Seegmiller wants to "severely limit or ban gifts from lobbyists to legislators"; restrict campaign contributions by political action committees, individuals and corporations; ban any campaign contributions 30 days before and after the general session (campaign donations are now banned during the 45-day sessions); tighten conflict of interest rules, including allowing lawmakers to abstain from conflicted votes; and candidates/lawmakers "can't pocket their campaign funds," which is now allowed.

The campaigns' finance race isn't even close. Curtis has raised $53,552 this year alone, and he now has $265,000 in his campaign account. He also has $104,000 in his own PAC — for a total of nearly $370,000 in cash.

Seegmiller has raised nearly $30,000, spent $10,000 and has nearly $20,000 in cash. So he has about 5 percent of the cash that Curtis has.

"I may spend up to $30,000 on this race," said Seegmiller, "more than enough for any House race, I believe." Utah Democratic Party chairman Wayne Holland's son, Nick, is running Seegmiller's campaign. But the state party, so far, has not donated to Seegmiller. In his 2006 race, the state party gave Seegmiller $5,000.

Only 5.6 percent of Curtis' campaign money comes from individuals, the rest from various special interest groups — not an uncommon mix for a veteran legislator and current leader.

A union man "who has let it be known to my (fellow) union members that I'm running" this year, 27 percent of Seegmiller's campaign cash comes from unions, some from local transportation union chapters from outside of Utah.

Curtis said Democrats are "beating the drum" on two policy issues — private school vouchers and the stadium funding.

The first is over — there will be no new voucher bills passing, says Curtis, if he has anything to say about it.

The second is much misunderstood. "I ask in my town meetings who has stayed in a Salt Lake County hotel room the past year — maybe one hand goes up. I say, 'OK, you contributed a little bit of money to the soccer stadium — which is basically getting money from the county's hotel room tax, paid by visitors to the county,"' he said.

His constituents "almost to a person" change their minds about the stadium when educated about the funding source, glad that the new economic engine fueled by the stadium is being paid for by people outside of Sandy, outside of Salt Lake County, he adds.

But Seegmiller says Curtis' record is not one of service to Sandy, but of service to special interests.

"Greg said after that 20-vote win" in 2006 "that he had to get back in touch with his district," said Seegmiller. But just a few months after that election, Curtis led the fight in passing the voucher bill, knowing that most District 49 residents were against private school vouchers, Seegmiller charged.

"If I had won last time, considering that vouchers passed by one vote in the House, we could have avoided this costly mess" of lawsuits and a citizen referendum, for he would have voted against HB148, he said.

"Greg had a great opportunity to vote like his people wanted, but he voted the other way," said Seegmiller.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com