Campaign season opens in Utah

Out of session less than a week and already most of Utah's 104 part-time legislators are thinking about campaigning.

Today is the official start of the 2006 election season, with the opening of the 10-day candidate filing period. If incumbents and challengers don't file by 5 p.m. March 17, they'll have to run as a write-in candidate with little hope of success.

All 75 House members and 16 senators are up for election this year.

Utah is overwhelmingly Republican. And Democrats, who hold less than one-third of the House and Senate seats, have no real chance of winning majorities in either body.

The Senate is especially safe for Republicans. Democrats hold just eight of the 29 Senate seats, and six Democratic districts are up this year. So Democrats will be playing more defense than offense in the upper house's elections.

Spencer Jenkins resigned as Utah GOP executive director last week, and current party chairman Joe Cannon could not be reached for comment Monday.

But House and Senate GOP leaders said during the session that they expect their party to do well, again, in legislative elections this year.

A handful of legislators announced their retirements before the March 1 midnight adjournment of the 2006 Legislature.

Others, like long-time Sen. Bev Evans, R-Altamont, waited until after the session's close to say they aren't running again.

In announcing that she's stepping down after 20 years in the House and Senate, Evans, 62, said this week, "It's been a great experience and I have worked hard to represent our many concerns."

Those who have already said they are leaving the 75-member House include: Rep. Brad Johnson, R-Aurora, retiring; Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, running for the 2nd Congressional District; Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, retiring; Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, running for the Utah Senate; Rep. Craig Buttars, R-Lewiston, retiring.

In the Senate, others leaving include Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem, who announced his retirement in January, and Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake, who has said she plans to retire but has not officially announced her plans.

In fact, retirement or death seem to be the main ways an incumbent Utah lawmaker leaves office. In the 2004 elections, more than 90 percent of the legislators who sought re-election won. Polls show most Utahns can't name their senator or representative, so voting historically follows party lines.

State senators have said there is no need for legislative term limits, noting that since 1998, of the 29 Senate districts, 23 are now filled with new faces. But in the more than a dozen changes in the last eight years, only five came from election defeats.