House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, is the lone financial backer of a shadowy political action committee behind a blizzard of anti-transgender ads during the 2024 election cycle.
According to financial disclosures filed with the state, Schultz donated $120,000 to Preserving Utah Values PAC on Nov. 30. The organization attacked more than a dozen Democratic candidates for voting in favor of legislation targeting transgender individuals. Those bills restricted which which restrooms in public buildings transgender people were allowed to use, bans on transgender athletes in women's sports and a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the state. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the organization's website initially listed two Republican lawmakers, but it was later edited to remove them.
Preserving Utah Values PAC peppered mailboxes with attack ads during the 2024 campaign that said, "Protecting women's sports: It's not a Republican issue. It's not a Democrat issue. It's a common sense issue."
Preserving Utah Values has not disclosed any spending on the 2024 election. The PAC's website says, "Paid for by the Preserving Utah Values Fund." That entity was incorporated in Delaware on Oct. 25, 2024.
House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, was shocked to learn that Schultz was funding the group.
"I'm really disappointed that the Speaker would participate in that," Romero said on Monday afternoon.
"However, it doesn't surprise me with the messaging that was happening at a national level at the expense of our transgender community," Romero added.
Republican-linked groups spent more than $70 million on anti-trans campaign ads during the 2024 election cycle.
Schultz did not get much of a return on his investment. Of the 17 Democrats targeted on the PAC's website, only two lost their re-election bids in 2024. Republican Jill Koford defeated former Rep. Rosemary Lesser by just 309 votes. Joel Briscoe was defeated in the Democratic primary election by Grant Miller. Miller was unopposed in the November election.
Two other Democrats targeted by the PAC, Brian King and Mark Wheatley, did not run for re-election to the Utah Legislature in 2024.
Schultz has leaned in hard on anti-transgender rhetoric in recent months. He, along with Gov. Spencer Cox and Senate President Stuart Adams, pushed Utah State University to join a lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference because another school allegedly has a transgender player on its roster. He was angered when a federal judge refused to block that player from participating in last week's Mountain West Conference tournament.
"Men have no place in women's sports - period," Schultz said in a statement following the ruling.
In a statement to Utah Political Watch, Schultz defended the large donation.
“Defending Utah values is the right thing to do. These principles are the foundation of who we are, and I will always fight to protect them," Schultz said.
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