Gov. Olene Walker made history as Utah's first woman governor. And for the next eight months, she joins another elite group: She's a lame duck.
And that raises the issue of whether she can use her office to further her ambitious agenda. Will she shift her goals to reform Utah's tax code or find agreement on wilderness lands?
Those are huge tasks for a four- or eight-year administration, where Walker has eight months left in office.
In an interview Monday, less than 48 hours after she was driven into retirement by delegates at the State Republican Convention, Walker predicted there would be some successes before she moves out of the Governor's Mansion at the end of the year and back into her Avenues home to devote herself to being a grandmother.
"Maybe it is pie-in-the-sky hoping, but I think we can settle wilderness in four or five counties," she said.
But Walker admitted her tax-reform effort likely will not result in real reforms this year, not without her there to steer the reforms through the 2005 Legislature.
Utah lawmakers, in general, don't like to tackle tax reform. But Walker said she will force the discussion — in an election year, no less.
Walker held five-minute rounds with local media Monday morning in her Capitol Hill office.
She said she wouldn't have run her brief campaign any differently, even knowing she will be the first sitting Utah governor driven from office in 48 years. The 3,500 GOP delegates Saturday, in a preferential ballot system, knocked her from office in the fifth round of voting for the eight candidates.
Former ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. and Utah Board of Regents Chairman Nolan Karras came out first and second. They will face each other in a June 22 primary. The winner faces Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. in November.
Walker said she won't endorse either GOP candidate before the primary, "although my friendship with Nolan is well-known," she said.
More than anyone, Karras should thank Walker for pushing him into the runoff with Huntsman. When Walker was knocked out in the voting, more than 65 percent of her votes went to Karras in the next round, said Utah Rep. Dave Ure, R-Kamas, who was in charge of the four-hour counting process at the convention. Walker's delegates put Karras over the top, knocking Fred Lampropoulos into third place and out of the primary, Ure said.
"I think Nolan owes us all a dinner," joked one of Walker's top aides Monday.
Walker was taking the turn of events in stride, even with the renewed optimism and exuberance that has been her trademark since taking over last November when former Gov. Mike Leavitt resigned to become head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"I tell the people (of Utah) that I will work hard every day to accomplish my agenda," Walker said. "Oh man, we're not only going to do things we've already started but some new things."
When her term ends in January, "I'll just be a grandmother, go down to St. George and play some golf. Yes, I'm out of politics," said Walker, who will turn 74 later this year.
In some ways, Walker can be more powerful now as a lame duck than she would have been as a candidate/governor, businessman Bud Scruggs says. Scruggs was former GOP Gov. Norm Bangerter's chief of staff when, in late 1990, Bangerter announced just two years into his second term that he wouldn't run again.
Even though Bangerter was a lame duck for two years, he got a lot accomplished, recalled Scruggs — including arm-twisting reluctant GOP lawmakers into passing a bill that gave local school boards the power to raise property taxes with voters' approval.
"Most of the power in the governor's office comes from being right, not from being in office permanently," said Scruggs, who ran a political consulting firm with Leavitt in the 1980s.
"Olene Walker is so well-liked by so many people. I think even among those who did not want her elected governor, she still has an enormous reservoir of good will," Scruggs said. "The reason most of the delegates didn't vote for her is not because they didn't like her. It was because they didn't want her to be governor, and that is not an insignificant difference.
"A lame duck can be in a more powerful position. It strips out the political component (of being a candidate)."
Scruggs, who sits on the board of the Deseret Morning News, said Walker needs to get out in the news media even more, pushing her causes.
That starts almost immediately, Walker said.
"We're going back on TV with my read-to-a-child-20-minutes-a-day ads. We had to take those off while I was a candidate. And I hope that we can so firmly implant that (program in people's minds) that it will continue after I'm gone."
In a rush of words, Walker said she'll work even harder on "planting trees, helping the watershed, having a major conference on high tech and universities and businesses, push flexibility for college funding so they will continue to fund important programs — especially nursing. We'll have additional venture capital companies. We're still going to go on trade missions, not to bring new companies in but to help Utah companies grow who are already here."
Wilderness will be the toughest issue. Leavitt tried and repeatedly failed over his 11 years in office to resolve the three-decades-old wilderness impasse. And Walker, who announced her own initiative last week, has only eight months.
Scott Groene, director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the environmental community remains committed to the process Walker started. "If she is interested in taking the next step, we will be there for her," Groene said.
But the reality is that wilderness is more a political issue than an environmental one, and ultimately Congress decides what is and is not wilderness. That process certainly will take far longer than Walker has in office.
"We're not going to have resolution (before Walker leaves office) no matter how positive things are," Groene said.
Walker said she is not planning any special legislative sessions to try to push through her tax reform or public lands issues.
But she's looking at a late-summer special session on funding for disabled students — a bill she vetoed in March, angering a number of conservatives and possibly costing her Saturday's nomination.
And she'll put some other issues on the call — maybe even revisiting another vetoed bill (overridden by lawmakers just three weeks ago) on unfair business practices.
"I had good relations with the Legislature before — it was just those political vetoes. And of course I'll have good relations with them again," Walker said.
Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, was also eliminated in Saturday's convention in the governor's race. He, too, is now a lame-duck leader. And Senate President Al Mansell, R-Sandy, has already announced he'll be stepping down as a leader in January. So there may be an opportunity to have several high-profile issues decided in special sessions that, most agree, will be less political than it appeared four days ago.
"There is a misconception that legislators don't like Gov. Walker. They do like her," Stephens said.
And yes, the speaker said Monday, he would like to come into the session to rethink the Carson Smith disabled child tax credit bill and even the unfair practices act that legislators put into law just three weeks ago over Walker's veto.
"If she's willing, let's get some things done," Stephens said.
In the end, Walker said she hopes to be remembered for her ability to bring people together and find workable solutions: "That I did what I thought was right, rather than what was political."
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com