Most Utah Democrats say GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt and the Republican-controlled Legislature were out to get Democratic Attorney General Jan Graham with a new law stripping her office of civil decision-making, a new Deseret News poll shows.
But while Republicans are split over the wisdom of the new law, a majority of them don't believe Leavitt or GOP lawmakers had their sights on Graham in adopting the new measure, the survey found.Graham said Tuesday that the poll results confirm what she believed all along.
And pollster Dan Jones & Associates found one thing is clear: The issue has become partisan in the public's eye.
Jones found that 50 percent of Utahns are opposed to the new law. Thirty-five percent like the idea of taking decision-making away from the attorney general and the 29 elected county attorneys and giving that power to the elected executives -- the governor or county commissions or councils.
Asked if they believed GOP legislative leaders and Leavitt were out to get Graham because she's the only statewide elected Democrat in Utah, Utahns were split, Jones found.
But that indecision isn't found when you break out Democrats' views on the two questions the newspaper asked.
Jones found that 66 percent of Democrats disapprove of the new law, and the same percentage say Republicans passed it as a political attack on Graham.
While Republicans are mixed on the wisdom of the new law -- 42 percent like it, 43 percent disapprove of it, most don't think their GOP leaders had it in for Graham.
Fifty-seven percent of Republicans disagree with the idea that the law was a political attack on Graham; only 28 percent believe it was, Jones found. Assuming GOP lawmakers look first to please members of their own party, they are on safe ground here.
Republican leaders admitted during the 1999 Legislature that they lost the public relations battle over HB139.
Given a chance to handle the matter over again, House Speaker Marty Stephens said in February that from the get-go the bill's implementation date should have been Jan. 1, 2001 -- the end of the current attorney general's term in office.
The bill was so amended and passed in that form, but by then, GOP leaders believe, the Democrats and news media had crafted the issue along partisan, get-Graham lines, and the damage was done.
On top of that, they say, the issue is a complicated one for the public to understand in short TV news stories and sound bites.
They argue that it makes little political sense to elect a chief attorney and a governor or county commission and then allow the attorney to pursue whatever civil action he or she decides, especially if that action is contrary to what the executive body wants.
It is akin to someone hiring an attorney and then that attorney refusing to follow the client's wishes.
But to communicate that to citizens is difficult, Republican leaders said.