This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Once upon a time at Bountiful High School, new teacher Kim Burningham was Sheryl Allen and Dave Irvine's debate and speech coach.
It was the 1960s. Kennedy was president. Just a few years separated teacher and student. "Naturally, we used to have lots of political discussions - more policy than politics," says Burningham.
They are still friends nearly 50 years later. Besides history, they share time-honored conservative notions of fair play, disagreeing agreeably, restraint of power and checks and balances. Along with a handful of others, the coach and his debaters now form an increasingly marginalized flank in Utah's Republican Party: The moderates. The old guard. I'll call them the "Conscience Caucus."
Different factions of the caucus worked behind the scenes to put private school vouchers on the ballot, to actually let the voters decide. They challenged lawmakers' schemes to make the state School Board more partisan. They questioned the constitutionality of the omnibus bill, a new dumping ground for unsuccessful education-reform legislation. And some have forced failed state Treasurer candidate Mark Walker, legislative leaders' would-be puppet, to appear before an ethics panel Monday.
They're the new true north in the state's GOP, pushing back against the ethical drift, power-grubbing and hyper-partisanship of those who came after them.
"I wouldn't say I didn't make mistakes. I'm sure when I was there things were done that were probably inappropriate," says former House Speaker Glen Brown, "but certainly not to the degree I see today."
Brown isn't alone in his disgust for the triumph of gamesmanship over statesmanship on display at Utah's Capitol. The uneasy veterans include former legislative staff and elected representatives Gov. Olene Walker, Reps. Jordan Tanner and Lamont Tyler and longtime House Clerk Carole Peterson among them. They are the Classes of 1973, 1980 and 1995 - years when enriching yourself and your business partners, twisting the knife in the guy across the aisle and then jetting off on lobbyist-funded junkets were not the first lessons a lawmaker learned.
They stick their necks out and risk being pilloried in the blogosphere and flayed in the speaker's office or at House Republican caucus meetings with desperate rhetoric meant to protect those in power.
Gallons of verbal kerosene have been reserved for the supposedly "dissident" Republicans who signed the ethics complaint against Walker. Voucher bill sponsor Steve Urquhart slobbered all over Democratic Reps. Phil Riesen and Roz McGee, who also signed the complaint, while calling Allen and West Jordan Rep. Steve Mascaro "cancer." And the normally secretive House rushed to release a letter before the July Fourth holiday alleging Mascaro harassed a female intern four months ago.
The message is clear: Speak up at your own peril.
Allen is undaunted. "One thing I have learned is that the process where a colleague has to bring ethics charges is painful for everybody," she says. "But those allegations go to the heart of legislative ethics."
Some blame current party leaders for the unnecessary application of Karl Rovian slash-and burn tactics in Utah, already the GOP's bread basket. Others say Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s genteel but weak interpretation of the governor's role has created a power vacuum waiting to be filled by lawmakers waiting in the wings.
Whatever the cause, Utah's Republican elders aren't lying low and staying silent. They won't fade away.
"It's about the heart of democracy," says Irvine, an attorney and retired Army general who served four terms in the Utah House. "It's a fragile process. And if people don't respect the process, it's not going to last."
That's a conservative value his second-rate replacements don't seem to care about.