Monday, March 22, 2004

Bad for business

Just call it the magic of the marketplace:
Some companies wary of moving to Utah, citing intolerance

Seems having a reputation for reactionary ultraconservatism is bad for business -- at least when it comes to attracting the best and the brightest to your state:
The state's moral conservatism was in full display during a February debate when two Republicans argued for forcing women to carry to term any fetus conceived of rape.

That "disrespectful" debate and concerns that Utah is too backward for raising children prompted executives of two other companies to separately back off tentative plans to move some operations to Utah, says Democratic state Sen. Ron Allen.

Allen won't identify the companies, which fear product boycotts in Utah, but says they would have brought 2,000 jobs with a corporate headquarters for one and a technology and engineering center for the other.

"I'm not trying to make trouble for Utah. I'm saying we have an image problem. How can we ignore it?" Allen asked. "We need to brand ourselves, and part of that branding is all of us being on the same sheet of music and promoting Utah in a positive way."

It's not just Democrats making this point, either:
Second-term U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, a Republican, last week volunteered yet another example of a company that decided against moving to Utah. Without naming names, he said the chief executive of a New York publishing company told him that the company's mostly single employees balked at relocating to Utah.

Bennett calls the Utah Legislature "a very yeasty place for debate" and its majority Republicans "quite colorful." Asked whether the Legislature too often gets bogged down in ideological passions, he said he "was not going to venture further into that particular swamp" because "I got in enough trouble with the legislators" two years ago blasting GOP-crafted gerrymandering.

"When companies look at relocation, they look at a lot of factors," including state taxes and a region's quality of life, said Fraser Bullock, a venture capitalist and Olympic organizer who helped Utah squeeze a $100 million profit out of the 2002 Winter Games.

Bullock said the games projected a positive image of Utah, "a sense that we're not that different" from others. But he's worried those gains are being eroded by the Legislature's so-called moral message bills.

None of this is really news to anyone who grew up in the archconservative West, because we all know that the best and brightest young people who are from those places eventually flee for more tolerant and civil climates.

Actually, there are those who say that keeping people like us out is exactly the reason that these conservatives cultivate this reputation.

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