Wayne Holland: A Lifetime of Politics

By Greg Jarrard

         Wayne Holland didn’t have a chance. The die was cast. His political proclivities were set at an early age, and they didn’t waver. By the age of 6, he was on his way to become State Democratic Party Chairman. Barely out of kindergarten, small enough for his dad to carry him on his shoulders and still too young to read the signs in the back of his father’s pick-up, the boy was helping his dad put up signs for a Salt Lake attorney by the name of Cal Rampton. It was 1964, and they were looking for high-profile locations on the city’s west side and at intersections where workers stopped on their way to work. Little Wayne was steadying signs while his father pounded in the stakes. It was his first foray into politics. And it must have been addictive because the now-party chairman hasn’t stopped.

          “I came from the Labor movement. I was born and raised in a mining community into a working family and was part of a community where 17 of the 21 homes on the street were headed by a parent who worked at the copper mine facilities. I was always the champion of the underdog. Over the years, I worked on voter registration efforts, got involved in support of the Solidadnosc’ movement in Poland and the workers fight against Soviet communism and in the fight against the apartheid policies in South Africa. I was the child of a miner, went to work at the smelter and the concentrator and learned from the best, my dad,” Holland explains.

        “As a 10-year-old, I organized the neighbor kids and painted ‘HHH’ Hubert Humphrey banners to put up on our street.   I can also recall the anguish of the assassinations that summer of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. It had a great affect on me as a boy, and I watched as my parents consoled each other.”

        One of his mentors at this time was an up-and-coming young Democratic politician by the name of Wayne Owens. Holland watched with fascination when, in 1972, Owens “walked his way to Congress.” “My father let me tag along as Wayne greeted the workers leaving the copper plants. It was a thrill.” Two years later, the high schooler worked on get-out-the-vote efforts to help register Democrats and give Owens a boost in his first Senate race.

All this exposure helped a young Wayne Holland get a jump start on his career. At the age of 23, he became the western director of Frontlash, an organization for labor people under the age of 35. Then, opportunity came knocking a few years later.

        “The AFL-CIO had a position open for a regional community relations director. It was a long-shot, but I was able to get the nod and the job,” at the time becoming the youngest in the country in such a position.

        That job gave Holland great opportunities to rub shoulders with community leaders, including Caesar Chavez, implement programs, and gain valuable political experience. Among projects Holland worked on was Utah’s Ronald McDonald House, a hostel for parents and family members of critically ill children. While in that position, he was also the labor movement’s community and social services liaison with the state legislature.

        At age 36, Holland was offered and accepted a position with the United Steel Workers where he continues today and where he has had the chance to put into practice all the things he had learned since putting up signs for Cal Rampton nearly 30 years earlier.

        One of his key efforts with the Steel Workers was the creation of one of the first Blue-Green alliances, a coalition aligning union organizations with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.

        “We had a common interest to look for ways to remediate the effects of factories and their by-products, like tailings ponds, and water aquifers.  My priority was to get the two groups to focus on our similarities and minimize the perceived differences,” Holland said.

        The party chair says his political philosophy can best be described as “pragmatic progressive.” “I learned that after years of negotiating labor contracts that an all-or-nothing attitude never works and destroys necessary relationships. In the political process, you have to learn to compromise, to give and take and to build coalitions. Far too often, that seems to be missing in this age of polarization.”

        In Holland’s mind, polarization is also a by-product … of Republican slash-and-burn politics.

        “The polarization of politics we see today began in the 1980s during the Reagan years thanks to the likes of operatives such as Lee Atwater and a young Karl Rove. I wish we could go back to the statesmanship exhibited by our Founding Fathers. I am fascinated by that period of time. Even 40 years ago, we see Democrats and Republicans working together for the common good. There needs to be more reaching out; civility is becoming extinct.”

Is Utah different? Are Utah Democrats really a breed apart? Holland has views on these issues, too.

        “I think many Utah GOP leaders are following the national trend. Utah Democrats are like those in neighboring states where they are perhaps more populist and civil libertarian than [Democrats] nationally. I don’t see a lot of difference between Utah Republicans and Republicans from southern states. Both are too close to the fundamentalist, evangelical political agenda of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson”.  It will be very interesting to see the reaction of Republicans in Utah if and when the right wing, southern GOP turns its attack machine on Mitt Romney, Holland said.

