Alliance for a Better Utah files a complaint against Stuart Adams
Salt Lake City, UT – On Thursday, Dec 12, 2024 Alliance for a Better Utah filed a complaint with the Lt. Governor’s Office against Senate President Stuart Adams, alleging a series of violations of campaign finance reporting requirements by Adam’s campaign and two registered political action committees for which he serves as the primary officer.
For 14 years, the true recipients of over $428,000 in campaign expenditures and $79,000 in PAC expenditures have been hidden because the expenditures were listed under credit card companies and banking institutions. For over 232 expenditures, the only listed entities are ones like Bank of America and American Express, which gives no clear record as to where that money was spent.
The requirement that Adams allegedly violated was: Utah Code 20A-11-101.5, which requires candidates and reporting entities to “reveal…the actual person or entity to whom the disbursement is made…and (b) may not merely list, disclose, or report the transactional intermediary.” It defines a “transactional intermediary” as “a person, including a credit card company, a financial institution, or a money transfer service, that pays or transfers money to a person on behalf of another person.”
Chase Thomas, Senior Policy Advisor for Alliance for a Better Utah, issued the following statement:
““Campaign finance laws exist to deter corruption or even the very appearance of corruption. By not adequately disclosing his finances for over a decade, President Adams has contributed to a lack of transparency and accountability in our election system.
“We hope this matter is resolved quickly so that the public can have a clearer picture of how campaign funds are being spent. Even when followed, our state’s campaign finance laws are among the weakest in the nation. As elections involve ever more money, we should be doing more to increase transparency in our campaign finance system so that we can maintain public trust.”
Alliance for a Better Utah has already begun working on campaign finance reform policy recommendations as part of their 2025 Utah Government Reform Project.
