Special interest funds flow to Utah legislative hopefuls

SALT LAKE CITY — It's a legislative election year in Utah, and special interest money is flowing once again.

A review by the Deseret News of lawmakers' campaign finance reports shows that most incumbents have considerable money this year.

And most of that money is coming from special interest groups and lobbyists who have business before the Legislature.

If you include the governor's race, where incumbent GOP Gov. Gary Herbert will face off against Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, already there is $2 million sitting in legislative and state officer accounts — meaning that a lot of cash will be spent in this election.

The 15 incumbent senators facing election this year have $458,500 in total cash, the newspaper found.

That includes $34,712 that Sen. Jon Greiner, R-Ogden, raised before he decided to withdraw from his District 18 race because of legal problems.

Updated candidate financial filings are available at elections.utah.gov.

All 75 House seats are up this year, although some representatives are retiring and not seeking re-election.

The newspaper found that the 65 House incumbents seeking re-election have a total of $790,000 in cash.

Again, most of that came from special interests and lobbyists.

Challengers in legislative races usually don't have access to the special interest money — at least not until they are their party nominees in safe House and Senate districts. Then the monied interests get with it and donate to candidates likely to sit in the Legislature.

Most of the legislative cash is from the lawmakers' 2008 campaign accounts that on Jan. 1 were rolled over into their 2010 accounts.

Interestingly enough, from the cash that was raised this year, most came before lawmakers met Jan. 29 for the start of their annual 45-day session.

Under Utah law, legislators can't accept campaign contributions during the general session, although when they can take money they can take as much as they want from any person, business or organization.

Utah is one of only five states that has no limits on campaign contributions. A bill that would have placed limits of $5,000 in the House and $10,000 in the Senate failed in the 2010 Legislature.