Since The Salt Lake Tribune published a story Nov. 30 that detailed Sen. Howard Stephenson's outrage at state education officials for not issuing a contract to a private company Stephenson favored, the Draper Republican has been on a public rampage.

He railed against the State Office of Education on the Saturday morning radio program the Republican legislative caucus sponsors and Stephenson co-hosts, and the Republican Senate site on the Internet has urged readers to listen to Stephenson's rants or read them on that site.

But the senator's aggressive advocacy for ProCert labs getting the nod over any other potential bidder is nothing new for Stephenson, R-Draper, or other members of the Legislature who have tried to use their power to benefit one particular company.

Stephenson, as outlined in the Nov. 30 story, wrote a series of heated e-mails and made phone calls threatening the budget of the Utah Office of Education and suggesting education staffers not cooperating with the ProCert agenda be fired.

ProCert employs a system of evaluating Utah's textbooks, pinpointing where concepts in the state's core curriculum are found to help instructors teach the required lessons.

The initial legislation that singled out ProCert for the contract was vetoed by then Gov. Olene Walker, who said it was inappropriate for legislators to award contracts to specific contractors.

Subsequent legislation included procurement requirements favorable to ProCert's program, but ProCert officials have complained that public education officials have not been cooperative.

The contract is yet to be awarded.

Stephenson has said he has no financial interest in ProCert, but one of the company's executives is Scott Hoffmann, the son-in-law of lobbyist Ruland Gill, who is on the board of the Utah Taxpayers Association, which employs Stephenson as its president. Education officials said Gill approached them several times on Pro-Cert's behalf in 2007.

Meanwhile, Stephenson got involved in the bidding process for a pilot program the Legislature approved to provide educational software for preschoolers. The request for proposals was tailored to a program developed by Waterford Schools, whose lobbyist is Republican insider Cap Ferry.

Other custom-fit programs approved by the Legislature favoring one vendor include:

» A database for posting student test scores was the subject of intense scrutiny by some legislators, including Stephenson, in which a company named Digital Bridge was invited several times to make presentations. The RFP was subject to several challenges with Digital Bridge allegedly receiving unusually favorable treatment by lawmakers.

» Stephenson and former Rep. Jim Ferrin pushed a bill in 2006 to prevent local municipalities from refusing to issue building permits for schools in their cities. The bill paved the way for those who wanted to build charter schools in residential neighborhoods. Ferrin, former Rep. Glenn Way and Rep. Mike Morley were in the business of financing and constructing buildings for charter schools.

» Rep. Becky Lockhart sponsored a bill to study the feasibility of privatizing the state's mental hospital in Provo after she and several other lawmakers were invited to Florida to tour a private mental facility there. Her bill would have had the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee review proposals for the project rather than the State Purchasing Office, which normally handles contract proposals.

» Rep. Greg Hughes sponsored a bill last year allowing the state to contract with a private company to evaluate sex offenders to determine the likelihood of them reoffending. When Sen. John Greiner amended the bill in the Senate because of concerns it was written for just one specific company, an angry Hughes aggressively confronted Greiner.

The amendment was taken out and the bill passed in its original form. But, because of a mistake, the bill was filed with the amended language. So far, because of that glitch, the program has not been implemented.