Campaign season opens in Utah
House, 16 in Senate up for election in '06
Today is the official start of the 2006 election season, with the opening of the 10-day candidate filing period. If incumbents and challengers don't file by 5 p.m. March 17, they'll have to run as a write-in candidate with little hope of success.
All 75 House members and 16 senators are up for election this year.
Utah is overwhelmingly Republican. And Democrats, who hold less than one-third of the House and Senate seats, have no real chance of winning majorities in either body.
The Senate is especially safe for Republicans. Democrats hold just eight of the 29 Senate seats, and six Democratic districts are up this year. So Democrats will be playing more defense than offense in the upper house's elections.
Spencer Jenkins resigned as Utah GOP executive director last week, and current party chairman Joe Cannon could not be reached for comment Monday.
But House and Senate GOP leaders said during the session that they expect their party to do well, again, in legislative elections this year.
A handful of legislators announced their retirements before the March 1 midnight adjournment of the 2006 Legislature.
In announcing that she's stepping down after 20 years in the House and Senate, Evans, 62, said this week, "It's been a great experience and I have worked hard to represent our many concerns."
Those who have already said they are leaving the 75-member House include: Rep. Brad Johnson, R-Aurora, retiring; Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, running for the 2nd Congressional District; Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, retiring; Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, running for the Utah Senate; Rep. Craig Buttars, R-Lewiston, retiring.
In the Senate, others leaving include Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem, who announced his retirement in January, and Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake, who has said she plans to retire but has not officially announced her plans.
In fact, retirement or death seem to be the main ways an incumbent Utah lawmaker leaves office. In the 2004 elections, more than 90 percent of the legislators who sought re-election won. Polls show most Utahns can't name their senator or representative, so voting historically follows party lines.
State senators have said there is no need for legislative term limits, noting that since 1998, of the 29 Senate districts, 23 are now filled with new faces. But in the more than a dozen changes in the last eight years, only five came from election defeats.
Of the 16 Senate seats up for election, three of them are filled by incumbents appointed to serve out terms of resigning senators.
This year Democrats are toeing a more optimistic line that reflects the national state of politics, where the support for President Bush has plummeted and Republican congressman are expecting stiff opposition in many previously "safe" districts. In Utah, House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said that he hopes that could translate to some upsets in legislative races.
"We would like for people to look really closely at the candidates, and not just vote for a party," Becker said. "This year, we think that could happen."
Jeff Bell, the communications director for the Utah Democratic Party, said that it is "looking like a distinct possibility" that they could field a full slate of legislative candidates this year, something which the party often struggles to do. An added benefit is that candidates are coming to the party, which makes recruitment less of a chore, and it's not just people wanting to run for Congress.
"We have a lot of people looking at the state House and Senate races, and that is an area of focus for us," he said. "It's important to show we have the people out there" who want to serve as Democrats.
In the late 1990s, legislators gave retiring lawmakers a very generous health care benefit — health care for life for the lawmaker (over age 62), spouse and minor children. The Senate is usually filled with older lawmakers, who have been retiring at much greater pace than the younger House members. A House-sponsored bill to take away those retired lawmaker health benefits died in the Senate this past session.
Rob Latham, chairman of the Utah Libertarian Party, says his party will target selected "swing" districts in an effort to defeat GOP candidates. Latham says on several fronts the majority Republicans in the 2006 Legislature did not help Utahns achieve more fair and representative elections.
But no third party has held a Utah legislative seat since the 1920s.
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; jloftin@desnews.com
You can be the first to comment on this story.