By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
With Utah’s new congressional maps in place for the 2026 election, candidates are working to adapt to the new districts. For Congresswoman Celeste Maloy, this means switching districts to the new third congressional District as she looks to maintain her seat in Congress.
Maloy joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss her reason for running, her platform and what she aims to accomplish if reelected.
Opening our discussion, Maloy spoke about her switch in districts,” I guess the biggest thing is that I live in the new Third District. And I know this has all been really confusing to people because we had four perfectly good districts, it’s not a census year, and it’s not what we normally redistrict. But there was a lawsuit by a special-interest group, and the state basically lost. And then the judge selected the amount drawn by that special interest group. And I was part of a lawsuit to stop it in federal court. And we didn’t prevail in federal court either. So, we have these new districts that nobody really asked for.”
She continued,” I live in Cedar City, and Cedar City and Carbon County are all in the 3rd District. I’m excited to be introducing myself to a lot of new people. And I’m new to some of these counties on the east side of the state. But I’m not new to these issues because they’re a lot the same as the other rural counties in the state, with land and water, and just the issues that come with being rural and having a long drive to get everywhere.”
Before her service in Congress, Maloy served as a deputy county attorney in Washington County, a Public Lands Attorney for the Utah Association of Counties, and a Staff Attorney for the Washington County Water Conservancy District. Most recently, she served as the Chief Legal Counsel to Congressman Chris Stewart. Maloy explained how this experience has benefited her during her time in Congress, and how it can continue to benefit her.
“I came into Congress in a special election, which means I came in the middle of a Congress. And so I didn’t have a freshman orientation. I didn’t come in with a freshman class. And that experience I had working for Congressman Stewart made it so that I could hit the ground running and get a lot of things done. I’ve been in Congress for just a little over two years now. I have five bills signed into law. That is really rare,” the Congresswoman said. “And I just got elected to be the chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus. It’s the second biggest caucus in the House of Representatives.”
Maloy added,” It gave me the background in how Congress works and how to get things done that’s benefiting my constituents and Utah in general. One of the bills I passed allows us to hold federal court in Moab and Monticello. So if you’re on the east side of the state, you don’t necessarily have to go to Provo, Salt Lake, or St. George for federal court anymore. And that makes life a lot easier for people who are witnesses or involved in a trial, or even want to sit in the court and observe a trial. It makes the legal system much more accessible if it’s somewhere in your neck of the woods.”
With the unique landscape of the third congressional District, which spans parts of 18 counties, balancing the interests of rural and urban areas is key. When asked how she would look to achieve this balance, Maloy stated,” It’s a huge district. I think it was drawn to be difficult to represent. But I live in rural Utah. I’m used to spending a lot of time on the road. And I’m going to be traveling a lot, making sure that I’m getting to everywhere and talking to everybody so that I can hear from people what they need and they can hear what I’m doing. I think that’s really important.”
Moving to her campaign platform, Maloy first discussed her goal of unleashing American energy. “We have all the resources we need in the United States to produce even more energy than we use. But because of government policies, we are not producing all the energy we could produce. And with the AI revolution, the need for energy is just going up and up. It’s one of those hockey stick curves. And instead of relying on our enemies or even some of our allies for energy, we need to be doing it ourselves.”
Continued the Congresswoman,” And the benefit is not just that it makes us independent from other countries, but it means it creates jobs in Utah and keeps our economy stable. We’re not producing our own energy. Energy prices get higher. And when energy prices are higher, everything gets more expensive, from groceries to buildings to the things you order from Amazon. So, it’s one of those underlying factors that impacts almost everything.”
Another issue Maloy has pushed heavily for is control of public lands. Throughout her time in Congress, she has pushed several pieces of legislation forward regarding the matter. Maloy explained why this continues to be a sticking point for her: “I’m on the Natural Resources Committee. I’m also on the Appropriations Committee. But the subcommittees I’m on are the Energy and Water Subcommittee and the Interior Subcommittee, which are the ones that have jurisdiction over public lands … I’m making sure that I’m putting myself in all the places I need to be to be able to impact public lands policy. Because it is super important in Utah. The majority of our land is managed by the federal government. That means when we’re doing mundane, routine, local government functions, we have to go through federal processes to do them. And that makes everything so much more complicated than it needs to be.”
Switching gears, Maloy spoke on defending the Second Amendment,” it’s one of those underlying, fundamental principles that everything else depends on. When our Founding Fathers were putting together a Bill of Rights, that’s the second one they put in, that we have the right to keep and bear arms. And that’s important because it keeps everything else in balance. An armed populace can hold its government accountable and ensure it has the ability to defend itself. If we lose that, we probably lose all the rest of them. So, it’s important to me to make sure we have that foundation in place so that we can have healthy institutions that function and a government that defends the rights of an individual, not the other way around.”
The final key issue Maloy discussed was immigration and securing the southern border: “To be a sovereign nation, borders have to mean something. And for four years during the last administration, our border meant next to nothing. And you can’t defend the principles of this country, or the ideals of this country, or even implement things like the Second Amendment if you don’t have control over who and what is coming across your borders. And so we have to have that border under control so that we’re acting like a sovereign nation so that we can implement our own system of government. I mean, it is just a bedrock principle that everything else has to depend on.”
Closing our conversation, Maloy explained why she believes that voters in CD-3 should vote for her during this election cycle: “When I ran in that special election, I told people, I don’t have a voting record yet, but I have a track record. And you can see how I’ve been spending my time and what I care about. Now, two years on, I have both a voting record and a track record. And if the people in the new CD3 look at my voting record and my track record, they’ll see that I’m not just talk on these issues. I spend my time and my energy focusing on strong rural economies, on making sure we’re using our own natural resources, on holding the government accountable, making it smaller and more transparent. And those are the things that I know people in Utah care about.
She added,” I guess the reason for them to vote for me is that I care about the same things they care about and I’ve spent my life working on the things they care about.”
To learn more about Maloy and her campaign, visit celesteforutah.com.
This article does not serve as an endorsement for the candidate featured. All candidates in the 2026 election cycle are entitled to one free interview. To schedule, email news@koal.net.