Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich has announced he will not seek re-election in 2008. Dmitrich, 71, has been a fixture on the Hill since coal was forming in eastern Utah, or a least since 1968.Never an orator, Dmitrich simply said: “It’s time to move on.”
UPDATE: Dmitrich told Lara Jones on KCPW's Midday Metro this morning, "It's time for me to get new blood in there." He says he wants to see Rep. Brad King fill his Senate seat – leaving two long-time Democratic seats up for grabs.
" He's been waiting patiently for me to step down. It would be a smooth transition if King were to get elected."A coal industry executive, Dmitrich served the past year on the governor’s Utah Mine Safety Commission following the mining accident at the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington that resulted in the deaths of nine miners. He argued against the state performing mine safety inspections to augment federal regulation.
The Legislature instead created a system, with a single employee, to allow confidential reporting of dangerous conditions along with training and certification technical advisory boards. The Tribune editorial page was not impressed:
A one-man office and a telephone hot line and all the training in the world would not have prevented the tragic events at Crandall Canyon, where a poorly conceived and dangerous mining plan that emphasized profit over safety was approved by the overworked and understaffed federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. And they won't prevent the next tragedy which, lacking adequate state oversight, could easily occur.
Another Democratic icon of the Senate, Eddie Mayne, died of cancer before the session began.
1 Comments:
Bravo for the senator's years of public service and all. But frankly, good riddance. He's one of the most compromised and conflicted politicians in the state and really is an embarrassment to people striving to build good government. Guess it's time to turn the free Jazz tickets over to some younger turk...
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