuse and substance addiction. I was able to double the size of our treatment program and get hundreds of people into drug treatment. And because of that, there are hundreds of people today who are sober, reunited with their family, working, productive members of society whose lives are better. And that’s why you do public service; because you can have an impact, and that is its own reward.

In fact, one of these people, a woman named Destiny Garcia, I got to know because we arrested her as part of our homeless operations. She was a heroin addict. Destiny is now a close personal friend of mine. I’m also close friends with her son, who she reunited with. And he served a mission. I was at his wedding. You can have an impact, and it’s incredibly rewarding to know that you can do some good, open some doors, create opportunities for people who otherwise wouldn’t have them, and change the trajectory of their lives for the better. And that is its own reward, and that’s why you do public service. And it doesn’t matter at that point if you win or lose an election, to just know that you’ve been able to help somebody have an opportunity that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

I would just say, regardless of your political leanings—Republican, Democrat, Independent, United Utah—I would say, recognize that most people in public service are doing it for the right reasons. There are bad people in every party, but most people are doing it for the right reason. And there are good ideas, and there are good people in every party. So if you’re thinking of running, I would encourage it. If you just are a voter, I would say, please vote for the person. Get to know the candidate, look past the party label, and find the person who is authentically trying to do the job for the right reasons and cast your vote with the person, not the party.