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Show The Utah Enterprise Review , January 5. 7977 Page 15b A Tear for Utah c 0 u Not for Ted by Parker M. Nielson An old familiar face is popping up around town and causing some reflections on the fortunes of politics and the State of Utah. It has been a long time since Frank E. (Ted) Moss was found in the places where Salt Lakers gather to socialize, rather than in TV accounts of consumer protection legislation and the like. The voters have now turned Moss out of office, replacing him with youthful Orrin Hatch. The subjective merit of the two men was a matter for the voters to decide, and they have made that decision. Moss, for his part, appears confidence and optimism over his own philosophical, exuding future. It is hard to feel the same about fortunes of the state after the loss of the office distinguished from the man that resulted from the election, for being an effective senator involves considerations beyond ones native abilities. Senate power and influence is the product of diverse factors. It depends upon the seniority system, first of all, where Utah's position of 18th, and 2nd or 3rd in administrative responsibility, will now be replaced with a probably rank of a dead last. Seniority with the majority, or minority groups, where assignments are made in caucus, is also important. Utah formerly had impressive representation with the Senate minority, in Wallace Bennett, and the Senate majority, in Ted Moss, but we now have representation only with the and not very prominent at that! minority N T E R P 0 I N T imn veuetf LOST UfJTlL-- 1 A SCO P Seniority becomes all the more important when translated into the important committee assignments where the significant business of the Congress is conducted. Moss was Secretary to the Majority Conference Committee and would have been second ranking on the Budget Committee. In a very short time he would have been Chairman of the Commerce Committee and was a member of the Democratic Policy Committee. What assignments Hatch will draw is yet to be seen, but considering that he is probably also dead last in seniority among the Republican minority, having held no prior elective or appointive office, federal, state or local, whatever he draws will surely be the dregs that which is left after all others make their choice. Seniority is also what opens the doors to the Executive department, where the decisions affecting Utah are made. It will likely be some time before either of Utah's senators are invited to White House policy sessions, as Bennett was with Presidents Nixon and Ford and Moss was with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and would have been with President-elec- t Carter. Moreover, the Hatch election was part of a wave of wholesale rejection of the Carter candidacy in the West. Thus, even prominent Democratic senators from this region might find themselves with little stroke, and surely western senators representing the Republican minority will have no ear at all in a Democratic White House dominated by the influence of the east and south. Orderly change in government is a necessity, but Utahs choice seems MV POLL hW FOUUPCW HV W IONS 1AK1MS TVS OWIV IT M V 5 700. T mu tm zoo, rr BIS SISIER T0Le d. bwwpomz M SH IT iOASUT LOST, SIRL- - ill-time- 2 -- IT. m, school- - ia. Atop uv Fmee VLP WBWE 50 l Rmp cxjr LOAS limn If)AS TAWkJS Ttte CIRCUS, OJtV I GQ09 BGSAV56 IF THA'SHOO) 6CCQ- - low UXVLP ALL 7H5S5 SCOP PSCPLC IT ijomr im circus, nm-- Mef Di w tOTST. fume? TT Pragmatic Dogmatics Religion and Politics by Kent Shearer In most states of the union, religion is no critical political determinant. In Utah, it probably is otherwise. John Preston Creer, a disappointed thinks so. ReDemocratic office-seekeports the Dec. 26 Tribune , Creers new Years message to his fellow partisans is that (t)he Democratic party has drifted to a point where many of those who are nonmembers of the Mormon Church or inactive members have risen to places of r, prominence. Creer added that Democrats thus have inadvertently excluded others (Mormons), and are driving them over to the Republican party. What Creer says is correct to a point. But only to a point. Utah Democrats have a habit of making Republicans of the d of our populace who are active LDS. On the other hand, it is the propensity of Utah Republicans to make Democrats of one-thir- of the natives who either have backslid from Mormon ways they inherited or were born or became Gentiles. The problem, therefore, of Democrats The is to appeal to straight LDS. is corresponding problem of Republicans to appeal to backsliders and Gentiles. Both propositions are true which, in turn, leads to some interesting consequences. First , each partisan side tends to bend over backwards. The George a vetoed Dewey Clyde, a Republican, Sunday Closing Law. The backslid Calvin Rampton. a Democrat, signed one, although it later was overturned as unconstitutional by the Utah Supreme Court. Second, whenever a partisan side rejects this tendency, disaster may, but not necessarily shall, follow. In the last Deseret News poll prior to the November election, Republican Vernon B. Romney, a devout Mormon, led the eventual victor. Democrat Scott Matheson. a nominal Mormon, among LDS (including backsliders) by a single the two-third- s very-Morm- on of the voting point. Among the 30-3- 3 population who are Gentiles, however, Matheson had more than enough of a lead to overcome Romneys slight Mormon margin. had reRomneys campaign catch-word- s flected his devotion to his sect; Matheson identified himself as a member of the predominant Utah religious persuasion and let it go at that. Third, though, party organizational and nominating conventions tend to break out by size. Given notable exceptions. Democratic leadership sways away from Mormonism, Republican leadership toward it. Both the LDS Democrats and the nominal and Republicans from time to time express misgivings over this tendency. Creer is only the latest. None of my remarks are meant to disparage any religious faction in Utah. They simply address themselves to a fact of local political life which despite constitutional provisions mandating separation of church and state docs have a bearing. non-LD- S |
