Do you know who you are going to vote for this year for the Utah Legislature?
A recent Dan Jones & Associates poll for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV shows that only 34 percent of Utahns can name their state House and Senate members.
Only 36 percent said their current lawmaker has done a good enough job to deserve to be re-elected this year.
One may think from those numbers that challengers to the 75 House seats and 16 Senate seats up this year should be in pretty good shape.
Yet in 2004, more than 90 percent of the 104 part-time legislators who ran for re-election won.
In short, Utahns don't know much about their state legislators, but they keep putting them back in office.
In truth, without death or voluntary retirements, there would be very little turnover in the House and Senate. One answer to this concern — seen around the country — is term limits.
You may recall that in 1994 the Utah Legislature on its own passed a 12-year term limit law. Because it exempted sitting legislators, no one would have been forced from office until the 2006 elections. So, how many current lawmakers will be forced from the ballot this year? None.
Several years ago, looking at the looming 2006 deadline, legislators in a bipartisan, overwhelming vote repealed the term-limits law. Even though poll after poll showed strong support for the not-yet-used law, legislators dumped it. They said, among other things, that if citizens don't want them to be re-elected, they just won't vote for them. Elections every two years for House members and every four years for senators is the best term limit, they said.
Who now seeking re-election would have been forced from the ballot this year?
Well, there would have been three longtime senators and nine veteran House members off the 2006 ballot. For those who watch Utah's Legislature, that short list includes some pretty big names.
The No. 1 guy out on the street would have been House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy. Curtis, who says he will seek another term as speaker if re-elected by voters, was first elected in 1994, just missing the vote that adopted the 12-year term limit law.
Also forced out of office would have been House Majority Leader Jeff Alexander, R-Provo, elected in 1990; and Reps. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful (1994); Bud Bowman, R-Cedar City (1992); Jim Gowans, D-Tooele (1992); and Neal Hendrickson, D-West Valley (1990).
Three more veteran House members would have been kept from seeking re-election, but they are leaving the House voluntarily. Retiring are Reps. Brad Johnson, R-Aurora (1990); and Joe Murray, R-Ogden (1994).
Rep. Dave Ure, R-Kamas (1992), who twice has barely lost speakership races, is running for the Senate.
Since the old law applied only to current offices, the many Utah House members who stepped out of the lower body only to win or be appointed to a Senate seat would have gotten 12 more years in the upper body before being forced out by term limits. Twelve of the 29 current senators used to be in the House.
In the Senate this year, the old law would have forced out Sens. Ed Mayne, D-West Valley (1994); and Howard Stephenson, R-Draper (1992). Former Senate president Al Mansell, R-Sandy (1994), also would have been forced out, but Mansell is retiring this year.
So, for all of the terrible things that a 12-year term-limit law would have done (according to sitting legislators who voted to repeal it), in reality it would have had little effect on the overall makeup of the Utah House and Senate — although it would have had an impact on GOP House leadership, forcing out two of its most powerful people.
Anti-term limit advocates have a mantra: Term limits are a bad idea; the Legislature as an institution can't afford to lose some of the "old hands" who know the history and stumbling blocks of governing.
Yet former Gov. Mike Leavitt — who was elected to 12 years in office — had no state government experience when he won the top executive job in 1992.
Likewise, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. had no state government experience when he was elected in 2004.
Outside of any term limits, the 29-member state Senate has seen significant turnover in the past decade. Only six senators today were serving in 1996 — an 80 percent turnover rate — although a number of incoming senators had been in the House. In the 75-member House, only 17 representatives there in 1996 are still around — a 77 percent turnover rate.
Bottom line: Only a few legislators stick around for a long time — and with a 90 percent re-election rate all are pretty much immune from any unhappy constituents.
When you go to vote this year, you may want to consider how long your legislator has served and whether that is a good thing for you.
Deseret Morning News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com