Two weeks ago, the candidates for attorney general were complaining no one was paying much attention to their campaign because of the higher-profile races for governor and the U.S. Senate.
What a difference a week made for the Democratic candidates, former 3rd District Judge Scott Daniels and Utah Solicitor General Jan Graham. Daniels especially was thrust into the spotlight by Attorney General Paul Van Dam.Just 10 days before the primary, Van Dam, who endorsed Graham after deciding not to run for a second term, accused Daniels of violating the code of judicial conduct by attending political events while a judge.
Daniels and his supporters, including many of the state's top Democratic officials, countered that Van Dam was making a last-minute attempt to boost Graham's chances of winning at the expense of party unity.
Van Dam backed down, declining to file a formal complaint with the Utah State Bar after the bar said more information than the attorney general had provided was needed to begin an investigation.
The Republicans in the race, Iron County Attorney Scott Burns and former Chief Deputy Attorney General Michael Deamer, have stayed clear of the controversy.
Asked to address the allegations in their last public appearance together before the election, Burns called it unfortunate. Deamer said it was a Democratic Party issue and declined to comment.
Lost in the debate were the issues the four major candidates and, in some forums, Libertarian candidate John Michael Coombs had been campaigning on in recent months.
All of the four major candidates offered suggestions for improving the office, such as cutting back on the number of private attorneys hired to defend the state.
Following is what each major candidate pledged to do as attorney general, based on individual interviews and public appearances before several legal organizations, including the bar.
Scott Burns said his relationships with law enforcement officials throughout the state, developed over the past 51/2 years as Iron County attorney, would help restore the respect he believes the attorney general's office is lacking.
"It's going to take somebody with some extraordinary skills to take that office out of the turmoil it's faced for 20 years," Burns said. "The attorney general's office has been a magnet for political turmoil and controversy."
Burns said his associations are "going to help me bring programs and people together in the best interest of the citizens. I think it's time there was cooperation."
He said he can maintain a good working relationship with not only the law enforcement community but also the governor and the Legislature by "doing the job, quietly and professionally."
The attorney general should not use the office to grandstand politically or to "be a leader or a spokesman on moral issues," Burns said. "It's a basic tenet of the legal profession. You represent your client.
"You don't pick and choose what morally offends you, especially as attorney general. You do your job. That's why you're elected and that's why the people pay you," he said.
Just 34 years old and a recent first-time father, Burns is running a low-key, low-cost campaign from Cedar City. The only candidate not from the Wasatch Front, Burns said he is still putting his job before his campaign.
"It's been very difficult. I still make court appearances. I'm still trying cases. But the office hasn't missed a beat," he said, despite more than 30 campaign trips.
He stresses his experience as a county attorney, even though there is only himself and one other prosecutor in the Iron County attorney's office. "I'm the one of the four who can say I've done it," Burns said.
"I don't think a tax attorney can do it, I don't think a former judge can do it and I don't think a former civil litigator who's now solicitor general can do it."
Michael Deamer said he is the most qualified candidate because he served with the attorney general's office and has also practiced law longer than any of his opponents. He is also the only CPA in the race.
And he makes another distinction between himself and the other candidates. "I am the only one, Republican or Democratic, who is not on the public trough. Taxpayers are not paying my salary," Deamer said.
Deamer did work for taxpayers, as an assistant and a chief deputy for former GOP attorneys general Robert Hansen and Vernon Romney from 1974 through 1980. Since then, he has been in private practice, specializing in financial cases.
He describes in a matter-of-fact tone some of his most memorable moments as a state attorney, including giving the order to execute convicted killer Gary Gilmore.
"I told the warden to execute him," Deamer said. The responsibility to give the final execution order fell to Deamer as chief deputy because the then-attorney general was in Denver handling a last-minute appeal.
If elected, Deamer wants to de-politicize the office. In fact, he said, the state constitution should be changed so the attorney general is appointed by the governor instead of elected.
