Credit unions oppose Stephens

Utah's credit unions have jumped into the Republican governor's race, opposing state House Speaker Marty Stephens.

"I'm very disappointed in this," Stephens said. The credit unions' letter comes in the last week before the state GOP convention, "when I can't adequately respond to these charges, which are without merit," he said.

Scott Simpson, credit union association president, said delegates and "credit union folks" had asked for guidance in whom they should support in Saturday's GOP convention. He said his letter asking delegates not to vote for Stephens went to a "broad group" of the delegates but not all 3,500.

"Anyone involved in the credit union debate knows that during (Stephens' tenure as speaker), we've been roughed up pretty good," Simpson said.

But Stephens points to several instances when credit union officials themselves praised him and the House for supporting a compromise bill in the 2003 Legislature. Two GOP House members who work for credit unions voted for that bill, as did Stephens.

The bank/credit union battle is a complicated tax issue where banks complained that the nonprofit credit unions have an unfair competitive advantage because they don't pay state income taxes that for-profit banks must do.

Simpson says that credit unions were "forced" into a compromise in the 1999 Legislature and that since then several of the large credit unions have given up their state charters and become federally chartered institutions — to the detriment of credit union members.

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