        “Utah Democrats follow the 1960 through 1980 model of Scott Matheson and Cal Rampton and Idaho’s Frank Church in that they are more individualistic and civil libertarian,” Holland said. “The Udalls and Mathesons fall in this same category, I think. You can see this trend once again gaining ground around the region where more and more governors, senators, representatives, and state legislative bodies are now Democratic.”

        The Democratic chair said that as Republicans give way to the Far Right, moderates are squeezed out and migrate to the Democratic Party. “That’s happened in Kansas, Colorado, Montana, and it will happen here. All around the country, Democrats are taking the mainstream middle ground, trying to fill the center. We are putting more feet on the street and winning over unaffiliated and independent voters.”

        But what about Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson?  Does he help or hurt the Democrats?

        “Both” said Holland. “He helps more than he hurts. Here’s just one example of how he helps: The new governor of Maryland recently told me that the mayor’s efforts in Salt Lake City to improve the environment are a model that he wants to replicate statewide.  We are an inclusive party, and Rocky’s passion helps.”

        Holland believes that the major Rocky mountain cities are very similar in their political make up. Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and Boise have become “blue bases” and Democratic Party success has spread into the counties where the major cities are located. “As elected Democrats, like (Salt Lake County) Mayor (Peter) Corroon prove to be effective and respected leaders, surrounding counties start to move towards Democratic candidates.”

        Holland also believes that the changing demographics of the west are moving in a direction that will benefit Democratic candidates statewide.  “Utah has historically been a cycle or two behind other Western state and I suspect our recent successes will serve as the springboard for Democratic statewide victories we have recently seen in surrounding western states.”

        Holland says he tells Democratic candidates, “You have to be a rookie before you’re a veteran. We can’t win sitting on the sidelines. There are parts of the state where long-time Republicans were never challenged, where there was never an alternative.  We are committed offering citizens a real choice in every town, county and city in Utah.” He said that as Congressman Jim Matheson continues to raise his victory margins, that example provides opportunity for Democrats to campaign and win in more areas of Utah. “Now we are starting to give people alternatives, choices. We’re getting more candidates on board.”

        Holland says a big obstacle, however, stands in Democrats’ way: redistricting. “We need the kind of bi-partisan redistricting commissions we see in a growing number of other states.  Too many kings are carving up their own kingdoms and the voters and citizens of our communities pay the price.”

        Tooele County is Holland’s case-in-point.  “For many decades, Tooele County was represented in the state Senate by someone who actually lived in Tooele County.  Today, the GOP slice-and-dice gerrymandering machine has carved four Senate districts into the county and actually split Tooele city into two separate seats, which are held by Republicans residing in Brigham City and Nephi. The Republican Legislature has put Tom Delay’s Texas jig saw puzzle gerrymandering to shame,” Holland says. “When you have the Wall Street Journal calling Utah the worst case of gerrymandering in the country, you know it is time for the citizens of Utah to fix the mess. Voters should be picking their representatives instead of politicians picking their voters.”

        Wayne Holland is obviously passionate about politics. And like his father before him, he has passed it on to his own children.  He and his wife Katie, who he calls the inspiration of his life, have four children. His oldest son is a fourth-generation copper miner and small business owner. A daughter is working on a masters degree in anthropology; the youngest is a student at Cottonwood High School, and another son recently returned from Washington D.C. where he had been interning for Congressman Jim Matheson and will return to the U of U’s Hinckley Institute of Politics.

        “Look for him on a ballot sometime in the future,” Holland says proudly of his son, Nick. “He has the heart of a lion”.

        In the meantime, Wayne Holland will continue his work in the trenches for steelworkers and Democrats up and down the state. What began as a chore to help his dad pound in Cal Rampton signs over 40 years ago is still going strong.

Greg Jarrard is a veteran ad man, writer and publisher best known for running paid ad campaigns for Republican candidates. His recent book, "A Jack Mormon's Travel Guide," is available at Deseret Book. He resides in South Jordan where he digs weeds and claims it is a garden.