"I think you have to take the attorney general out of the limelight. I think we've created a monster up there," Deamer said. "The attorney general is not an independent branch of government."
He said he would attempt to prosecute more white-collar crimes such as financial scams, utilizing his accounting expertise. Deamer also said he would attempt to limit the hiring of outside counsel by the office.
"I'd like the office to be more low-key, delivering the best legal services possible at the lowest cost," he said. "That's much easier said than done. I know. I've been there."
Deamer, 46, considered running for the office before, but decided against challenging Hansen in 1980 and then two-term Attorney General David Wilkinson because they were incumbent Republicans.
He is spending some of his own money to pay for bus signs and other campaign materials. "I don't want to turn age 65 and say to myself, `You never tried it once,' " Deamer said.
Scott Daniels, in his campaign, has stressed the 10 years he spent as a judge, using photographs of himself on the bench and adopting the slogan, "You be the judge" in his television commercials.
He also has strived to portray himself as the candidate most sensitive to the issues that are important to women, such as abortion, even though his opponent is a woman.
"She says, `Vote for me because I'm a woman.' That's her pitch," Daniels said. "I'm not a woman but I'm the women's candidate on these issues. I've been there and my opponent hasn't. It's as simple as that."
He cites as evidence his longtime support of victims' rights, especially victims of domestic violence and spousal rape, and of a woman's right to choose an abortion.
Daniels also points to the number of women involved in his campaign - his campaign manager, Ellen Fagg, and three of his top four campaign strategists.
The 43-year-old candidate, still called "the judge" by many of his friends and associates, sees what he could accomplish in the office differently than his opponents.
"A lot of people don't understand what the attorney does," Daniels said. "A lot of people think the attorney general can't do very much. If I thought that, I would have stayed on the bench."
Daniels said his primary responsibility as attorney general would be to the public, not to the governor and other executive-branch officials. He said he would take an active role with the Legislature.
If your clients as attorney general are the public, Daniels said, "then you should defend and protect your clients' interests even against the government if necessary."
For example, Daniels said, Van Dam hired outside counsel to defend the state's abortion law at the request of Gov. Norm Bangerter and legislative leaders.
Daniels said he would have advised lawmakers of problems he saw with the law. If the law still had passed, he would have assigned the case to attorneys within the office who were "adequately pro-life."
Daniels said he is not trying to campaign against the current administration. "I'm not running against Paul Van Dam. I'm not running against Jan Graham. I'm running for attorney general," he said.
Jan Graham was pregnant with her first child when she announced for attorney general. Now mother to 21/2-month-old Willie, Graham said she's staying plenty busy even though she's on leave from her job in the attorney general's office.
"Life, to be sure, has been hectic since the baby was born," Graham said. "It's probably hurt me a little bit. I've not been willing to be gone that much."
Graham has kept her name before the public throughout the campaign by spending the most of the four major candidates, advertising on everything from billboards to television.
She has emphasized her accomplishments as a woman, especially that she is the first woman to run for attorney general and could be the first woman to hold statewide office.
Graham, 43, has had to answer for decisions made by Van Dam, especially his hiring of her former law firm, Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough, to defend the state's abortion law.
In retrospect, she said the attorney general's office should have forced the governor and lawmakers to publicly acknowledge they were the ones insisting outside counsel be hired.
"I would only agree if they made public the difference in costs between in-house and outside counsel," Graham said. The cost of defending the law with outside counsel is expected to go as high as $1 million.
"Anything that happened while I was there, I'll take the credit or the blame," Graham said. But she said she is running on her record as solicitor general, not Van Dam's record as attorney general.
Her experience, she said, sets her apart from her opponents. "I have been a leader of a very large private law firm. I've been a manager, administrator and leader in the largest public law firm in the state," Graham said.
She promised to make the office more visible, if elected, by creating citizens' advisory panels over the office's most important functions, such as protecting the environment and crime victims.
"People are just in the dark about what we do," Graham said. The panels would help the office shift from focusing internally as it has during the administration's efforts to expand and retain staff.