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In this interview, Rebecca Casper narrates how her background led to her involvement in politics. She also explains how her approach to her office is affected by her religious beliefs. She relates the struggles of being in politics and dealing with others in government while striving to live the gospel. This interview was conducted on August 3, 2021, by Jordan Gygi, a BYU student majoring in political science.

Jordan Gygi: Thank you, Mayor Casper, for joining us. I’m so excited to hear your insights. Before we jump into the questions, would you mind just giving us a brief background on yourself, where you grew up, a little bit about your family, your education, that kind of thing?

Rebecca Casper: Sure. So my family moved around a lot when I was younger, but I did graduate from high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and received a scholarship from the Elks National Foundation, which allowed me to go to BYU and have all four years paid for. It was a four-year scholarship, and that allowed me to live on BYU campus my freshman year and take classes. I majored in political science. I wasn’t ready to leave campus, wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to grad school or if I wanted to go to law school. I had intended to go to law school, but Dr. Gary Bryner in the BYU Political Science Department, who has since passed away, invited me to do some research for him, and I think that was the beginning of me understanding more about academia. And so I did eventually scrap my plans for law school, and I pursued a master’s degree. I worked with the BYU Washington Seminar program, served an internship while I was an undergrad and then another one while I was working on my master’s, and just really couldn’t get DC out of my blood. I think they call it Potomac fever.

Anyway, I moved to DC after graduating with my master’s, and from there I worked at the Brookings Institution, which was another good foray into academia. Dated one of the interns there who became my husband and moved back after spending a year there. I did research there for Dr. David Magleby, who was at the time working on a book that Brookings was publishing. And so that enabled me to have that job while I was in DC. But when that wrapped up, I moved back to Provo where my fiancé—and then soon-to-become husband—was working on his undergrad. It turned out he was the one who went to law school. He went to Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley, and there, after working on campus as a temp for one year, I decided to throw in and try to get into their grad program. I was accepted and started the UC Berkeley political science program, where I focused on American government, methodology, and public law.

We had two children before I was able to walk across the stage and graduate, but thanks to the advent of email and that ability to start doing things long-distance electronically in the early to mid-nineties, I was able to move away and work on my dissertation research after my coursework was done, and I worked on that and raised my family and finished my degree—walked across the stage pregnant with child number three.

We then moved from where we were living there, where my husband was in law at a firm in Phoenix, Arizona, to his hometown here of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Had one more child, and life was good for a while there. Then I got very involved in the community. We divorced. I had to turn all of my community connections into not working for free anymore and was able to teach adjunct at a technical college and at an adjunct spot at BYU–Idaho. I also created a small one-person LLC consulting firm doing some political consulting. And eventually all of that work and some volunteer work in the community led to my run for mayor, and I now am finishing up the second term as mayor of the city of Idaho Falls. My children are grown and all involved in higher ed or their careers in some way. So life has been pretty darn good, and I owe a lot of it to the experiences I had in the BYU Political Science Department.

Jordan Gygi: When did you first become interested in politics?

Rebecca Casper: Well, I don’t know if politics is the exact draw. I think for me—and I know this might sound a little pretentious, and I definitely don’t mean it to sound pretentious—but for me, I think leadership was the draw. When I was in third grade, the elementary school that I went to had a form of a student council that required a representative from each classroom. And so the teacher had an election, and I got to be the president of the class and go to the student council meetings. Unfortunately, we moved after only one student council meeting, and so I didn’t get a taste of student council again until the sixth grade in Oklahoma City. But I was my class president then, and I don’t really remember having much responsibility, but that was sort of a thing for me, running for stuff. Seventh grade we moved back to Phoenix at that time, and I ran for seventh-grade vice president, and then I was the student body president of my middle school in eighth grade.

My freshman year in high school, I lost. I remember the feeling of just this hot flush came over me as I realized my name had not been read over the announcements. And I got flustered and was really embarrassed, and I found that I had to sort of recover—not just from that little moment, but recover my ego or sense of self, you know, identity or whatever. And that year, I had to learn to work with my friends who were all elected and be a volunteer. And that was probably a very good thing for me. It was humbling. And I went on to serve in vice president positions—no longer had the courage to run for president—and served in vice president roles my sophomore and junior year, and then my senior year I ran for student body president, and that gave me a taste. And I tried to do things like have leadership training for the junior high kids and have all the high school kids teach that. I also tried to get ourselves a seat on the school board as a student rep, you know, to give the adults who were running things a taste of what students were all about. So for me leadership was a big deal.

When I was at BYU, I ran for a student body office. Back then it was called ASBYU, and the class office that I had was vice president of community services, and again that was formative because I had a chance to meet the folks in the community and all the way up to Salt Lake City. Got a chance to work with the United Way and just a large slate of programs that required volunteers in order to be successful. We had students all over the place, and I had a chance to really learn the value of service in the community. And of course, it wasn’t political service, but it was human service, and that was again, really important in terms of creating in my mind an understanding of how community works. Then, to me, political science as a major seemed like the thing to do, because that’s what I thought leadership was. Then I learned that there are a lot of aspects to American government that are not related to leadership but more to understanding the various institutions at play in a community.

