Utah: Governor

Gov. Jon Huntsman (R)

Jon Huntsman (R) Elected 2004, 1st term up Jan. 2009
Born:	03-26-1960, Palo Alto, CA
Home:	Salt Lake City
Education:	Attended U. of UT; U. of PA, B.A. 1987
Religion:	Mormon
Marital Status:	married (Mary Kaye)
Professional Career:	Staff Asst., White House, 1982-83; Exec., Huntsman Corp., 1983-89; Dep. Asst. Sec. of Commerce, Trade Dev. Bureau, 1989-90; Dep. Asst. Sec. of Commerce for E. Asia & the Pacific, 1990-91; Amb. to Singapore, 1992-93; Pres., Huntsman Cancer Foundation, 1995-2001; U.S. trade amb., 2001-03; Chairman and CEO, Huntsman Family Holdings Co., 2003-04.
DC Office	East Office Building, Suite E220, PO Box 142220, Salt Lake City, 84114 801-538-1000 Fax: 801-538-1528 Website: www.utah.gov/governor
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Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican, was elected governor of Utah in 2004. He was born in Palo Alto, California, the oldest of nine children, spent time in California and in Washington, D.C., where his father worked in the Nixon administration, then moved to Utah. He dropped out of high school to play keyboards in rock-and-roll bands; he attended the University of Utah briefly before leaving on a two-year Mormon mission to Taiwan. There he learned to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese. When he returned, he transferred to and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the son of billionaire philanthropist and industrialist Jon Huntsman, the wealthiest man in Utah (his company invented McDonald’s Big Mac clamshell packaging), and the family owns a controlling interest in the Huntsman Corporation, a multinational petrochemical corporation headquartered in Salt Lake City. Jon Huntsman Jr. was an intern for Senator Orrin Hatch, a staff assistant to Ronald Reagan, served in the administration of George H.W. Bush as a deputy assistant secretary of Commerce and as ambassador to Singapore and was a deputy trade ambassador for George W. Bush. He also served as president of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation and as CEO of the Huntsman Family Holdings Co., the umbrella organization that holds the assets of the multibillion-dollar Huntsman chemical business.

Huntsman succeeded Republican Governor Olene Walker, who was the first woman to hold the position. Walker was governor for 13 months; as lieutenant governor, she assumed office in November 2003 when Governor Mike Leavitt stepped down with one year remaining in his term to become administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Walker would not say at first whether she planned to run for election in 2004, but she was no caretaker governor. After the 2004 legislative session, she vetoed a series of bills and then made the surprising announcement that she would run for a full term at age 74. Polls showed Walker was quite popular but she failed to get the 60% required to win the nomination outright at the state Republican convention in May and failed even to place among the top two candidates, thus preventing her from appearing on the June 22 primary ballot.

Huntsman led in the polls from the start against former Speaker and Board of Regents Chairman Nolan Karras. The primary lacked much drama: the two candidates agreed on most issues, were unusually civil to each other and Huntsman kept the focus on his top issue, economic development. He outspent Karras $1.3 million to $1 million and won easily with 66%, carrying every county but one and winning populous Salt Lake County by a more than 2–1 margin.

The Democratic nominee was Scott Matheson, the son of the state’s last Democratic governor, brother of 2d District Congressman Jim Matheson, and a Rhodes Scholar who had managed his father’s gubernatorial campaigns in 1976 and 1980. He served four years as U.S. Attorney for Utah and later became dean of the University of Utah law school. The tone of the general election campaign also was unusually civil. The two nominees shared similar views on many issues and even applauded each other during one debate. But they diverged on gay rights and school vouchers. Huntsman supported Amendment 3, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage (a position held by the LDS Church, though it took no stand on the ballot measure itself; it passed in November with 66%), while Matheson opposed it. Huntsman advocated school choice, vouchers and a system of tuition tax credits; he claimed a vote for Matheson was a vote for the agenda of the state teachers’ union, which had endorsed Matheson. Matheson emphasized the need to increase education spending.

