Convention in high gear despite shortfall

Utah state legislators organizing a national lawmaker conference in Salt Lake City next week are still more than $150,000 short in their fund raising but have decided not to cancel any of the meeting's planned social events.

"Fund raising has picked up (recently), and we're going ahead" with an opening social at the Capitol and a closing event at the Utah Olympic Oval ice rink in Kearns, said Senate Majority Leader Mike Waddoups, R-Taylorsville.

Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, who just happens to be president of the National Conference of State Legislatures this year as the conference meets in Salt Lake City's Salt Palace, said as of Monday local officials had raised $704,000 of the now-downsized goal of $860,000.

NCSL, located in Denver with a Washington, D.C., lobbying office, is the nation's largest association of legislators and legislative staffers. All 50 states pay the $100,000-plus yearly dues to belong, and the group has a $25 million annual budget, said NCSL executive director William T. Pound.

NCSL itself pays for workaday conference expenses, where legislators and legislative staffers attend dozens of informational meetings, while the host committee pays for nightly social events and picks up some transportation costs.

The yearly summer conventions are NCSL's largest single activity. Utah state officials estimate next week's convention, which should draw 150 media reporters as well as 4,800 lawmakers, will pump more than $12 million into the local economy.

Pound said because it's an election year for three-fourths of the nation's state legislators, and with national party conventions coming up later in July and August, registration for the annual convention is down 1,000 from a hoped-for 6,000 attendees.

Unfortunately, the national Democratic Party's nominating convention starts in Boston just days after Salt Lake's NCSL convention ends here, Pound told the Deseret Morning News' editorial board Monday, and so some Democratic lawmakers are bypassing this event.

The convention runs Monday through Thursday of next week, ending July 22, a day earlier than other NCSL conventions, which normally end on Fridays. A Thursday ending allows visitors to get out of town before Salt Lake City's big July 24 parade and Pioneer Day celebrations.