The result: Lobby Derby.

Wasatch Regional Solid Waste Management Corp., which purchased an option to buy nearly 2,000 acres of school trust lands in Tooele County, includes former House Speaker Mel Brown and former House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, as well as lobbyists Jodi Hoffman and Dave Nicponski. If they get the permit, they will sell the land to Allied Waste Management to build the landfill.

But Sorenson Capital, an investor in a competing landfill being built on the Goshute Reservation in western Utah, has hired veteran lobbyist and former Republican Party executive director Spencer Stokes to block the permit approval.

Fraser Bullock, former chief operating officer of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee and chairman of ex-Gov. Mike Leavitt's Utah Education Business Partnership - charged with finding ways to improve education - is one of the partners in the group trying to stop the other landfill, whose principals promise to pump millions in royalties into the School Trust Fund - to benefit education.

Blast from the past: Rep. Scott Wyatt, R-Logan, whose House Bill 242 would make animal torture a felony, was once targeted by the Humane Society after helping a youth, who earlier had burned a cat to death, finish his Eagle Scout project - on fire safety.

The unfortunate incident in the early 1990s occurred after Wyatt had caught the feral cat bothering his own kittens, tried to take it to the animal shelter, which was closed, then gave it to a neighbor. The cat fell into the hands of the boy, who later was prosecuted in juvenile court.

When the rehabilitated youth earned his Eagle Scout, with Wyatt as his adviser, Wyatt was running for Cache County attorney and political opponents made it an issue.

Wyatt says that while he has been a defender of animal rights all his life, the incident deepened his conviction to protect animals. During his years as Cache County attorney, he prosecuted numerous cases of animal abuse.

True bipartisan support: An interesting mix of Utah Jazz ticket beneficiaries sat in those great front-row seats next to the Jazz bench Wednesday.

The seats, owned by former Republican state chairman and lawyer/lobbyist Frank Suitter, and often gifted to more-than-eager-to-accept-the-charity politicians, were occupied by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, Hatch's 1994 Democratic opponent Pat Shea, and Democratic State Sen. Mike Dmitrich.

To the fans who were facing them, Hatch was sitting to the left of the two Democrats.