This is Part IV of a four-part series looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2022 General Session of the Utah State Legislature. This is by no means a comprehensive guide to the session, but rather a quick glance at the highlights (and lowlights) of what happened this year on Capitol
This article originally appeared in the New York Times. Read it in its entirety here. A progressive group in Utah that advocates government transparency and accountability filed a federal complaint against Representative Mia Love, a Republican, on Tuesday over alleged campaign finance violations, escalating the liberal fight against the vulnerable incumbent just seven weeks before November’s
Has Reyes already forgotten the follies of his predecessors? One would think that with the trial of John Swallow having concluded so recently, his errors would still be fresh in everyone’s minds. Apparently not so for current Attorney General Sean Reyes. The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported that there have been some shady donations showing
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune The Taylorsville City Council failed Wednesday night to muster the two-thirds vote to override Mayor Larry Johnson’s veto of a proposed tightening of campaign finance disclosure laws. The 3-2 vote to override concluded a lengthy discussion, including public comment, about whether more transparency was needed in the financing of campaigns
The FEC decided to file suit against Jeremy Johnson for illegal campaign donations after ABU filed a complaint with the FEC in June 2014 over straw donations.
Last week the Salt Lake Tribune reported on campaign contributions. According to their research, 7% of all legislative campaign contributions come from average citizens, just your everyday constituent of a senator or representative. That’s right, just 7%, or 70 cents out of every $10 donation–not even enough to buy a soda from a vending machine.
It’s an important question: Are Shurtleff and Swallow bad apples in an otherwise fair electoral system? Or does the system itself need reform? In a weekend op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, Maryann Martindale, executive director of Alliance for a Better UTAH, argued that citizens should avoid thinking of the Shurtleff/Swallow arrests as proof the system works.
Utah had a first last week when not one but two former Attorneys General were arrested and charged with a dozen crimes each. Mark Shurtleff and John Swallow have been in the news steadily for the more than a year now so the charges came as less of a surprise and more of an “it’s
Wide-reaching FEC Complaint names Lee, Swallow, Johnson, McMillan, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Jane & John Doe Salt Lake City–Good government group Alliance for a Better UTAH recently filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, asking the FEC to investigate allegations that Senator Mike Lee accepted straw donations in his 2010 bid for United States
The Better UTAH Beat airs Tuesday afternoons on KVNU’s For the People. Podcasts of previous episodes are available here. —– Unless you’ve been living off the grid, you probably heard last week that the Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional various limits on campaign donations. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court eliminated the aggregate limits
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