Past voucher fight could impact upcoming election

After the Utah Legislature's private-school voucher program went down in flaming defeat in a public vote last November, a question arose whether the conservative GOP lawmakers who passed it would be targeted in their next re-election — which for many of them is this year.

House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy — who is basically in charge of getting his 55-member GOP caucus re-elected — says he doesn't see much of a fall-out from the voucher issue, as he looks at the matchups in the 75 House races.

"About the same number of (GOP) House members are being challenged within the party" as in 2006, he says.

And in that numbers comparison, he's right.

But if you look at the actual matchups in 2008 compared to 2006, I do see a bit of a difference:

• Some of the well-known moderate Republicans in the House, who historically have been targeted by right-wing Republicans, don't find themselves in internal party fights this year.

It may be hard to see a clear pattern here, because a few of the self-styled "Reagan Caucus" moderate members who voted against vouchers do have a GOP challenger. But there are fewer of those challenges, it appears to me.

I count 10 Reagan Caucus members who have had GOP challengers in the past not having them this year. Two of the standouts are Reps. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, and Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville. Both employees of public school districts, they have had to fight off challenges from their party's right before — but not this year.

• Of the 17 House incumbents who have GOP challengers this year, only three voted against HB148, the main voucher bill, in the 2007 Legislature.

Now, there are some nonvoucher reasons for a few of those challenges. For example, freshman Rep. Sylvia Andersen, R-Sandy, is being challenged by former GOP Rep. LaVar Christensen. Christensen is an archconservative and certainly would have voted for HB148 if he'd been in the 2007 Legislature. But in 2006 Christensen gave up his state House seat in District 48 to run against U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, in the 2nd Congressional District race, losing handily to Matheson.

So Christensen is not challenging Andersen because of her vote for private school vouchers. He just wants his old seat back.

But many of the 14 House Republicans who see an intra-party challenge this year may well be doing so because of their pro-voucher votes.

The clear example is Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, who is being challenged by State School Board employee Margaret Bird in House District 51.

• In the Senate, only two Republicans voted against HB148, or voted against vouchers. And those two, Sens. John Greiner, R-Ogden, and Kevin Van Tassell, R-Vernal, have no Republican opposition this year.