Utah Legislature: Leaders to hold first formal meetings since Garn scandal

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah legislative leaders will have their first formal meetings Tuesday after a personal and political scandal drove former House Majority Leader Kevin Garn from office just after the March 11 end of the 2010 Legislature.

House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, who was publicly criticized for calling for a standing ovation for Garn after Garn gave an emotional confession around midnight just after the session ended concerning a nude hot-tubbing incident years ago with a teenage girl, said lessons were learned.

"If I knew then what I know now, I would have handled the situation differently," Clark said Monday.

Clark said he did not know all the facts of that hot-tubbing incident when he allowed Garn to speak and then praised Garn's worth as a friend and House colleague in his speaker's remarks after Garn's public confession on the House floor.

In meetings of the Executive Appropriations Committee and Legislative Management Committee Tuesday afternoon, other members of appointed GOP House leadership, as the rules allow, will sit in and vote so House Republicans won't be down a vote because of Garn's absence, said Clark.

And the 53-member House GOP caucus will decide in May how the empty majority leader's post will be filled until November.

A week after the session concluded, the House GOP caucus held a closed meeting for several hours to discuss the Garn incident.

At the end of that meeting, caucus members issued a statement saying Garn made the right decision in resigning. Clark was reportedly criticized in that closed meeting for allowing Garn to make his midnight statement and for putting his caucus in the embarrassing situation of applauding Garn.

Clark said he didn't want to go beyond that statement in talking about that caucus meeting.

There are several alternatives in picking a new House majority leader, the speaker added, including holding a caucus election for the post — as Senate Republicans did just before the start of the 2010 Legislature after its majority leader, former Sen. Sheldon Killpack, resigned after being arrested on a DUI charge.

Or, said Clark, House Republicans could decide to just appoint a majority leader until after the November legislative races — when, as usual, the newly elected Republicans will meet to elect all new leaders for another two years.