One Utah Senate seat has been filled by appointment, not election, for more than 40 years

When a midterm vacancy occurs in the Utah Legislature, party delegates select a replacement to serve the remaining term. These special elections facilitate the swift replacement of a lawmaker who has vacated office. However, the choice of who represents an entire district rests with a relatively small group of individuals. Notably, the last time voters, rather than delegates, chose the occupant for a single Utah state Senate seat was over four decades ago.

GOP delegates in SD21 picked Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Highland, to succeed State Sen. Mike Kennedy, who is resigning at the beginning of next year to take a seat in Congress. Brammer was re-elected to another term representing HD54 earlier this month. Republican delegates will pick a replacement for Brammer in the House on Dec. 7.

Brammer needed just 171 votes in the final round to defeat former Utah County Commissioner Bill Lee. Those 171 votes represented fewer than 0.3% of the 62,000 registered voters in SD21 and 0.4% of the 40,000 registered Republicans.

Brammer becomes the sixth straight lawmaker to be appointed to that seat. The last time the occupant was elected and not appointed was over 40 years ago, in 1982, when Republican Paul Rogers defeated Democrat Ernest Dean.

• In 2021, Kennedy was appointed to replace Dan Hemmert, who resigned to take a job with Gov. Spencer Cox's administration.
• Hemmert was first appointed to the seat in 2019 when Al Jackson resigned because he accepted a job in another state.
• Jackson was appointed in 2014 to replace John Valentine after he was picked by then-Governor Gary Herbert as Chair of the Utah State Tax Commission.
• Valentine was a member of the Utah House of Representatives when he was appointed to replace Craig Peterson in 1998.
• Peterson was first appointed to the Utah Senate in 1988 to replace Rogers.

When the next legislative session gets underway in January, there will be 15 Representatives and 10 Senators who were appointed to their current seat or began their tenure as a lawmaker through an appointment. All of them are Republicans.

Chief among them is Senate President Stuart Adams, who was appointed to the Utah House in 2002 and then appointed to fill a replacement in the Senate in 2009.