The Utah Senate President is the target of an election complaint

Salt Lake City, Utah – J. Stuart Adams, president of the Utah State Senate, is the target of a lawsuit alleging that he failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign expenditures, in violation of state election regulations.

The complaint was submitted to Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson’s office by the Alliance for a Better Utah, a left-leaning policy think organization. The group claimed to have examined hundreds of Adams’ campaign and political action committee expenses dating back 14 years, all of which were posted under names like “Bank of America” or “American Express” with no explicit explanation of the source of the funds. According to the group, the recipients of more than $428,000 in campaign funds and $79,000 in PAC funds have not been revealed.

“The purpose of campaign financing laws is to prevent corruption or at least the perception of it.
Chase Thomas, the policy director for Alliance for a Better Utah, stated, “President Adams has contributed to a lack of transparency and accountability in our election system by failing to adequately disclose his finances for more than ten years.”

“In order to give the public a better understanding of how campaign contributions are being used, we hope that this issue be settled swiftly. Our state has some of the weakest campaign funding regulations in the country, even when they are adhered to. In order to preserve public confidence, we should be doing more to make our campaign funding system more transparent as elections cost more and more money.

The office of Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson said that it would investigate the issue.

Adams said in a statement on Thursday that he has always complied with state disclosure rules and the Lt. Governor’s Office’s advice, and that he was informed that he didn’t need to take any more action following a previous investigation. He claimed to have received revised instructions last week indicating that new standards would be released starting in January 2025.

“My commitment to adhering to the campaign disclosure laws has never wavered. I’ll also follow the revised rules that the Lt. Governor’s Office released last week,” he added. “It is not just untrue, but outright untrue to say that I did not comply with campaign disclosure laws. Better Utah is once again turning to desperate fundraising efforts based on false information, which is nothing more than deceptive rhetoric. The goal of these dishonest strategies is to divert attention from the actual task of bettering our state.