What with the kidnapping of a 14-year-old Federal Heights girl, record-size forest fires in the West and the ongoing fight against international terrorism, Utah's primary election races are little seen or heard from this spring.
But six congressional candidates — Republicans and Democrats in the 1st Congressional District and Republicans in the 2nd District — are doing the best they can this month to draw some attention to themselves and to the differences between themselves. (There is no primary in the 3rd Congressional District this year, and Rep. Jim Matheson has no Democratic opposition in the 2nd District.)
The June 25 primary is just over a week away. And except for a few TV and radio commercials, a smattering of billboards and some direct mailers to the homes of people they hope will vote for them, it's been pretty quiet.
That could all change Monday if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Utah's favor and gives the state a fourth U.S. House seat this year. The state's suit against the U.S. Census Bureau will be decided either this coming Monday or next Monday, June 24 — the day before the primary election. Utah claims an estimating procedure used in the 2000 Census is unconstitutional and resulted in an unfair count of North Carolina residents, which allowed that state to get the extra House seat Utah covets.
The high court releases its opinions Monday mornings, and only 20 cases from the current court's term have not yet been announced, officials say. So the next two weeks will tell the tale.
If Utah wins, chaos will briefly reign.
It's unclear if the six congressional candidates — who will get either totally new districts or differently shaped districts in the four-seat option — will even be on the June 25 ballot, although ballots have been printed with their names on them. Will voters cast ballots for those U.S. House races? Will county clerks try to remove the 1st and 2nd District candidates' names from ballots? Will the names stay on, but votes for those people not be tallied?
If a favorable decision is handed down this coming Monday, it's possible lawmakers could meet in special session sometime next week and cancel the June 25 primary all together, moving all candidates to a late summer primary. Or legislators could move just the congressional candidates to a later date. That second alternative, however, would cost the state and counties around $600,000 for a second primary.
Candidates, too, are cautious, for this and other reasons.
First District Republican Rob Bishop is starting his radio ads this weekend, saying the news about kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart is dominating airways and no one is listening to, or viewing, radio and TV ads run by his GOP opponent Kevin Garn.
But if you listen to debates, read the literature and watch some media ads, you see where some of the candidates are trying to nick their intraparty opponents.
Republican 2nd District candidate John Swallow, for example, talks about how he has experience being a state lawmaker, how he's not a newcomer to cutting taxes or reforming education. "I've done it," he says.
That's a backhand slap at his GOP opponent Tim Bridgewater, who has not held elective public office before.
Swallow also says he's lived in the district for years. Bridgewater moved back to Utah in 1999, living until earlier this year in Utah County, where he was county GOP chairman. Bridgewater recently moved to Draper, in the 2nd District. However, you don't have to be a resident of the district to file, run or serve, just a resident of the state.
Bridgewater talks about how he was born and raised in Utah, how he's not a lawyer but a businessman.
You guessed it — Swallow was born outside the state, although he lived briefly in St. George and has lived in Utah most of his adult life. And Swallow is an attorney, although he's been in-house counsel for a health foods company for a couple of years and not pounding people in court, as Bridgewater no doubt would like you to believe.
Bishop likes to say he's not a multimillionaire but a schoolteacher. Garn is a multimillionaire businessman. But Garn claims Bishop is also a part-time lobbyist who "leaves" his students for 45 days during the school year to lobby the Utah Legislature.
Bishop actually is a Box Elder High School history teacher. But he also is a lobbyist, whose clients include gun-rights groups, among others.
In the 1st District Democratic race, advertising executive Dave Thomas and Donald Dunn, who ran against Rep. Chris Cannon in the 3rd District two years ago, have been pretty polite to each other so far.
Some complaints have been heard about some of Thomas' billboards, which say he's the Dave Thomas who is not dead. That's a reference (no doubt meant to be funny) to the late founder of the Wendy's hamburger chain — also named Dave Thomas — who died recently.
Candidates are in a bind. What's the point of spending a lot of money on a race that could be postponed at the last minute by the high court's decision? You might have to run another primary campaign in August or September.
Why bash a primary opponent who may not even be your opponent in a late-summer primary?
In any case, citizens may want to pay a bit more attention to the six U.S. House primary candidates the next 10 days. Barring a Supreme Court decision giving Utah a fourth House seat, they will be on the June 25 primary ballots, and two-thirds of Utahns will get the chance to send them to the November general election or end their political campaigns for this year.
Deseret News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com