Election 2009: Shurtleff hires former GOP candidate Swallow

Former 2nd Congressional District GOP candidate John Swallow is going to work as chief deputy for civil cases for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

Swallow will replace longtime chief deputy Ray Hintze, who is retiring.

Shurtleff said he had gotten to know Swallow when Swallow served six years in the Utah House as a Republican from Sandy.

"John is a brilliant attorney," Shurtleff said Tuesday afternoon. "I've thought for some time that it would be great to get him into the attorney general's office."

The appointment holds several interesting political twists, outside of Swallow's previous connections to Shurtleff.

Swallow was a rising GOP star in the 1990s, who failed by less than one percentage point to defeat Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson in 2002.

Swallow ran for the 2nd District again in 2004, but Matheson handily defeated him.

Shurtleff, a Republican, is running against U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, in 2010. And Tim Bridgewater just announced that he, too, will run as a Republican against Bennett.

In 2002 and in 2004, Bridgewater sought the GOP nomination against Swallow.

While Bridgewater won the most votes in the state Republican conventions, Swallow defeated him in two consecutive 2nd District Republican primaries. At times, those were bitter contests with charges and countercharges coming from both the Bridgewater and Swallow camps.

Now Shurtleff has hired the man who beat Bridgewater twice in intra-party battles, and Shurtleff will face Bridgewater in the 2010 GOP convention.

But Shurtleff said Swallow will play no role in his U.S. Senate race. "He will oversee our civil division, that has around 200 people in it, and help with our office's relationship with the Legislature, where he served," Shurtleff said.

And, Shurtleff said, "I've been trying to get Tim into the (U.S. Senate) race for months — we both believe we need change in that office."

Another twist: Swallow is listed as a lobbyist for the payday lender industry. And in recent years the payday lenders have been one of Shurtleff's greatest financial supporters.

Utah has no limits on how much an individual, business or group can donate to a state candidate, as Shurtleff was in his three elections to attorney general. At the end of his 2008 re-election, the Deseret News reported payday lenders gave Shurtleff $60,000 that election cycle. Shurtleff has said a number of times that the payday lender industry is tightly regulated and provides a needed service to Utahns who choose to use it.

e-mail: bbjr@desnews.com