A Utah company won a $2.6M state contract. Then, Gov. Cox’s campaign got its services for free.

Months after a Utah marketing firm won a multimillion-dollar contract to help the state’s Republican leaders influence public opinion on their effort to wrest public lands away from the federal government, it donated $23,000 worth of its services toward celebrating Gov. Spencer Cox’s reelection win.

Penna Powers’ contribution to Cox’s campaign for his, and other executive branch victors’, January inauguration appears in a “Received Contributions Report” that is updated throughout the year on Utah’s financial disclosures website. The in-kind donation included “inauguration video and professional services,” according to the report Cox’s campaign filed.

In an email, the head of Penna Powers said it produced an eight-minute video that “told the story of the strength of leadership in Utah, past and present, through a historical recap of the state’s inauguration tradition.”

The video, shared with The Salt Lake Tribune by Penna Powers, played at the beginning of the ticketed event and was not included in the public broadcast. It shared a history of Utah’s governor’s office with the audience, summing up past governors’ accomplishments and how they came to hold the office. It concluded with a flattering two-minute overview of Cox’s first term.

“Utah Governor Cox significantly bolstered Utah’s economy by fostering an environment conducive to growth and innovation,” a narrator said over a photo of Cox, standing next to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, at a ribbon cutting for a Delta Airlines pilot training center.

Penna Powers CEO David Smith pointed out that his company was listed as a “gold” sponsor of the inauguration because of its work, which he said it offered after the Utah Inaugural Commission approached the company requesting a video.

Smith said the donation was intended for the commission, not a specific politician, and added the company made an in-kind donation to late Gov. Olene Walker’s campaign over 20 years ago. The Tribune also identified a $1,500 donation the company made to Cox’s campaign in 2019, which Smith said was an entry fee to participate in a Friends of Spencer Cox fundraiser golf tournament.

Spokespeople for both the governor’s office and his campaign did not answer questions or a request for comment on the donation, and what role the governor plays in awarding contracts for public influence campaigns.

Instead, they forwarded The Tribune’s inquiry to Sarah Allred, the executive director of the inauguration, who also oversees first lady Abby Cox’s initiatives.

“No taxpayer funds were used in the inauguration of Utah’s five statewide-elected officials,” said Case Lawrence, who co-chaired the Utah Inaugural Commission, in a statement Allred provided.

“At the invitation of the Inauguration Committee,” he continued, “Penna Powers produced a video honoring Utah’s previous 17 Governors from in its proud 129-year history. Neither the Governor nor any of the other four statewide elected officials inaugurated that day were involved in the decision to produce this video honoring Utah’s forebearers.”

Allred did not answer a follow-up question about how members of the commission were selected, although they are typically asked to serve on the planning board by the governor-elect’s campaign.

Lawrence, who lost a bid to replace Sen. John Curtis in Congress in last year’s Republican primary, chaired the commission with former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, who fell to Curtis in the primary contest for an open U.S. Senate seat. According to the commission’s website, wealth management firm Capita Financial Network executive Cassie Myers was an advisory co-chair, and a program distributed at the inauguration listed Abby Cox’s name at the top of the inaugural commission.

‘Not a typical sort of endeavor’

Compared to campaign donations during an election, the incentive behind contributing to an inauguration is murkier, said Matthew Burbank, a political science professor at the University of Utah. The contest for office is over, and then an entity steps in, “contributing to, essentially, their celebration of that win,” he said.

“If you’re trying to influence somebody who’s in office, that you know for sure is going to be in office, giving after the election is generally the most cost-effective way of doing that,” Burbank said. “And so something like giving to an inaugural, … what you’re trying to say is, ‘OK, I’m going to help you celebrate this win, and, oh, by the way, hopefully you’ll remember this at some point in the future.”

Penna Powers has created content for a number of Utah’s public messaging campaigns, including a video thanking health care workers for their work at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and get-out-the-vote ads in 2018 when Cox oversaw the state’s elections as lieutenant governor.

But the $2.6 million “Stand for our Land” campaign, launched last year, is different.

Under Penna Powers’ contract with the state, the firm was required to craft messaging intended to convince the public that the federal Bureau of Land Management is “harming Utahns by restricting access to public lands, hindering active management, and reducing economic and recreation opportunities.” The public relations push coincided with Utah’s lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the federal government’s ownership of some public land in the state unconstitutional.

That public relations campaign included advertisements in newspapers, television, social media, podcasts and billboards in both Utah and Washington, D.C.

Public Domain and High Country News reported that Penna Powers and the state used actors and artificial intelligence in creating the strategic material. Their reporting also found that state leaders wanted to avoid using imagery from some of Utah’s most awe-inspiring landscapes.

Emails obtained for that story show an official with the governor’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office commenting on a Penna Powers planning document, saying, “I’m held up thinking ‘how scenic is too scenic.’ Those are some great scenery shots, but I think they are what [PLPCO Director] Redge [Johnson] wants us to avoid.”

“‘Stand for our Land’ is something that’s not a typical sort of endeavor,” Burbank said of the effort. “This is really sort of the state government in Utah going out of its way, essentially, to serve as advocates. So they’re basically trying to convince people that this proposal they have for land, or for federal lands in particular, is a good idea, and it’s done in a way which is not the most straightforward.”

More state-sponsored messaging

And Utah is currently looking for a marketing firm to start another public influence campaign — this one directed at boosting support for nuclear energy, for which Cox would be a key spokesperson.

The Tribune reported earlier this month that the Utah Office of Energy Development opened a request for proposals for a “Nuclear Education and Public Support” push, according to a public procurement website.

According to documents included with the contract posting, the nuclear energy campaign should convince the public “Why nuclear energy is a valuable and necessary resource and makes sense today and tomorrow,” and “How nuclear energy can help Utah meet its economic and environmental goals.”

Jeff Hymas, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Government Operations, wrote in an email that the nuclear campaign “is still an active solicitation” and the Office of Energy Development had not chosen a partner. He said he could not answer questions about whether Penna Powers had applied, or whether it had a chance at winning that contract.

The drive to get Utahns on board with nuclear power is part of Cox’s Operation Gigawatt, a plan Cox announced last fall to double Utah’s energy production in the next decade. Lawmakers voted to put $10 million toward it earlier this year.

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