It's not clear whether voters had immigration on their minds last week when they chose Kevin VanTassell of Vernal as the Republican nominee for Senate District 26 over Rep. Dave Ure of Kamas.

But Ure's defeat means he leaves the Legislature after 13 years in the House, and his absence could mean the death of a 2002 law Ure sponsored allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition if they have attended a Utah high school for at least three years and graduated.

In the 2006 legislative session, Ure was key in killing a bill to repeal the tuition law, even after it had received strong Republican support in the House Education Committee. The bill stalled in the House Rules Committee and never made it to the floor for a vote.

But with Congress apparently deadlocked on immigration reform, Ure told the Deseret Morning News that the tuition law's future is uncertain.

"I haven't talked to anybody," Ure said. "I don't know of anyone who is going to pick up the gauntlet."

Ure said the tuition bill's repeal would be unfortunate and eliminate the hope of higher education for hundreds of students.

"If (students) are not setting goals of higher education, they're not going to get it," he said. "They're going to drop out of school even earlier if they can't further their causes."

Ure said he used simple parliamentary procedure to keep the bill from House debate.

"I didn't make any compromises," Ure said. "I just knew what the rules were and how to work the system."

Immigrant rights advocates said Ure's primary election defeat was disappointing, but said there is a glimmer of hope in Congressman Chris Cannon's primary victory over challenger John Jacob, who ran on an anti-illegal immigration platform.

"That tells us many of the people in Utah are not backing the Jacob Jingleheimer idea," said Archie Archuleta, chairman of the Utah Coalition of La Raza.

He said it's tough to say how much of a factor anti-illegal immigration forces were in the defeat of Ure, who went for an open Senate seat rather than seek a seventh term for his more secure House seat .

Instead, strong Uintah Basin turnout suggested that eastern Utah voters simply wanted to keep a local senator in the district, which stretches from Summit County through the basin.

"Part of it was moving out of a place where people are used to him," Archuleta said. "It's not quite as big a blow as it could have been."

However, he acknowledged, unless a Republican "is willing to come out and take his lumps" on the tuition bill, "the only hope I see is on the Democratic side."