Governor Herbert Playing Favories Before Primary Promoting Mitt Romney Over Mike Kennedy

Governor Herbert Uses State Agency To Publicize Mitt Romney While Snubbing Mike Kennedy Before Primary

The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News have run an ad for 5 days promoting the Utah Technology Innovative Summit on June 6 wherein they plan to award LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson a Lifetime Achievement Award.  Utah Science Technology and Research known as USTAR is a state agency. The sponsor of the Summit is the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Both of these agencies receive our tax dollars and therefore should be politically neutral. However Mitt Romney and Ben McAdams have both been invited to speak in front of many would be voters without their political opponents being invited to participate. This gives 2 candidates an unfair advantage to be in front of voters during the election season and we the tax payer are paying for that.  Public funded agencies should not be publicly promoting candidates who are running for office, they should be neutral when they are using our money.  At a minimum,  their opponents should be invited to participate. 

I’m happy to report after numerous complaints, in order to give equal time to all Congressional Candidates USTAR did add a panel discussion that will include all Congressional Candidates.

However we still have a problem.   

The ad promoting the Utah Technological Innovative Summit includes Mitt Romney’s name and picture, he is a political candidate and is getting free publicity; a dream come true for any candidate running for office. However this free publicity is sponsored by State Government agencies. As was mentioned above, it is not OK for state agencies funded with our tax dollars to promote a political candidate with free advertising during a political campaign.  

Calls need to be made to our Governor Gary Herbert and Lt. Governor Spencer Cox to let them know that they are misusing our tax dollars and that Mitt’s picture and name can no longer be used to advertise this event.  In order to correct this misuse of our tax dollars and to be fair to both Senate Primary Candidates a picture of Mike Kennedy promoting the Congressional Round Table Discussion needs to be used to advertise the Summit for the same number of days that Mitt Romney’s picture and name was used.  See Romney Ad in photo above.

Calls  need to be made every day until they correct this problem.  

Governor Gary Herbert's Office 801-538-1000

Lt. Governor Spencer Cox Office 801-538-1041

Thank you for your help in making sure our tax dollars are used properly and that our state government stays neutral in politics.  Please share on social media and email.

Links-

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/05/21/campaign-rivals-cry-foul-after-state-agency-invites-mitt-romney-to-speak-at-its-tech-summit/
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900019294/utah-to-honor-president-nelson-for-7000-heart-surgeries-cutting-edge-research.html 
http://utahinnovationsummit.org/
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865695094/Who-is-President-Russell-M-Nelson-a-man-of-heart-compassion-and-faith.html 
http://utahinnovationsummit.org/russell-m-nelson/
https://ustar.org/
https://business.utah.gov/ 
http://utahinnovationsummit.org/mitt-romney/
http://utahinnovationsummit.org/ben-mcadams/ 
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/05/21/campaign-rivals-cry-foul-after-state-agency-invites-mitt-romney-to-speak-at-its-tech-summit/ 
https://www.utah.gov/governor/contact/ 
https://www.utah.gov/ltgovernor/contact/