The longtime head of the Utah Legislature’s main staff office, Mike Christensen, is retiring.
And among the five finalists for his job is the current top lobbyist for the LDS Church, John Q. Cannon.
Cannon worked for the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, which Christensen heads, for 20 years before taking the church job several years ago.
Cannon’s official title is the Director of Community and Government Affairs, LDS Church. He worked for the LRGC as a policy analyst for two decades, ending up as director of research before he took the church job in 2012.
While Cannon may be a good fit for the top legislative staffer job, it would still be the case that the Legislature, where 80 percent of the lawmakers are active Mormons, would be hiring the LDS Church’s top government affairs man (and registered lobbyist) to head their largest staff organization.
Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, and House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake, are the co-chairs of the special Legislative Management Committee subgroup looking to replace Christensen, who before coming to work as the top staffer two decades ago headed the Utah Foundation, a respected nonpartisan government policy think tank in Utah.
Niederhauser and King did not contemplate making the finalists’ names public when the search began, but after UtahPolicy contacted Senate Chief of Staff Ric Cantrell, the lead staffer in the search, asking for the names, the leaders decided, for the public good, to release the finalists.
They are:
- Cannon, who has a masters of public administration degree from BYU.
- Robert H. Rees, a current attorney in the LRGC, has worked for the Legislature since 1995. Rees has a law degree from the University of Utah.
- Jerry D. Howe has worked for LRGC as an analyst since 1990 and currently directs the research division. He has an MPA from BYU.
- Sara Anne Reed is a former Air Force captain who holds a PhD in education; two masters degrees, one in arts another in management; and currently works for the University of California, Davis, as executive director of the Shared Sciences Center.
- Cary Colaianni, the former Boise City attorney. Colaianni holds a law degree and a masters of public administration.
More than forty people applied for the job, Cantrell said.
The five finalists will be interviewed in private by the management subcommittee Tuesday night. A vote to recommend one or more of the names to the whole Legislative Management Committee could come then, or Wednesday night, or later.
It is anticipated that, while the whole Legislature must ratify the appointment, whomever the Niederhauser and King committee picks will likely be the new director.
The Utah’s Right to Know website lists Christensen’s job as paying $216,237 in gross pay and benefits.
In recent years the three staff offices of the Legislature, LRGC, the Office of Fiscal Analyst, and the Legislative Auditor General, have received various awards from good government groups and legislative staff associations for innovation in government transparency, websites, budgeting and in other areas.
The offices’ staffs are officially nonpartisan, they serve both the Democratic and Republican 104 part-time legislators.
State filings by the LDS Church lists seven people as registered lobbyists, although not all may be meeting with legislators on a regular basis.
Cannon, UtahPolicy is told, is one of three church lobbyists who do meet with legislators on a regular basis.
Cannon, of course, is a well-known name in Utah and in the history of the LDS Church, where various Cannons have served in church leadership over the years.
Christensen’s last day is Aug. 11. You can read more about him here.
