Huntsman learning to govern from the middle

Not surprisingly, state legislators decided this week not to call a veto override session in an attempt to reverse seven vetoes issued by GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

As Senate President John Valentine says, the constitutional system for an override is designed to be difficult, and rightly so.

But in overwhelmingly Republican Utah, there are intra-party politics also at play here.

And, as is always the case with the Legislature, personal politics, as well.

Huntsman has quickly learned what other recent governors knew: Govern from the political middle, and at times it is OK to criticize or otherwise push past your party's right wing.

In his 11 years in office, I don't recall former GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt ever vetoing a Democrat's bill. If he did, it likely was not an overly controversial measure, since the Republicans in the House and Senate wouldn't have adopted a controversial Democratic bill in the first place.

No, Leavitt was careful to keep Democrats and moderate Republicans on his side. He often needed them to get his legislation — or more important, his budget-spending priorities — through a basically conservative Legislature.

Huntsman, likewise, has vetoed bills sponsored, in the most part, by conservatives.

In the internal politics of the Legislature, Huntsman then gets Democratic and moderate Republican votes to NOT call an override session.

And since it takes a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to call an override session (and two-thirds votes once in session to override a veto), Huntsman, like his predecessors, is fairly safe in making those vetoes.

Democrats are just under one-third in numbers in both the House and Senate.

So a governor only needs a few moderate GOP votes, assuming he gets all of the Democrats, to sustain a veto.

As Valentine noted, it is a heavy burden for conservative Republicans to get two-thirds of the members for an override.

Actually, the only real possibility for an override is when the vetoed issue is a balance of power matter: the executive branch vs. the legislative branch.

Senators thought they had Huntsman on his in-session veto of SB70, a bill sponsored by Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper.