Details about this story

• Source: Deseret Morning News
• Date: January 22, 2008
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Bob Bernick Jr. , Lee Davidson
• Topics: Campaign Finance
• Data Types: State Data
• Description/Excerpt: Although 2007 was not an election year, special interests donated $827,000 in campaign funds to Utah legislators. With no campaigns last year, lawmakers converted about a third of that cash to what appear to be personal or other uses that have little to do with campaigning, according to Deseret Morning News analysis of the 104 part-time legislators' campaign disclosure forms. That included paying for new clothes, dry cleaning, car repairs, high-occupancy vehicle lane passes, passports, baby-sitting, travel, Utah Jazz games, parking tickets, wedding or birth gifts, concealed weapons permit classes, wages to a spouse for campaign work, repaying themselves tens of thousands of dollars in earlier campaign loans - and even paying themselves for lost income during the general session. That conversion of campaign money for personal use came on top of the $250,000 in gifts that lobbyists reported giving lawmakers last year (about $2,400 per member). The Morning News analyzed those gifts earlier this month. They ranged from Utah Jazz tickets to college sports tickets, Billy Joel and Bon Jovi concerts, golf, meals and travel.