Clark may need his referee skills

Dave Clark used to referee college basketball games.

That skill — making tough calls and trying to keep the crowd and players under control — will likely come in handy for the Southern Utah banker when, come the first of the year, he officially takes over as speaker of the 75-member Utah House.

In his first meeting with the press Tuesday night after his election, Clark laid out an ambitious ethics-reform package that includes banning most gifts to legislators and reforming the Legislature's ethics-investigation process.

Clark, 55 and in his eighth year in the Legislature, was elected by acclamation Tuesday night to the top House post by his 53-member GOP House caucus — making him one of the most powerful politicians in the state. In the 2009 Utah House of Representatives, Republicans will outnumber Democrats by more than 2-to-1.

Other House GOP leaders elected to two-year terms include the majority leader, Rep. Kevin Garn, R-Layton. Garn resumes his old leadership post he held in 2001-2002, before he ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He was re-elected to his Layton district in 2006. Garn has said he would like to be speaker some day.

The majority whip is Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, the former assistant whip.

And the assistant majority whip is Becky Lockhart, R-Provo. Lockhart is the wife of state GOP chairman Stan Lockhart, so the couple may now claim the title of the most influential Republican duo in Utah.

When that new GOP House leadership team takes office, there will be no one from Salt Lake County, the state's largest county, in GOP leadership in the House for the next two years.

However, Clark also announced that Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley, will stay on as the House's budget chairman, a powerful appointed position.

Clark and other members of leadership will later decide committee chairmanships and committee assignments. But that will have to wait a bit, because Clark, a member of the National Conference of State Legislatures' executive committee, leaves this morning for a multi-day trip to Turkey with other NCSL leaders.

Clark steps up because current Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, lost his re-election bid to House District 49 last week to a Democratic challenger, Jay Seegmiller.

The new House leaders will join with a new GOP leadership team in the Senate to work on state problems with re-elected Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., also a Republican.

Top on the new House leaders' agenda will be stricter ethics standards for legislators.