The former governor, who died last week, left office in January 1977 after three impressive terms. A preliminary vote of the County Council showed a split right down party lines on a resolution to name the Salt Palace the Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention and Exposition Center. The five Republicans were opposed and the four Democrats were in favor.
Three of the Republican council members seem not to understand why the Salt Palace should be named after Rampton. They were just children when "The Guv" bowed out of the public spotlight. So their experience of Utah politics is in the fiercely partisan environment that has prevailed for a number of years. It is one that rewards the demonizing of the minority party and the punishment of its adherents with the hammer of single-party government.
Rampton and those of his era - which council members Jeff Allen, Michael Jensen and Mark Crockett were not around to experience - didn't do things that way. And that's precisely why we should keep his name alive, to maintain public interest in who he was and what he represented.
The irony here is that the resistance to honoring a man who exuded principle, fairness, compromise and cooperation is motivated by attitudes that are the antithesis of those qualities. That Republicans balk at honoring Utah's most revered Democrat hints at the partisan pettiness that dominates Utah politics.
Rampton, who not only modernized state government and higher-education facilities, also created economic development and tourism promotion as we know it today and built the roads and infrastructure necessary to accommodate Utah's growth.
Over and over, Rampton sang the praises of Republican lawmakers who worked with him to push through the initiatives he championed. And he named names: specifically, state senators Hughes Brockbank, Warren Pugh, Haven Barlow and Wallace Gardner.
How often do you see a Democrat or Republican acknowledging the virtues of the other party today? That's why we need to remember Rampton.
At a Salt Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau executive committee meeting the other day, some members worried that naming the Salt Palace after Rampton would invite the wrath of the Republican-dominated Legislature, which could punish the county by manipulating the sales-tax distributions, for example. After all, that's been done before - most recently with the Legislature's direction of millions in county revenues to subsidize Real Salt Lake's new stadium in Sandy.
But perhaps these cautious board members fear a boogeyman that, in this case, may be kept shackled. Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, and House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, have both said they have no problem naming the Salt Palace after Rampton. That's the county's prerogative, they say.
Moreover, Curtis and Valentine recently joined Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in announcing that the Governor's Board Room in the newly-renovated State Capitol would be named after Rampton. And Curtis suggested the yet-to-be-built Health and Human Services Building could be named after Rampton.
All of that said, though, there is no evidence that Utah's political climate is becoming the least bit Ramptonesque. Nor is there any reason for Salt Lake County to hope that the Legislature is turning over a new leaf.
