Graham keeps low profile, fights on for causes

Jan Graham has kept a low profile the past six months, but the former Democratic attorney general, who has been a thorn in the side of the Republican establishment, has not forgotten her causes.

Graham said last week she is busy establishing two nonprofit groups that she hopes will impact the state's political and social order by year's end. After eight years in office, she retired in January and is now working with a group of current and former AGs to set up a nonprofit foundation to pressure state officials around the country to use billions of dollars in tobacco settlement funds for smoking prevention.

And Graham said she and her husband are stepping up fund raising for her already-announced Beagle Forum to include a broader group of supporters to battle arch-conservative political groups in the state for years to come.

Meantime, Graham said she's enjoying private life, being a full-time mom to her 9-year-old son, and doesn't anticipate seeking any office for some time. But her two foundations will keep her at least somewhat in the public arena.

The Beagle Forum, supported by a new fund-raising effort, will counter Gayle Ruzicka's conservative and influential Eagle Forum. Graham will use the money to conduct a public education campaign inside and outside Utah, detailing how conservatives are working behind the political scenes to influence politics and lawmaking.

Conservative groups control Utah Republican politics, Graham said, "and citizens don't know it."

On the tobacco front, Graham will continue her ongoing battle with GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt and Republican legislative leaders ago over how to spend millions of dollars from a tobacco settlement.

Graham pushed the tobacco lawsuit over, what she contends, were the objections of Leavitt and other GOP leaders. When Utah started receiving the money two years ago, Graham and other Democrats complained that the majority Republicans weren't putting enough of the cash into tobacco prevention programs.

At one point, Graham and tobacco opponents ran radio ads asking lawmakers to do the "right" thing. She said the ads "incensed certain members of the Legislature."

When it came time to spend the money, she was continually frustrated by the Legislature's refusal to commit serious money to tobacco prevention. "They were going to put it away in a secret little barrel and say 'We'll decide what happens to the barrel and you and your little lawsuit can just move along now'."