David Lifferth

Early life and career

Lifferth earned his BS in business and information technology from Brigham Young University. Lifferth lives in Eagle Mountain, Utah and works as a business analyst for Family Search.

Political career

In 2012, with District 2 incumbent Republican Representative Lee Perry redistricted to District 29, Lifferth was unopposed for both the June 26, 2012 Republican primary and the November 6, 2012 general election, winning with 10,924 votes.

In 2014, Lifferth ran unopposed in the Republican primary election. He faced Charles Christensen from the Independent American Party in the general election and defeated him.

Prior to serving in the Utah House of Representatives, Lifferth was the interim mayor of Eagle Mountain for two months in 2005. He later became a city councilman and ran for his state-level office in 2012.

During the 2015 and 2016 legislative sessions, Lifferth served on the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, the House Education Committee, and the House Transportation Committee. During the interim, Lifferth served on the Education Interim Committee as well as the Transportation Interim Committee.

Lifferth received national attention in April 2014 when he tweeted that the NAACP is racist because "any group that tries to advance specific people based on their race is by definition racist." He later apologized by saying, "My joke was in poor taste and insensitive to others. I have learned a lot in the past few days. The NCAAP is not a racist organization. My logic was flawed."

In 2016, Lifferth was briefly a candidate for Utah State Senate District 13, but suspended his campaign after the Utah Lieutenant Governor's office concluded an investigation based on claims that Lifferth made against another candidate. The candidate whom Lifferth accused was cleared of wrongdoing.

Lifferth passed one of the seven bills he introduced during the 2016 General Session, giving him a 14.3% bill passage rate. He also floor sponsored SB0139S01 Board of Education Approval Amendments, SCR019 Concurrent Resolution on Education, and SJR014S01 Joint Resolution on Teacher Licensure Standards for the Twenty-first Century.