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Washington • It's been nearly eight years since Jake Garn has had a buddy in his exclusive club.
Call it the Ex-U.S. Senators Club, Utah chapter.
But come Monday, the club will double in membership as Sen. Bob Bennett takes on the title of former senator.
Utah has had only one living, former senator in the state since the death of Democrat Frank Moss in January 2003. A decade earlier, the three-member club was whittled to two by the death of Bennett's father, Wallace F. Bennett. The state has a handful of former U.S. House members — Jim Hansen, Howard Nielsen, Dan Marriott, David Monson, Karen Shepherd, Enid Greene Mickelson, Merrill Cook and Chris Cannon — but with Utah senators traditionally serving a long tenure, it's a different story.
"Now there will be two," says Bob Bennett, whose term officially ends at noon Monday. "Jake and I have been friends since grade school, so we may have to stage a reunion."
While Bennett is finalizing his post-Senate plans and considering what groups and boards he'll be involved with, it's likely that his future will look a lot like Garn's post-Senate activity.
Not long after Garn retired from the Senate — and Bennett took over his seat — the former senator found himself on the boards of various organizations, including Escrow Bank USA, BMW Bank of America, Headwaters Inc., FranklinCovey, NuSkin Enterprises Inc. and as chairman of the Primary Children's Medical Center Foundation.
And because Garn had flown in space as a sitting senator, he moved on to serve on the board of directors for the National Air and Space Museum and the United Space Alliance.
"I wouldn't want to ruin a perfectly good marriage by being home too much," Garn quips when asked about his activities at age 78.
Bennett, 77, has announced plans to launch Bennett Consulting Group and serve as a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Institute, a group formed by former Republican and Democratic majority leaders. He's also joining a law firm but won't disclose the name just yet, and there are some board announcements coming, too.
Garn says the life of a former senator isn't the life of retirement, given an endless list of requests to sit on boards, run charities or endorse policies. His real passion is working with charities, he says, and talking to school groups about the 108 times he orbited the Earth.
"The people of Utah gave me those opportunities, so I owe them something back," Garn says.
As the saying goes, once a senator, always a senator, even though Garn prefers people call him by his first name, not the title he carried for 18 years on Capitol Hill.
"My parents named me Jake, not senator," he says.
In the ex-senators club, they're on a first-name basis.
An exclusive club
Utah has had only 15 U.S. senators since statehood was granted in 1896. Mike Lee will become the 16th next week. By comparison, more than three dozen Utahns have served in the U.S. House. The disparity reflects the longer terms of senators (six years versus two in the House); the fewer number of Senate seats (two senators versus three House members — four after the 2012 election); and the long tenure of many Utah senators (Orrin Hatch, in his sixth 6-year term, is the longest serving. Jim Hansen was the longest-serving House member, serving 11, 2-year terms.)