$omething for everyone: Programs and pork generously dealt with

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said it would cost between $2 million and $8 million to defend the coming lawsuit, and GOP leaders decided to let someone else pay the cost of challenging the 1973 abortion-rights ruling.

When Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon refused to endorse a special tax diversion to help Real Salt Lake soccer team, in stepped Huntsman and Curtis.

Using county tax dollars, the governor engineered the purchase of Sandy land for the new soccer stadium and pushed the building of a large parking structure — both required to keep the professional soccer league in Utah.

After years of arguments, lawmakers tried to accommodate several minority groups.

Legislators twice voted down attempts to take away from illegal immigrants in-state college tuition. And Wednesday the House finalized a constitutional change that will start the 45-day session the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, instead of starting on the holiday.

As in recent years, legislators refused to adopt half a dozen so-called government reform bills.

Killed were bills that would have banned lobbyist gifts to legislators, restrict lawmakers' campaign account spending on personal items, adopt a bipartisan commission to recommend legislative and congressional redistricting, stop legislators from becoming lobbyists immediately upon leaving public office and limit campaign contributions to the governor and other state offices to $10,000.

Huntsman said in future Legislatures he'll try to term-limit governors to eight years and cap large campaign contributions.

Legislators did adopt a bill that, while not lowering the $50 gift limit whereby lobbyists list accepting lawmakers by name, does require government officials who lobby legislators to file reports and required quarterly financial reporting by lobbyists among a few other changes.

And EnergySolutions, a hazardous and radioactive materials storage firm in the West Desert, got legislators and Huntsman to exempt lawmakers and governors from approving its current on-site storage regulations.

EnergySolutions gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to lawmakers' re-election campaigns and to Huntsman's PACs over the past several years.

With all the extra cash, legislators decided to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into roads.

A late addition of $90 million will seed a $1 billion bond to begin work on all kinds of transportation projects and to buy land for new major roads, like the Mountain View Corridor on Salt Lake County's west side.

But even with the extra billions of dollars in spending, some longtime sore points were not addressed, Democrats said.

For example, the waiting list for disabled Utahns was not fully funded, meaning some of the state's most needy citizens will still have to wait for their needs to be met.