Jordan Gygi: Did church teachings influence your decision to become involved in politics at all?

Rebecca Casper: I won’t say that directly. I will say that when I have found scripture that has focused on leadership, on church organization, on things that are very related to government—and there are several chapters in the Book of Mormon that touch on this—but when I find those, I have felt validated. I will say that. And I have felt like the work of serving people and helping people to move forward is a part of God’s work. It’s not revered or given much credence by nonmembers or by members who think government is a leech on the system and tax dollars are annoyingly collected and all of that, but I do think that there are many times when the work of running a community is very similar to the work of managing Heavenly Father’s children in other settings. So again I’ve felt validated by church teachings. But I can’t say that church teachings made me say, “OK, I’m going to run because goshdarnit, that scripture told me to run.” It’s been a little bit more the other way around.

Jordan Gygi: How does your religion affect your approach to your office as mayor?

Rebecca Casper: I’m sure that there are things that are affected that I’m not even aware of. I also am sure that, despite my convictions and my desire to perform in ways that model integrity, there are folks who don’t even know that I’m a member of the church. And part of that may be because I actually try consciously not to weave Latter-day Saint culture into my language. And so as I’ve tried to maybe be a little more broad or more inclusive with the terminology that I use. I think that causes some people to not hear the common buzzwords, and so they don’t realize that I may be, in fact, a member of the same church as they are.

So with that I will also say that I try to be very fearless and bold because I know that the Lord has had my back enough times that if I go down in political flames, you know that expression, I know that everything’s going to be OK. So maybe for me as a person, my moment may be hot and no fun, but the long run will be fine because Heavenly Father will take care of us when we do. He does take care of you when you make the right decisions. And if that means, you know, I have to endure something I don’t like because I’ve made an unpopular but morally correct decision, it’s like having that heavenly safety net. It’s OK. It’s going to be OK. And I think that gives me, perhaps, more courage. And maybe that expression, “the courage of my convictions,” that’s how I live. The courage of my convictions. I know that Heavenly Father has my back, and I know that sounds a little trite, but maybe it captures what I’m trying to say.

Jordan Gygi: Have you ever had a situation where what you believe personally is in conflict with what your constituents might want?

Rebecca Casper: Yeah. I will give you an example and then explain how I resolved it. And it may not be to the satisfaction of many who will read this in the future, and for that I apologize and hope that everybody will understand that my goal is a good one, right? But the whole issue of gay marriage used to be cut-and-dried. In fact, the previous mayor was also a member of our church, and I worked on his first and second campaigns; he served for two terms.

And there was a prominent woman in our community, who is a lesbian, who wanted to support his campaign with a donation. And I said to him, this was back in, like, 2005, “If you take money from her, then you may be put into a position of having to cultivate a political relationship there, and you may not want to do that.” And so almost like I was saying, “Don’t touch that with a ten-foot pole. It’s too messy.” And I gave him that advice. Well, you know what, sixteen years later, that woman is a dear friend, and I feel such affection toward the soul and the spirit that she has that I can’t believe that I was not open to who she was because of my interpretation of, then, church teachings. Over the years, our church, I think, has gone through a lot of internal discussion, right? Members have had lots of discussion about what it means to be LGBTQ and a member of our church and what our church’s stance is on various things and marriage.

When I became mayor, I had the privilege of marrying people. And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever, and I participated in some weddings. I try to give churchy kind of advice to those young couples or old, sometimes older, second-marriage couples, but when I was asked to do an LGBTQ wedding for two women, I was absolutely torn and didn’t know what to do. I sought some advice from our city attorney who also happens to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I sought some counsel from other members of the church—just wasn’t sure what to do. And ultimately I did perform the marriage, and part of my attitude was I can, maybe, “Render unto Caesar.” You know, this is a civil ceremony. It’s a civil union. And legally that was allowed after a Supreme Court decision, right? But I also began to, I guess, evolve somewhat in my application of church doctrine, and I go back to the most fundamental teachings that we find from the Savior in the New Testament where he teaches us to love one another. And I’ll tell you that I’m getting a little emotional because I’ve had so many members of the LGBTQ community who need love, who have been rejected, pushed out, pushed aside, judged so heavily in their lives that they need and they deserve the privilege of knowing what it’s like to have the Savior’s arms around them. Acceptance is so important. I have seen people or known of people and known at least one person who’s committed suicide because their life didn’t have accepting love in it or enough accepting love that they were able to feel that penetrated whatever shields they had built up. I don’t want to be a part of that kind of judging, and so I felt as though my ability as a mayor to perform a civil ceremony conferred a measure of social acceptance upon two of Heavenly Father’s children. Whether their choices ultimately prove to be the best ones is not for me to judge. And so that is sort of where I’ve landed. It’s not where I started, not at all. But that’s an evolution in my thinking and an application of an array of church teachings. I don’t know if that gives you a good example of what you were looking for, but that has been a struggle and a period of growth for me.

