By Robert Gehrke

| The Salt Lake Tribune

Former State Rep. Craig Frank has a pitch for delegates in his former House District 57: Pick him to fill a vacancy in his former seat and he’ll serve one year, then run for the seat now held by Sen. John Valentine.

That came as news to Valentine, who defended Frank last session when Frank was ousted from the House after it was discovered that he lived outside the House district. Valentine had sponsored legislation to shift the district boundaries.

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"I am planning to run again," Valentine said, "so I guess he’ll be running against me."

Frank made the pitch in an email to Republican delegates Thursday, ahead of Tuesday’s special election to replace Rep. Holly Richardson, who resigned to work on Dan Liljenquist’s U.S. Senate campaign.

Richardson replaced Frank a year ago after he was bounced from the House. After that, Valentine sponsored the bill to revise the boundaries to include Cedar Hills in District 57, correcting a clerical error.

"I made it possible for him to do what he’s doing now, which is run for the House," Valentine said. "I guess this is politics."

Mark Thomas, administrator of the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, said that makes Frank eligible to represent the current District 57, but he will not be eligible once the new, redistricted boundaries take effect for the 2012 election.

The Utah Constitution requires legislative candidates to live in the districts where they run for at least six months before the March 15 filing date. (That is different from federal law, which contains no residency requirement for Congress members.)

A few weeks ago, Frank moved his family back into a home they own in Pleasant Grove, but the move came outside the six-month residency window.

"My proposal is: I am eligible to run for HD57 now, through the end of the year," he wrote in an email to delegates. "Elect me to the House to fill out the term for which I was elected in November of 2010. Then, this coming March … I will run for the state senate in Senate District 14."

Frank said in an interview that he and his family decided before Richardson resigned that he would run for Senate.

"I had a number of constituents and delegates express their concern about their current representation and encourage me to seek that office," Frank said, noting that they were worried that Valentine will have served 24 years in the Legislature at the end of his term.

"I would tend to agree that excessive, longtime service is probably not good for the people," Frank said.

Frank had argued to the Lieutenant Governor’s Office that, because the new House district boundaries weren’t adopted by the Legislature until after Sept. 15 — the start of the six-month residency window — the requirement should be waived, Thomas said.

But Thomas said lawyers with the Attorney General’s Office and the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel agreed with the lieutenant governor that they cannot simply ignore a constitutional requirement.

According to the Utah County Republican Party, three candidates have filed for the House District 57 seat to replace Richardson: Frank; Jeremy Washburn, a Realtor; and Deanne Taylor, a past president of the Pleasant Grove Chamber of Commerce.