State Sen. Curt Bramble and Rep. Chad Bennion saw Utah's 74-year-old governor coming out of her hotel room and decided to go along. With protesters milling around town, "I wasn't about to let her go alone," Bramble said. So, the governor and the lawmakers rode the subway to 42nd Street and strolled for three hours back to the Marriott at the tip of Manhattan. "She's a free spirit," he shrugs in explanation.
That ramble through Gotham has become legend. It also has spawned fictitious spin-offs - like the tale of her pulling weeds outside the Governor's Mansion at 3 a.m. - all told with the faint tinge of disbelief and fondness that reveal Walker's unique appeal.
Unscripted and spontan- eous, she surprised critics and supporters alike with her ability to play hardball politics with lawmakers, her unexpected run for election in her own right and a willingness to tackle the unpopular details of tax reform and education funding. Walker had only one year, but she tried to make the most of it.
"She knew her time in office was limited. And she truly wanted to lead the state. She had an idea where she wanted to go. She just didn't have enough time to do it," says Kelly Patterson, director of Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. "Time is an asset."
One year ago, then-Gov. Mike Leavitt left office after 11 years to assume the helm of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. His lieutenant governor, Walker, stepped in. While recognized as the state's first woman governor, Walker was expected to continue in a supportive role as the caretaker of Leavitt's legacy. She appreciated the historical footnote next to her name, but her own restive personality and a sense of responsibility for future women politicians tugged at her.
"I felt the pattern I established would be reflected in [voters'] memories when any other females run. I wanted it to be a positive experience for them," Walker said. Besides, "I've always been one who felt we needed to get things done. I have an obligation to do whatever I can for the citizens of the state up to the end of the year."
The week of her inauguration, Walker unveiled the first of 14 initiatives. Some were simply the continuation of Leavitt's e-government, technology and public lands projects. Some - including her $30 million reading program and the two-inch thick tax reform plan she released last week - are more memorable than others. Walker launched a Quality Growth Communities incentive, started a program for transitioning foster children into adulthood and laid the groundwork for an International Trade Center in Salt Lake City.
At the same time the governor was wrangling with legislators. She used political skills honed during a decade in the Legislature and another 11 years as Leavitt's ambassador to lawmakers to keep her budget largely intact. Lawmakers who initially questioned her succession and condescendingly accepted her role in history learned her resolve quickly. But she struggled for legitimacy as lawmakers groused that she had no mandate; she had not been elected to the state's top office.
"It wasn't the glide path to retirement," says University of Utah political scientist Matt Burbank. "She was willing to raise some issues. And they weren't going to allow her to do it in the last year."
Orem Republican Sen. John Valentine remembers Walker threatening to veto the entire budget if lawmakers didn't find funding for school reading initiative. Eventually, both parties compromised and agreed to fund $15 million from state coffers, leaving school districts to pay for the other half.
"She hit the ground running. She was not afraid to spend political capital. She started twisting arms immediately," said Valentine, president-elect of the Senate. "There was respect. But it wasn't received as well as it would have been had she been a newly-elected governor."
After the 2004 Legislature, she vetoed a series of bills and simultaneously announced her intention to run for governor, setting her political future on a collision course with her aggressive approach to the job. Fatefully, Walker vetoed the Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship Fund, worried the legislation would crack the door on tax breaks for families enrolling students in private school. Conservative Republican delegates who liked the bill rejected her election bid, picking two moderate Republicans - Board of Regents Chairman Nolan Karras and Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. - to send to the party primary election.
As the other candidates fought for the chance to replace her, Walker continued to release initiatives - some say in an attempt to give her ideas longer influence. In that effort, she sometimes stumbled. The tax reform plan slated for release Aug. 1 and meant to define the race for governor was released more than three months late. The governor has tried to give her ideas legs by briefing Huntsman and lawmakers. Although the governor-elect has pledged his commitment to the concept, lawmakers are uncomfortable with parts of Walker's tax package. She will release her second - and last - budget in December.
As she contemplates one last Christmas in the mansion with her grandkids and considers a handful of job offers, the governor hopes she will be remembered for her ideas as well as her gender.
EPA Administrator Leavitt believes Walker will get her wish.
"Olene Walker is a competent woman of history. She played a substantive, important, shaping role in Utah politics for nearly a quarter of a century. You can search history and not find anyone better suited to be honored in that way," the former governor said. "Olene Walker carried on in a way that has made me proud. I'd like to think I made a contribution to history by having the insight to select her."
