There were gasps in the Senate chamber when Sen. Howard Stephenson, a Draper Republican who championed efforts to lower taxes and keep them from rising in his public and private jobs, announced his retirement on the final night of the 2018 legislative session.
“I’ve never experienced air being sucked out of a room before,” he said in an interview Monday.
Stephenson, who has served since 1993, said he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do and wouldn’t seek re-election this November.
For years he advocated for the state’s truth-in-taxation law, which lowers property tax rates when home and business values rise to prevent passive tax hikes.