New leaders likely in House, Senate in '05

With Utah State Senate President Al Mansell announcing this week that he won't run for president again later this year, the upcoming 2004 Legislature will be the leadership swan songs for both Mansell and House Speaker Marty Stephens.

And with the likelihood that GOP Gov. Olene Walker won't run next year, the 2005 Legislature will see a new governor and new leaders in both the House and Senate.

Stephens, R-Farr West, is running for governor next year and announced earlier this year that, accordingly, he wouldn't seek re-election to his House seat in 2004 and so couldn't run for speaker again.

In light of a newspaper article this week speculating on Mansell's political future, Mansell, R-Sandy, Tuesday said that he plans to stay on as Senate president through 2004, finishing out his second two-year term as leader of the 29-member body.

Mansell won re-election to Senate District 10 in 2002. And his four-year Senate term runs through the end of 2006. Mansell said, "My plan now is to complete that term as well."

But Mansell said his future political plans in 2005 and beyond somewhat depends on how much time he'll have to spend as president of the 900,000-member National Association of Realtors, a post he takes late next year.

Mansell is now president-elect of the NAR. His one-year term as president starts November 2004.

"As you move to the top of any organization, you set agendas," said Mansell. And as he's moved up the ranks of the leadership in the NAR, he's found ways to get more done in the organization "and be more effective" in his time, he added. So he believes he can remain an effective senator and still keep his NAR commitments in 2005.

Mansell said he's been in NAR leadership positions since 2001 and has been attending many NAR functions for years.

"It was only when I became president-elect that some people" in the media and in the Senate "started to pay attention, but I've been doing both" his Senate job and his NAR leadership jobs "for years," he said.

Rumors arose last summer that Mansell may resign his Senate seat because of pressing NAR business. Mansell told the Deseret Morning News then that he planned to stay on through the 2004 Legislature, but if, or when, his NAR commitments meant he couldn't do a good job as president or senator, he'd leave his legislative post.