Can felons run for office?

One lawmaker wants to make it clear that felons, even if they can cast ballots, can never punch their own name for an elected office.

After confusion allowed two men with felony convictions to run for mayor in Cedar City and Eagle Mountain — even though they probably would have not been allowed to serve, if they had won — Sen. Brent Goodfellow, D-West Valley, decided to clarify the situation.

With SB47, he said it would be clear that people convicted of a felony, even if their voting rights have been restored because they have completed their jail sentence, parole or probation, cannot hold elected office at any level of government. The bill is expected to come before the Legislature this session.

The problem, Goodfellow said, is that state law does not match the Utah Constitution, which prohibits any convicted felon from voting or holding office until those rights have been restored in a way determined by the Legislature. But current law does not make it clear that having your right to vote restored and the right to hold office are two separate things, a problem he wants to correct.

"We're just going to make this so it fits with the constitution," Goodfellow said.

Assistant attorney general Thom Roberts said the main problem is that the wording of the law leaves it open to the interpretation that when voting rights are restored, the right to hold office is restored as well. While the Attorney General's Office and the state elections office have maintained that felons do not have the right to hold office, it could be challenged in court because of its lack of clarity.

"There were candidates who held a different opinion than the Lieutenant Governor's Office (which oversees state elections) and our office" and could have led to a lawsuit if they had won, Roberts said. "This will remove any ambiguity."

Under terms of the bill, a person with a felony conviction would not be allowed to register as either a regular or write-in candidate for elected office, Roberts said. The law will primarily apply to municipal and county elections, since it is made clear in other parts of the law that felons cannot run for state or federal office.

Joe Demma, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, said their office helped Goodfellow draft the bill to prevent further confusion.

"It's basically to clean up the language," Demma said. "It's a glitch we're trying to fix."

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com