Utah bill would restrict lawmakers from sending out mailers with public money before an election

SALT LAKE CITY — A new bill to prevent elected officials from using public funds to promote themselves during elections has been introduced in the Utah House of Representatives.

HB551, sponsored by Rep. Jason Kyle, R-Huntsville, would prevent elected officials from using public funds to send out mass communications, such as direct mail, or putting up billboards promoting themselves within 60 days of an election, political caucus or convention where they're a candidate.

Kyle said that the purpose of the bill is to make sure elected officials are spending tax dollars in a way that taxpayers would approve of.

"Public officials have access to a lot of funds, and we just want to make sure that we're not using them to promote ourselves, but we're using them to promote transparency in government or just use it on the things that they would rather have us use it on," he said.

Under this bill, mass communications or billboards including an image of the elected official or a prominent presentation of the official's name could not be issued during the restricted time period.

The bill does include a few exceptions that would be allowed under certain circumstances, such as when it is in response to a specific inquiry, is communicating with another official or if the official is issuing a news release to media outlets.

HB555 was introduced late in the session, so if it doesn't make it through this year, Kyle said he will bring it back during the next session.

The sponsor added that one of the issues he faced while drafting the bill was figuring out how to restrict officials from promoting themselves without restricting them from putting out information to constituents about what they're doing.

"That was a fine line that we had to come up with; we still want you to know what we're doing," he said. "But, you know, it's not really appropriate to spend a bunch of money advertising ourselves with public funds before an election."

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