No end to lobbyists' gifts?

If a lobbyist gives a legislator items worth more than $50 in one day, he must list the legislator's name along with that gift. If the gift is under $50, then the amount of the gift alone — with no legislator's name — must be listed.

Of the $250,000 in gifts given to lawmakers in 2007, specific recipients were disclosed for only about $100,000 of that amount. That means 60 percent of the gift recipients are undocumented and unknown.

Sources around the Legislature have long said that some lawmakers will pay part of an expense, such as an expensive round of golf, to keep the lobbyist's portion beneath $50 — and thus avoid disclosure of the legislator's name.

Many expenditures in reports fall just barely beneath that $50 threshold.

For example, Rocky Mountain Power lobbyist Kevin Boardman reported spending $49 each — $1 under the reporting threshold — for "entertainment" for four lawmakers last January.

Capitol sources, and a close review of filed reports, show that Micron lobbyist Lockhart, who is also the husband of Rep. Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, may have used creative accounting to side-step reporting the names of some legislators who attended Utah Jazz games in Micron's suite box in the newly renamed EnergySolutions Arena.

Sources who spoke to the Deseret Morning News only on the condition that their names not be used said that Lockhart used what are known as "suite level passes" to allow legislators who already had a ticket to an arena event, like a Jazz game, to come into a suite rented by Micron, a Boise-based computer chip maker with a Lehi plant, to watch the game and, if they wanted, eat dinner. On several nights when Micron was hosting legislators named because they took a priced ticket, Lockhart also said he paid for a $15 to $20 dinner for an unnamed legislator — hinting that that single legislator was in the Micron suite on someone else's Jazz ticket.

Sources also said that Lockhart may have given Jazz tickets to nonprofit groups and that those tickets may have found their way back into legislators' pockets with no public accounting.

Legal, but sneaky?

Either action would have been a way for a legislator to enjoy what normally would have been a $160-or-more event without having his or her name made public on Lockhart's reports. Lockhart yearly does list dozens of legislators who accept Jazz tickets to Micron's box.

A review of Lockhart's financial filings from 1999 through 2007 show he's paid out $59,667 in Jazz tickets to Utah legislators.