Huntsman stayed focused on job creation and economic issues. He insisted that only an improved business climate would permit increased spending for highways and for the burgeoning public school system; revamping Utah’s “dilapidated and anachronistic” tax system and phasing out the state sales tax on food was a necessary predicate. Huntsman closely aligned himself with the George W. Bush but parted company on two issues. Referring to the No Child Left Behind Act as an unfunded mandate, he argued that it “should be jettisoned out of the classroom”; the state has been a leader in the resistance to NCLB, with state officials arguing that the law is too rigid and a serious intrusion into Utah’s right to control public schools. He also broke with the administration by suggesting he supported the importation of prescription drugs from Canada.

Huntsman outspent Matheson, $3.2 million to $2 million, loaning his campaign $275,000 but otherwise spent far less of his own money than other similarly situated candidates might have. He won all but four counties to win 58%-41%. Matheson carried Salt Lake County 51%-46%; Huntsman ran 14% behind George W. Bush there.

He began his term by breaking with tradition and delivering his first State of the State address in the historic statehouse in Fillmore, the territorial capital of Utah named in appreciation of President Millard Fillmore’s decision to name Brigham Young as the first territorial governor. Huntsman proposed a phaseout of corporate income taxes and called for streamlining sales taxes. In his first legislative session as governor, he had a low-key style and got along well with legislators. He signed a bill banning Class B and C radioactive waste from Utah and vowed to prevent the shipment of mustard gas from Colorado to Utah for destruction. Broad tax reform was deferred but he raised salaries for state employees, got money for economic development and $18 million for tourism promotion. He also signed a measure to void undocumented immigrants’ driver’s licenses and replace them with a “driving privilege” card, which cannot be used as legal ID. He said he was open to relaxing the state’s strict liquor laws. He called an April special session and then signed legislation limiting Utah's implementation of NCLB education requirements, despite warnings from the U.S. Education Department that the state eventually could lose millions in federal dollars.

Huntsman began his second year in office with high approval ratings and a healthy budget surplus. With a slightly more aggressive stance toward the legislature, he sought to fulfill his campaign promise to eliminate the sales tax on food and managed to reduce the state’s portion of it by two percentage points. He failed in his effort to institute a “flatter” income tax but signed off on $20 million in business tax cuts. Huntsman also traveled to Iraq to visit soldiers and to China in October on a weeklong trade mission. There, the former diplomat impressed Chinese officials. “You’re not the first governor who has come to promote tourism,” said one Chinese official. “But you’re definitely the first governor who came to China to promote your state in Mandarin Chinese.” In December, Huntsman and his family traveled to India where they adopted a one-year-old girl who had been abandoned by the side of the road not long after her birth.  

In 2007, with the state looking at a $1.7 billion surplus, Huntsman called for an 18% increase in education spending. This was a rare legislative session where there seemed to be money for almost everything: funding for all-day kindergarten, raises for teachers, $220 million in tax cuts (including another reduction in the food sales tax), hundreds of millions for transportation projects. Huntsman also achieved significant change in the state’s tax structure. In 2008, the state will move to a 5% single-rate personal income tax system that relies on tax credits rather than deductions or exemptions. Another 2007 accomplishment was passage of an expansive school voucher bill which created a program open to all public school students and to private school students from low-income families; Huntsman signed the bill without fanfare and it quickly became embroiled in legal controversy.

Huntsman’s successes have led to speculation about his political future. In April 2007, he insisted he was not interested in replacing Republican Senator Orrin Hatch in the event Hatch was selected by President George W. Bush to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. But Huntsman did show an interest in national politics. He worked with other Western governors, including New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, to establish a 2008 regional presidential primary though the effort met with limited success. Huntsman surprised some with his early endorsement of John McCain for the Republican party 2008 presidential nomination, a notable choice given fellow Mormon Mitt Romney’s widespread popularity in Utah—and Huntsman’s father’s strong support for Romney.