The Utah House is losing one of its archconservative constitutional scholars – Ken Ivory is resigning next week.
And with his departure, there will be a clear gap in what used to be a hard-right-wing of House conservatives.
Ivory leaves behind a large body of work and is a leader in the House’s states’ rights/public lands policy work.
While he now won’t be in the House to see it, if Utah ever gets back the millions of acres of land currently held by the federal government in the state, much of the groundwork was laid by Ivory.
Ivory, R-West Jordan, won a House seat from Salt Lake County’s southwest side in 2010 – and came in at the peak of the Tea Party movement that swept the late-U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett from office.
Ivory quickly sought to establish himself as a states’ rights, constitutional scholar, having written several books on the subject.
His floor speeches, some may term them lectures, on how the Founding Fathers would see a local Utah issue today became well-known.
And Ivory would often rise in open House GOP caucus meetings to put his perspective on important issues.
But over the years fellow constitutional conservatives fell out of office in the House – representatives like LaVar Christensen and Mike Noel, among others.
Newly-elected conservatives may be as pro-Founding Fathers as those men and women, but they are not as vocal nor as prominent.
And a few others, like Rep. Norm Thurston, R-Provo, have had other problems that have knocked them out of committee chairmanships.
It is not so much of a surprise that Ivory is leaving – he says to take a new job which will require all of his time and commitment.
Halfway through 2017, then-Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, who makes committee assignments, took Ivory out of being the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees all kinds of public lands legislation and issues, a position Ivory treasured and used to push his states’ rights agenda.
While Hughes and Ivory tried to put the best face on the transfer, it was clearly a demotion for Ivory – and a somewhat odd decision to make halfway through two-year House committee assignments.
The demotion came on the heels of Noel, in conducting one House caucus meeting, basically told Ivory to end one of Ivory’s lectures on constitutional principles, with Noel saying they had heard that speech before and had to move on with the caucus agenda.
Ivory got up and left the room, clearly displeased at being publicly called to heel.
Ivory kept his co-chairmanship of the Federal Lands Commission, but with the Trump administration not moving on returning federal property to western states, that issue seems to have been put on the back burner, at least for now.
And you don’t get far lambasting Trump for inaction, as Ivory et al. loved to do with former Democratic President Barack Obama.
In a prepared statement, Ivory said: “It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to serve in the Utah House.
“During my time, I’ve been blessed to work with amazing leaders across the political spectrum to help make this State the best place to live, work, receive an education, and raise a family.
“I’m grateful to the constituents who entrusted me to represent them. And I promise to continue serving in whatever capacity I can.”
