If you have the evening of Saturday, April 24, free, an extra $150 in your pocket and want to hear Glen Campbell sing, then Gov. Mike Leavitt's annual Governor's Spring Gala may be for you.
Leavitt's annual fund-raiser is ready to go.Individual tickets will cost $150. A regular table for 10 costs $2,000, and a "premier" table for 10 -- perhaps one where you can see the stage without binoculars -- costs $3,500.
(Those who bother to do the math will find out they can save $500 by buying 10 individual tickets instead of a table for 10 at $2,000. However, the beautiful five-page invitation -- which cost around $10,000 to print and mail out -- says only by buying a table can a group of 10 ensure they'll sit together.)
Campbell, now 62 and over his admitted drug and alcohol addictions of the 1980s, should fit right in with the Utah Republicans at the gala. He recently told the New York Daily News that he's a conservative Republican.
Born into a poor family in a small Arkansas town, Campbell also doesn't cotton to fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton. "He's lied so much he has to hire someone to call his dog. Not even his dog believes him," Campbell told the newspaper.
But political persuasion isn't measured at the gala. Republicans, Democrats and independents alike line up to buy tickets to the event sponsored by the most powerful politician in the state.
Gubernatorial spokeswoman Vicki Varela said it's hoped the 1999 gala brings in $500,000 to Leavitt's personal political action committee, which was renamed the Governor's Special Project Committee this past year.
But the event, held at the Salt Palace convention center because no hotel's meetings rooms are big enough, costs a lot to stage as well. In 1998, nearly $80,000 was spent on food alone. In a good year, Leavitt nets around $300,000 on the gala, Varela said.
She said 8,500 invitations were sent out this year. Approximately 1,000 people have already sent in RSVPs, and Leavitt hopes 1,900 to 2,000 will ultimately buy tickets.
Besides Campbell, this year's gala will also have dancing for guests and an open bar serving wine and beer. Because the gala is a private party and the alcohol beverages will be given away, not sold, the governor doesn't have to apply for a special event liquor permit from the state's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and so he hasn't, Varela said.
While Leavitt during his re-election years runs a separate campaign finance committee, the gala is a major contributor to his re-election bid.
Leavitt runs hundreds of thousands of dollars through his PAC each year. The 1998 report shows he raised $489,000, spent $417,000 and had $568,000 in cash at year's end.
The expenditures from the PAC go to pay for his several yearly fund-raisers (the gala being by far the largest) and pay for items -- such as trips to meetings and conventions, small gifts for visiting officials, flowers for funerals of deceased leading Utah citizens -- that the governor doesn't want to come from tax revenue.
For example, Leavitt is active in the Republican Governors Association, and travel to those meetings is paid out of the PAC.
He also paid $5,000 in PAC money last June to Matrixx Marketing. The firm conducted what turned out to be a controversial telephone endorsement campaign, which backed selected GOP legislators before the Republican primary election.
Leavitt puts several thousand dollars a year from the PAC into a governor's residence account. It pays for household expenses, Jackie Leavitt's travel and other items associated with his office not covered by the state.
For the April gala, two firms have donated $25,000 each and are "host sponsors." They are JP Realty (owned by Utah Republican national committeeman John Price) and AT&T (the new owner of the Salt Lake Tribune).
Fourteen individuals or groups donated $12,000 each and are "corporate sponsors."
Leavitt's 1998 gala contribution list is peppered with Utah's elite, both individuals and corporations. A number of them do business with the state or otherwise have a good reason to be on the governor's good side.
A partial list of 1998 contributors includes: John Price's Fairfax Realty, $25,000; First American Title, $12,000; Electric Lightwave, $12,000; the law firm of Jones, Waldo, Holbrook and McDonough, $10,000; Utah Power, $12,000; TCI Cablevision (then-owner of the Salt Lake Tribune), $12,000; the main state government union, Utah Public Employees Association, $5,000; the I-15 freeway contractor, Wasatch Constructors, $2,000; the state's Workers Compensation Fund, $2,000; Utah Beer Wholesalers, $2,000; the main teacher union, Utah Education Association, $4,000; the professional licensing testing firm the state uses, National Assessment Institute, $3,000; two hazardous waste firms the state licenses, Envirocare, $5,000, and Laidlaw Environmental, $3,000; E&J Gallo Winery, $3,000; Micron, $5,000; the firm that handles the state's car insurance verification program, Insure-Rite, $2,000; Deseret Management Corp. (owner of the Deseret News), $2,000; a leading lobbying firm, the Tetris Group, $2,000; and Thiokol Corp., $2,000.