The First Decade — Sixth in a series: A new millennium was born amid concerns about the Y2K bug. Far more real fears unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001. Deseret News and Associated Press writers today continue a series of essays examining the major developments of the past decade and their impact on Utah and beyond.

Two geeky-type guys who decided to leave early, a witty older woman, an untried man in a top job and a minority party that decided not to be that anymore.

In short, that's Utah politics for the first decade of the 21st century.

First Mike Leavitt, and then Jon Huntsman Jr., decided to heed their presidents' call, resigning as popular governors for places in federal administrations.

Olene Walker, Leavitt's lieutenant governor, became Utah's first female chief executive when the three-term Leavitt resigned in 2003 to be President George W. Bush's EPA director.

But Walker's tenure was brief, as state Republican delegates pushed her aside when she tried to win her own four-year term in 2004.

Huntsman was ultimately elected that year. But he, too, resigned soon after he took office in his second term to become President Barack Obama's ambassador to China.

Gary Herbert, Huntsman's second-in-command, was unknown to many Utahns when he stepped up to the state's top office last August.

Now Herbert will try to win election on his own in 2010.

Throughout the decade, Democrats made strides in Salt Lake County, which contains 38 percent of the state's population.

In 2000, political newcomer Jim Matheson, son of the late, popular former Democratic Gov. Scott M. Matheson, grabbed the 2nd Congressional seat away from Republicans.

At the time, the 2nd District was all in Salt Lake County, and had been held by Democrats before.

The GOP Legislature — in a 2001 redistricting called shameful by the Wall Street Journal — redrew young Matheson's district to include the east side of Salt Lake County, but also a large swath of eastern, southern and southwestern Utah.

Matheson — a moderate Democrat who would turn into fiscal conservative — won re-election in his new, more conservative district in 2002 by less than 1 percentage point.

Ever since he's been the poster-boy for state Democrats seeking to prove they are not out of line with conservative Utah values.

Scandal-ridden Salt Lake County GOP politics led to an opening in mid-decade, and Democrats, working hard, took advantage.

Peter Corroon, an unknown, won the county mayorship in 2004, followed four years later by Democrats taking control of the nine-member County Council.

"We are in the minority" in the county, toned GOP chairman Dave Hansen.

Meanwhile, Salt Lake City continued its march to liberalism. Even though former Mayor Rocky Anderson — a man many state Republicans loved to hate — stepped out of office, the City Council pushed its "progressive" politics. And in 2007 former House Democratic Leader Ralph Becker was elected mayor over a moderate Republican.

In a collaboration that may indicate local politics for the next decade, LDS Church leaders openly backed a gay rights city ordinance, protecting same-sex residents from discrimination in employment and housing.

It was the second time the LDS Church stepped into politics — in the 2009 Legislature church officials did not object to a major reworking of state liquor law, thus tacitly approving "liquor by the drink."

Personalities and issues aside, Utah remains strongly in the GOP column.

Except for Matheson, Republicans held all the major offices in Utah the last 10 years and controlled the Legislature with an iron-fist two-thirds majority.

Government reform remains uncertain in the Legislature, with two popular citizens initiatives dealing with lawmakers' ethics/political clout seeking voter signatures, perhaps headed for the 2010 ballot.

In the future, two seminal political events could shape Utah politics.

In 2008, Jason Chaffetz, a young, media-minded conservative, swept six-term GOP U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, from office in the 3rd Congressional District.

Cannon's vulnerability is setting up challenges by other "conservatives" to long-time U.S. Sens. Bob Bennett in 2010 and Orrin Hatch in 2012.

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In 2007, private school tax subsidies, passed by Republicans in the Legislature, were overturned at the ballot box by a moderate, pro-public education coalition that, being invigorated by that effort, is now morphing into a state ethics reform movement.

Popular governors who decided not to stay in Utah. Lieutenant governors trying to fill those big shoes. Democrats making strides in Salt Lake County. Citizens angry with the federal government, short-tempered with the GOP entrenched establishment statewide. And initiative movements fed by grassroots power.

Over the last decade, all changed the face, and future, of Utah politics.

e-mail: bbjr@desnews.com

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