The Conservative Case for Dan McCay
If conservatives are going to judge Dan McCay by his record, they should judge the whole record.
McCay is seeking re-election to the Utah Senate, and like any long-serving legislator, he has votes that make some grassroots conservatives frustrated. SB-54 will always be near the top of that list.
But the conservative case for McCay does not rest on one vote from 2014. It rests on a broader legislative record that is recognizably conservative in several of the areas Utah voters care about most: taxes, property rights, parental authority, religious liberty, school choice, pro-life policy, and resistance to government overreach.
The clearest part of McCay’s record is taxes.
Over the last several sessions, Utah has repeatedly cut taxes, and McCay has been one of the key legislators involved in that work. In 2026, he sponsored SB-60, which reduced Utah’s income and corporate tax rate from 4.5 percent to 4.45 percent. That may sound modest, but it is part of a larger pattern of continued tax relief in a state that has maintained strong reserves and a relatively disciplined budget.
For conservatives, that is a serious point in his favor.
Tax policy is not only about numbers on a spreadsheet. It is about whether government views the people’s money as something it is entitled to keep or something it should return when it can. McCay’s record places him firmly on the taxpayer side of that question.
The same pattern shows up in his work on government overreach.
McCay has repeatedly pushed for stronger legislative oversight of agencies, administrative rules, emergency powers, and surveillance. His record includes bills dealing with administrative rule reauthorization, general oversight, public surveillance, and pandemic-era public health orders.
That is one of the most conservative through-lines in his record. McCay’s view is that government power should be accountable, visible, and limited by elected representatives rather than buried inside agencies and bureaucratic processes.
That approach is especially relevant after COVID, when many Utahns saw how quickly emergency authority could reshape daily life, school, work, worship, and family routines. McCay was one of the legislators who pushed back against that kind of permanent emergency posture.
His property-rights record also deserves attention.
McCay has carried and supported legislation dealing with utility easements, public infrastructure districts, right-of-way disposal, and local ordinances that impose burdens on property owners. In each case, the theme is similar: property owners should not be casually overridden by cities, agencies, or infrastructure schemes that shift costs and control away from the people who actually own the land.
That record will appeal to conservatives who believe property rights are foundational, not decorative.
Then there is the family-policy side of McCay’s record.
McCay has supported policies aimed at giving parents more authority over minors’ online lives. Utah’s social media legislation, including SB-152, was built around the idea that parents should have more control over children’s access to social media platforms, direct messages, nighttime use, data collection, and online harms.
Reasonable conservatives can debate the best way to regulate technology. But the principle behind the bill is easy to understand: parents should have more power than platforms.
That same family-centered instinct appears in McCay’s support for homeschooling protections, educational choice, adoption reforms, and religious liberty in schools. He has supported efforts to protect homeschooling families and has backed a vision of education that gives families more room to make decisions outside the one-size-fits-all district model.
For religious conservatives, his support for religious curriculum and student religious expression is also significant. McCay has argued that public education should be able to teach the historical role of religion and religious liberty in American constitutional government, and that students should not be penalized for expressing religious beliefs in schoolwork.
His pro-life record is also clear. McCay sponsored Utah’s SB-174, the abortion prohibition bill that barred elective abortions with limited exceptions after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
That tells us something important about his worldview.
McCay’s conservatism is best understood as limited-government social conservatism. He wants government restrained when it interferes with taxpayers, property owners, parents, families, and religious expression. He is also willing to use state power on moral questions involving unborn life, children, and the family.
Some libertarians will see tension there. Many religious conservatives will see coherence.
That does not erase SB-54. It does not answer every criticism. It does not mean McCay has never made a mistake or taken a position that frustrated the grassroots.
But it does mean the conservative case for Dan McCay is real.
He has cut taxes. He has defended property rights. He has pushed back on administrative overreach. He has supported parents, homeschoolers, religious expression, school choice, and pro-life legislation.
Voters can weigh the whole record.
And the whole record is much more conservative than his critics often admit.