Legislative filings drop some bombshells

With a week left before the legislative candidate filing deadline, some political bombshells have already been dropped.

Two Democratic female senators are out: Both Sens. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake; and Patrice Arent, D-Holladay; have announced they won't run again.

The two have become the compassionate conscience of the heavily conservative 29-member Senate. They both took political shots at the majority Republicans when they felt it was needed.

And both of their seats could be lost to the minority Democrats this election.

The House, meanwhile, will see the attempted return of two of the most powerful GOP leaders of the 1990s.

Former House speaker Mel Brown, who now lives in Coalville, is running for a seat being vacated by Rep. Dave Ure, R-Kamas, who in turn is running for the state Senate.

And former House majority leader Kevin Garn, of Layton, is running for his old seat, being vacated by Rep. Stuart Adams.

Brown's fall from power made headlines — an ethics investigation that found him innocent of a too-close relationship with a lobbyist, and personal problems.

After he retired from the House, Brown moved from his old Midvale district to Coalville, where he was operating a family dairy with his brother. Brown has since gotten out of the dairy business but made news a year ago when he and other well-connected Utahns made a financial killing by obtaining a waste dump permit in the western desert and then selling out at a profit before any dump was built.

Brown has worked as a lobbyist during recent legislatures.

Garn was in line to become speaker when he left the House in 2002 to run for the 1st Congressional District. A millionaire, Garn was believed to be the front-runner. But he got in the middle of the heavily political bank/credit union fight (Garn is on a local bank's board of directors) and was surprisingly, and handily, beaten in the GOP primary by now U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop (himself a former House speaker and lobbyist).

Ure, meanwhile, is running for the Uinta Basin-based Senate seat of retiring Sen. Bev Evans, R-Altamont.

Ure lives at the very western edge of Senate District 26, which has been held by a basin resident for as long as anyone can remember.

The late Sen. Glade Sowards moved from the basin to Park City in midterm, and when he sought re-election, he was defeated by a fellow Republican from the basin.

Ure, a rancher and dairyman, has roots in rural Utah. It will be seen if he can get the geographic votes needed to win the GOP nomination.

Ure is considered one of the most powerful back-benchers in the House, barely losing two speakership races in recent years.

The retirements of Hale and Arent could lead to very painful losses for legislative Democrats.