At Brigham Young University day at the Utah Capitol this year, dozens of lawmakers mugged for photos with Cosmo, tried on football helmets and noshed on Cougar tails in the rotunda.
And starting later this year, if lawmakers and the governor agree, those Cougar sports fans would be able to begin receiving free tickets and travel to BYU football, basketball and other sporting events, as well as cultural and artistic productions by the university, under a change to legislative lobbying restrictions.
“We’ve had a problem with that in Utah County because we have this big university, BYU, that doesn’t know how to interact with the legislators the same way the University of Utah does or [Utah Valley University] or others,” Pleasant Grove Republican Sen. Brady Brammer, a BYU alum, said, during a recent committee hearing of the bill he’s sponsoring.
His SB145 passed unanimously through the Utah Senate and now heads to the House.
Up until 2010, lawmakers were able to accept tickets to Utah Jazz games and other events, provided they were reported by the lobbyist furnishing the seats. But that year, legislators imposed a gift cap that put most tickets to sporting events and concerts off limits.
There was an exception, however, for state-funded universities — meaning, for years, lawmakers have been comped tickets to the University of Utah or Utah State University sporting events.
The rationale has always been that, because the public universities are funded in part by taxpayer money, policymakers could justify attending the games to build relationships and see how the schools operate.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU football coach Kalani Sitaki joins part of the team’s staff and players as they are regained on the Senate floor at the Utah Capitol for their championship season on Wednesday February. 26, 2025.
But because BYU is a private institution run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, legislators could not take free tickets to Cougar events, unless they were playing one of the state schools.
Brammer’s bill explicitly allows those tickets and travel to events involving private, non-profit institutions.
“This puts them on the same playing field as far as that goes,” he said at the hearing.
His goal, Brammer said in an interview, is to “open up communications” with BYU.
“We haven’t really traditionally had great lines of communication with BYU as an institution. It kind of comes through the church generally,” he said.
A lack of direct communication has become an issue for the Legislature, he said.
A few years ago, changes were made to a state-backed scholarship program, but lawmakers later realized it had put the scholarships off-limits to students who were planning to attend BYU.
“They’re a big part of the Utah County economy, and if we can’t interact with them the same way as the other universities, it kind of makes a weird dynamic,” he said.
He said he would not benefit from the change because he pays for season tickets and a membership to the Cougar Club, the organization for BYU athletics boosters.
Brammer’s bill also raises the value of gifts that lawmakers can accept from $10 to $30 and from $30 to $50 for things likes books or commemorative items; aims to crack down on “contingency” lobbying, where a lobbyist can get a commission or a bonus based on whether a bill or budget request is successful; and clarifies that a one-year “cooling-off period” during which legislators can’t be hired as lobbyists also applies to lobbying other branches of government.
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