When state Sen. Jim Dabakis announced in February that he would step down at the end of the year, colleagues expressed shock that the 2019 Legislature would be without perhaps its loudest, and certainly most provocative, progressive voice.
Here’s another Dabakis surprise: since the end of this year’s legislative session he has raised more campaign donations than any other lawmaker.
The Salt Lake City Democrat began raking in the first of his $11,940 in post-session contributions just one week after the March 8 adjournment of the Legislature.
”This isn’t like an undercover effort to raise money to be mayor,” Dabakis insisted in an interview this week. “I am raising money for other Democratic candidates and to get our message out.”
Speculation abounds that Dabakis — who briefly declared his candidacy for mayor in 2015 before jumping out — would run against first-term Mayor Jackie Biskupski. And there are signs that this could happen. For example, his supporters did a poll to test the incumbent’s vulnerability and Dabakis was listed as one of several hypothetical challengers.
He downplayed the prospect of a mayoral bid without rejecting it.
“What really is happening is I’m taking between now and the end of December.… I want to see how the world looks in the late fall and see if that’s what I want to do and see if that’s where I am.”
One of the actions triggering speculation that Dabakis will challenge Biskupski in 2019 was his sharp criticism of the city leaders and lobbyists last session over passage of an inland port bill that rolled over Salt Lake City.
“I hope they get fired,” Dabakis said of the lobbyists at the time.
But he demurred when asked his opinion of the mayor on Thursday.
“It’s a hard job. It was a little rocky. I think it’s getting better lately, though,” Dabakis said.
“Jackie’s a friend and [if he did run] this wouldn’t be like some kind of a nuclear attack, and for me it wouldn’t be about Jackie or what she’s doing,” he added. “For me it would be: ‘this is what I see, this is my vision of where Salt Lake needs to be in next 20, 30, 100 years.’”
Dash for cash
Dabakis was one of 38 legislators who have raised campaign donations totaling more than $50,000 since the end of the legislative session — a 45-day period when it is illegal to contribute to a sitting lawmaker.
He was among just three who already have announced they won’t seek re-election. (The others are House Speaker Greg Hughes and Sen. Howard Stephenson, both Republicans, who collected $1,169 and $1,000, respectively.)
The second most active fundraiser among incumbents was Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, who raked in $5,700 since adjournment. He faces two other Republicans in the race for the Senate seat being left open by Stephenson. Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, and DeLaina Tonks, vice chairwoman of the state Charter School Board.
No. 3 on the list is House Majority Leader Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, ($4,000) who is widely expected to run for speaker with Hughes’ departure. Wilson faces no intraparty challenge for his seat but candidates for top leadership spots often raise far more than needed for their own campaigns to spread the wealth to other supporters.
Following Wilson was Rep. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, who is running for the Senate seat being left open by retiring Sen. Peter Knudson. In the race for the Republican nomination, Sandall faces Clark Davis, an executive for one of the state’s biggest contractors.
No. 5 on the list was Rep. Raymond Ward, a Bountiful physician and moderate Republican who pushed through a bill that expands Medicaid to cover long-term contraception for low-income women. He is challenged by conservative Phill Wright, a former Utah Republican Party vice chairman. Wright, is a leader in the effort to overturn the state law allowing candidates to gather signatures to get on the primary ballot and works for Dave Bateman, CEO of Entrata and a wealthy patron of the anti-signature gathering movement.
“My race is contested, and I’m campaigning really hard right now,” Ward said. While he hasn’t held a fundraiser or sent out solicitations for contributions since the end of the session, “most of those donations are from people who knew it was a competitive race and wanted to show their support.”
Kelly Atkinson, an insurance lobbyist, appears as a contributor to multiple legislators since the end of the session — mostly in amounts of $200 or $150.
“With the new [timetable] they’re right into elections — a convention fight or a primary fight and it takes money in order to do that,” Atkinson said. “As a former legislator I know the cost.”
Atkinson handed out about $1,400 to six legislators in the last month, including a $200 donation that went into Sen. Allen Christensen’s campaign March 9, the day after the session.
The quick-turn contribution wasn’t quite the way it looks, Atkinson said. He wrote the check in January but Christensen didn’t have time to cash it then, squirreling it away for 45 days until he could legally deposit it in the campaign.
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