Senator apologizes again for 'black baby' remark

Joe Pyrah

After a remark that most will agree at least sounded racist, Sen. Chris Buttars said he won't resign and this won't be his last term as a senator.

"I'm going to run," he said plainly about re-election this fall.

The senator from West Jordan has been under intense criticism since early last week over a remark during a heated debate about school district equalization, which would have a large impact on Buttars's constituents.

"This baby is black. It is a dark, ugly thing," he said on the heels of other comments about the bill being an "ugly thing."

While he apologized for the remark in front of the entire Senate shortly after he made it, questions have dogged him about the meaning of his statement and whether it will affect his decision to run for re-election in the fall. For the first time since the incident, Buttars sat down to talk about what happened and what happens next.

He reiterated his plans to stay in the Senate after media reports over the weekend indicated that leadership was pressuring him to drop his re-election bid. On Monday, leadership issued a full-throated denial of the report and defense of Buttars in a written statement.

"The Senate does not think Senator Buttars should resign," the statement reads. "We have not asked him to resign. Neither have we pressured him not to run in November."

Buttars said in the interview Monday that he will do what it takes to repair his reputation, including having a meeting with Jeanetta Williams of the NAACP of Salt Lake City. Williams has called for Buttars's resignation.

"I'm not going to make any excuses other than I didn't mean it," Buttars said. "It was not meant to be harmful, it was a terrible remark."

Asked what he would do if the NAACP didn't back down, he shrugged.

"I can't make that decision for them. All I can do is be square up on it," he said.

Buttars will also be speaking with Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, who was the first person to ask for an apology after hearing the statement on the Senate floor. Romero said that with the wave of immigration bills crashing through the Legislature, the time for racial sensitivity is now more than ever.

On Monday, Buttars agreed, saying racial tensions have been higher this year than his other years as a senator. As for name calling, he said he's had his share.

Of the hundreds and hundreds of e-mails he received over the matter, many have vitriol.

"By last week, I was the meanest, ugliest racist that ever lived," he said of the comments he's read. "Some of them are more than mean. I was Satan. I was this terrible, terrible, terrible person."

Not all of the e-mails have been bad. Some have said they think it was a bad thing to say but understood it as a slip of the tongue instead of flash of a deeper racism.

"We're 100 percent with you," he said those e-mails indicate, "and how did these ding-dongs come up with that conclusion?"