It gave $30,000 to Lt. Gov.-elect Gary Herbert before Herbert got out of the governor's race and joined Jon Huntsman Jr.'s campaign as second-in-command. The donation was one of Herbert's largest.

It also gave $5,000 to GOP Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

And Realtors peppered the House and Senate party PACs with $1,500 to $2,000 gifts as well.

Realtors were no slouches in 2003, a non-campaign year for Utah's 104 part-time lawmakers.

Last year the PAC raised $333,252 and doled out $150,000 — even though no legislators were up for election.

Some of the 2003 money went to a few legislators' campaign accounts. But more went to county and state political party fund raisers, to special events held by legislative leaders, to the House and Senate PACs of both political parties (which in turn contribute to sitting legislators' campaign accounts) and to local Realtor organizations that supported 2003 city candidates.

While Realtors have flexed their political cash muscle by being the biggest donor, they are sitting on even more unspent dollars.

The pre-election 2004 PAC filings show the association has $865,000 in cash — the largest cash pot the newspaper could find among the most wealthy political action committees.

Where will it go?

Kyler says association members "will stay active" in local, state and national politics. (About 30 percent of its PAC funds go to 14 local Realtor groups for city and county campaigns, 20 percent back to the National Association of Realtors, headed next year by Utah state Sen. Al Mansell, for congressional and presidential races.)

"But we have a goal, starting in 2005, to put aside each year $200,000" in a bank account to fight any "crazy citizen initiatives that could come forward. We'd then have the wherewithal to get our message across."

The UAR opposed, for example, the open space preservation Initiative 1 that failed on this November's ballot.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com; bbjr@desnewscom