Taxpayers group to add clout with PAC

The state's largest anti-tax advocacy group, the Utah Taxpayers Association, plans to start what its founders say will become one of the wealthiest political action committees in Utah — giving money, in addition to advice, to state candidates and officeholders.

While considering for several years whether to form a PAC, the association's board finally announced it will jump into the political-giving contest just before the 2006 midterm legislative races, the group's vice president, Mike Jerman, said Monday.

"It all kind of came together — the (public funding) for the soccer stadium, the transit bond — every kind (of tax hike or public) giveaway" that disgusted the taxpayer association bosses enough to start up a PAC, Jerman said.

Several yet-to-be-named supporters have pledged up to $40,000 as matching cash, Jerman said. If matches are found, that original $80,000 political pot would immediately put the taxpayers PAC in the upper realms of state political action committees. Donors' names will be listed in the Sept. 15 PAC filing, but Jerman declined to name them now.

"We are in this for the long haul. We aim to be in the top 10" of political giving to legislative and local government candidates within a few years, Jerman said.

The Utah Taxpayers Association, a nonprofit research group started in 1923, is funded mostly by Utah businesses, along with a few individual members. The organization has become more and more political over the years, and its longtime president, Howard Stephenson, has been a Republican state senator from Draper for more than a decade. But until now, it has not formed a PAC and has not given cash donations to candidates.

Stephenson often gets into tussles with organizations that push for more spending in various state programs. The Utah Education Association — the state's largest teachers union — has been a particular bugaboo for Stephenson and other taxpayer association personnel. And the UEA's PAC has been one of the state's largest for years.

UEA executive director Susan Kuziak said she's read the taxpayers' PAC announcement, and she believes the new PAC's leanings are much like the political agenda of Sen. Stephenson.

"It makes me wonder if the businesses that support the taxpayers association, and so probably will support its PAC financially, hold the same views as their spokesman (Stephenson)," said Kuziak. "Do (the business owners) really advocate for private school vouchers, for tax credits? Do they really want private industry taking over our education system? I suppose (the PAC's) motivation and results will be told over time."