Counting the loose change
A controversy over whether former lawmaker Mark Walker offered Richard Ellis a juicy job to drop out of the state Treasurer race turned a ho-hum primary contest into a minor pot boiler. Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert even got mud splashed on him for not aggressively moving on the allegations.
But it's all moot now, since Ellis, a deputy treasurer, cleaned Walker's clock last night.
Still, Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, says Herbert did the right thing by holding off on turning the case over to the Attorney General for investigation:
....by making a prudent decision that keeps all of the attorney general's and district court's options viable, rather than a hasty determination that may have irrevocably-and perhaps unjustly-altered the race before all of the facts were known, Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert has provided a great service to our democratic process.Meanwhile, Paul Rolly says a memo produced by the Attorney Gerneral's office on the Ellis-Walker mess casts doubt on whether Walker could have held office had he won in the primary and the general election. For one thing, while a lawmaker, Walker voted on a pay raise for the position he would hold.
Obviously, the Democrat Dick Clark would have been pleased to face a soiled Walker in the general election.
Ellis who appears to have ducked allegations he was dealing under the table says:
I'm obviously very happy but surprised. I didn't expect the difference to hold at 60-40. It's been an uphill battle for me since the convention."Now everyone can go back to ignoring the Treasurer race.
1 Comments:
"For one thing, while a lawmaker, Walker voted on a pay raise for the position he would hold."
Are you kidding me? This is Utah - no one cares about those "conflicts of interest" except you reporter types and a few citizen rabble-rousers.
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