News Highlights
John Kerry's e-mail message to supporters
announcing
John Edwards as his running mate. How's Mike
Leavitt doing as EPA chief? The Tribune attempts to
answer, although without an actual interview with Leavitt.
Utah 's Political Grayhairs
Who is Utah 's longest-serving elected official? Orrin
Hatch is getting way up there, serving 28 years in
the U.S. Senate. It will be 30 years when his current term ends
in 2006, and he fully intends to go for at least another six
year-term after that. At the state level, Treasurer Ed
Alter is racking up the years. He'll have served 24
years when his 6th term ends this year and he's going for another
term of four years.
But the granddaddy of all Utah politicians, unless there is
some county commissioner, mayor or city council member who beats
him, is Mike Dmitrich, state senator from Price,
who has been in the Legislature for an amazing 36 years, first
elected to the House in 1968, the same year Richard Nixon was
elected president. He moved to the Senate in 1992. And he's
going for another four-year term. It's interesting that Utah
's longest-serving politician is a Democrat.
If anyone knows of a local official at the county or city level
who has served more than 20 years, let us know by sending an
email to agendautah@utahpolicy.com.
June Primary Still Best?
Voter turnout at the primary election was pretty lousy, so
there have been proposals, including a KSL editorial by Duane
Cardall, to return to a fall primary. In a rebuttal
to the KSL editorial, Todd Taylor, former executive
director of the Utah Democratic Party, did a nice job of explaining
the purposes of the June primary. Taylor 's rebuttal was broadcast
by KSL on July 2.
“That decision,” (to move the primary to June) wrote Taylor,
“was not ridiculous, or a mistake, and the primary does not
belong in September. Such a characterization is offensive to
those of us who worked hard to get a workable primary date.
Most of us still stand behind it.
“The late primary was very destructive to the political parties
due to intra-party fights, caused excessive rancor that continued
to poison the legislative sessions, and was conducive to poor
governance. Further, the national parties failed to participate
in Utah politics even more than they do today.”
“The change to June was one of the few sane things to happen
in Utah politics.”
“If ‘people have a hard time getting into a political mood,'
perhaps the news media could do a better job of increasing interest
as they did in 1992, and not apparently since.”
A more complete text of Todd Taylor's reply, along with data
he provided on voter turnout over the years, can be found on
KSL's website at www.ksl.com.
- LaVarr Webb