Jordan Gygi: How has your approach to interactions with constituents and other public office holders been affected by your religious beliefs?

Rebecca Casper: Wow! If I want to give myself an F on the report card of being a good public servant/member of the church, that would be where I get one. There have been political decisions made by our state legislature or maybe by Congress that have made daily work here in the city difficult. And I get so grumpy and I’ll say, “Well if that stupid representative hadn’t done that, or if—” and it’s like I’ve thrown aside everything I just said about people needing to be treated with love and respect, and suddenly I am just this snarky little political operative blaming people in other offices for their choices. So I definitely struggle with that—not to anybody’s face but when I am sitting here in the office dealing with the consequences of a legislative action. And I have found that there are people in political life that I have to work closely with across the state, some of whom make choices or have political values that are so opposite mine, that I’ve had to have talks with myself about, you know, “OK, wait a minute, Rebecca. This is one of Heavenly Father’s children,” or, “Maybe you need to pray before you go have that meeting or that conversation,” or, “You need to sweeten up,” you know. And I’m constantly having to work on my attitude about certain political actors. And so anyway that has been a struggle for me, and that was what jumped into my head when you asked the question.

Jordan Gygi: Thanks for sharing that example. As a woman in politics, do you feel you get treated differently by church members?

Rebecca Casper: Not as a whole. As a whole, for example, I will tell you that my ward is incredibly supportive, and they in fact will take advantage of knowing that I have information that can help them take care of something or solve a problem. There are, I’d say, some individual members of the church here and there who have been less supportive, who will think that because I am divorced that it’s OK to say, “It’s OK since you’re divorced that you have a career in political office,” or, “OK, it’s good, but don’t get any ideas about running for anything else, because that wouldn’t be appropriate.” So, yes, the answer is yes, it’s happened. But it’s less and less, and I think that it’s from folks who maybe haven’t tested the breadth of the church’s teachings; they’ve interpreted them narrowly. So I’m not worried about it.

Jordan Gygi: Along the same lines, what challenges have you faced as a Latter-day Saint woman in politics?

Rebecca Casper: I was all set to be very criticized for being a divorced woman. And my ex-husband agreed, even, to put my campaign sign in his yard just to demonstrate that that wasn’t going to be an issue. But we did think that there was going to be a political opponent who was going to make light of, you know, “Failed marriage, failed—she’s going to fail in something else.” So I was worried about that. But that hasn’t been an issue. I think for the most part in Idaho, it’s like Utah north. Particularly in eastern Idaho, there are plenty of folks who are aware of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I don’t have a lot of explaining to do. However, there are some folks who had negative experiences with members of the church. And so when they find out that I’m not going to judge them, they’re grateful, and they are like, “Hmm, I didn’t think Mormons could be that way.” I’ve done a little bit of ambassador work here or there. I wouldn’t call it missionary work, but maybe just being a good example or an example of a different way to apply the gospel. So, yeah, there have been some interesting experiences here and there, but nothing to write home about.

Jordan Gygi: Thank you. What lessons have you learned about politics that you would like to share with young Latter-day Saints considering involvement in politics or a career in government?

Rebecca Casper: I took a class at BYU. I think I ultimately may have dropped the class, but it introduced me to a professor who, again, I guess I’m old because everybody I’m talking about has passed away, but his name is Eugene England. I believe he was one of the founding members of Arbinger, which is a very successful organization today that helps a lot of people discover some really good tried-and-true principles as they lead. And this same Eugene England gave a talk—it was, in fact, this talk that made me want to take the class from him, even though it ended up not being a good fit for me—but he was admonishing the audience, which was all college students, young people, to let their morality shine as an example to the world. And I loved that imagery and that idea that the music of our morality can be a beautiful thing in this world.

And I would say that public office in this country today, it needs so much more than it has right now. Right now, public service and public dialogue is infused with anger. It’s infused with selfish notions of my rights and not your needs, right? “It’s my view and no compromise.” And so many themes that are divisive and not conducive to the presence of the Spirit to my mind or to my way of thinking. And I want young people to know that we need their unbridled hope and faith in something greater than even, you know, a community or a government enterprise. But they need to bring that to public service, and we need to bring it in droves to flip the conversation to make our political and our community surroundings positive and capable of achieving something more than just an angry dialogue.

I’ve gotta find the right words for this. Clearly my elevator speech on this one isn’t fully formed. But you've got me thinking, and if I had an audience full of people who were all poli-sci majors who checked a box somewhere that said, “I want to run for office someday,” I would have lots of advice about, you know, things to study and things to do. But number one, bring your hope, bring your enthusiasm, bring your youth and energy, and bring that music of your morality to the whole thing, to the effort that you’re going to be a part of, whether it’s something where you have to train in law or you have to train in police work or you have to train in firefighting or you train in—whatever it is that you want to do in your public service. Bring it and step up and get active, because we need that now. Don’t wait until you’re forty. Don’t wait till you’re fifty to think, “That’s when I’ll do it.” Do it now. Do it now.