New post could enhance options down road

Becoming secretary of Health and Human Services would be an even higher, more challenging job in the Bush administration for former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, but what could it mean down the road?

Deseret Morning News graphic Utahns in presidential Cabinets Requires Adobe Acrobat.

Is it a springboard to a run for the U.S. Senate in 2006 or 2010? Or for becoming CEO of a major U.S. company after leaving federal work?

At least for the next few years, Leavitt will be a part of an "aggressive" domestic program, believes Bud Scruggs, one of Leavitt's oldest personal and political friends in Utah.

"Along with tax reform, health care and welfare should be one of President Bush's concentrations in his second term. I think we'll see Bush implement compassionate conservatism" — something that really couldn't be done after 9/11 since the Iraq war and re-election political battles molded his first term, said Scruggs, who is president of Leucadia Asset Management Group but who teamed with Leavitt in the mid-1980s in a local political consulting firm.

Leavitt will take over one of the largest and most bureaucratic federal departments that makes up a quarter of all the spending of the federal government.

It's a huge challenge, said both Scruggs and Pat Shea , a local attorney who was head of the Bureau of Land Management and deputy Interior Department secretary in Bill Clinton's administration.

What heading HHS really means, assuming Leavitt is confirmed, is a high-power job in the private sector when he leaves federal employment, said Shea, who also ran for governor and the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in Utah.

Leavitt, already a millionaire through his family's Leavitt Group insurance firms, "will have a good chance to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 firm," Shea said. "He clearly is ambitious, and this will be a chance to take care of his family (financially)."

"People forget that before he ran for governor (in 1992), Mike was one of Utah's and the Mountain West's leading business executives," said Scruggs, who also predicts Leavitt could hook up with a major firm when he leaves government.

But being head of the federal government's largest welfare programs may not sit well with conservative Republicans back in Utah — a detriment should Leavitt seek a top GOP nomination here later on, said LaVar Webb, another Leavitt friend and political ally. Webb heads the Exoro Group, a lobbying/political consulting group, and co-writes a political column for the Deseret Morning News.

"Overall, (any Leavitt run for office in Utah) depends on how well he does in his new job," says Webb, who served as Leavitt's deputy for policy in the governor's office on the 1990s.