In the March 29 edition of the Deseret Morning News, Wayne Holland bemoaned the dominance of Republicans in Utah and mentioned me by name as an example of the harm it is doing the state.

He might be surprised to know that, as a political scientist and longtime observer of Utah politics, I agree with his general proposition — one-party government is usually a bad idea. We have seen it in various places in America, and it often leads to financial corruption; recent examples can be found in Arkansas and Maryland, where high-level officeholders ended up in jail. We have even seen some of that in Utah.

I am old enough to remember those days. J. Bracken Lee was able to break the Democratic hammerlock on the governorship primarily because of voter disgust with the scandals inside the State Liquor Commission during Democratic administrations. He was then re-elected the same year that Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state in 24 years.

I can also recall when my father was the only Republican in Utah's congressional delegation. Since then, control of the state's top offices began to swing back and forth.

So what happened? What nefarious devilry did the Republicans employ to bring us to the condition Holland finds so deplorable? The answer, of course, is that there was no behind-the-scenes trickery. Utah became a Republican stronghold because the Utah Democratic Party collapsed. Once all powerful, it ceased to be a viable political institution by moving in an ideological direction that has turned Utahns off.

The solution, therefore, lies in Holland's hands, not ours. Utah voters have shown that they will support well-funded, capable Democratic candidates who are in tune with Utah values. Jim Matheson is proof of that, as were Bill Orton and Gunn McKay before him. If Wayne Holland and his Democratic friends want to return to the glory days of Cal Rampton and Scott Matheson's 20-year run of Democratic control, they must stop complaining about the voters and start appealing to them. Because one thing is certain — the state Legislature is not about to change the law so that votes cast for Democrats carry more weight than those cast for Republicans.

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Bob Bennett is Utah's junior senator.