Latest news with #InsideUtahPolitics
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Will there be any veto overrides from 2025? Here's what Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz said about it
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — It's still unclear whether any of the six vetoes from the 2025 legislative session will be overridden, but Utah's House Speaker Mike Schultz is not completely closing the door on it. According to Utah's Constitution, lawmakers have until May 6 — or 60 days after the last day of the legislative session — to reconvene for an override session. It also lays out that two-thirds of the members in both chambers must agree in order to hold that session. Both the House and Senate are currently polling their members, but majority leaders won't elaborate on where those votes lie. But, House Speaker Mike Schultz joined Inside Utah Politics with Lindsay Aerts for an episode set to air Sunday, April 13. 'Well, we'll see what happens,' he said. 'We're in the process of continuing to have the dialog with our members. … We respect the governor's vetoes. Some of them I agree with, some of them I don't agree with. And so, as we go through the process, we work with the House, we work with the Senate to see where the members are at.' The Speaker was asked to clarify which vetos he disagreed with, but he wouldn't elaborate. 'You can look at the ones I voted against,' he said. The Speaker originally supported four of the six bills Cox vetoed. Those include the bill to reroute local property taxes for education funding to the state, a bill on using , , and the bill giving the Governor and Senate the power to appoint Utah's chief justice. When asked specifically about a veto of the chief justice bill, Schultz said that Cox's reasoning for the veto included some support for picking the justice despite being a power he did not want. Cox mainly took issue with the fact that the bill also required appointment and reconfirmation by the Senate every four years. 'So we'll continue to have those discussions,' Shutlz said. 'If it doesn't get overridden and worked out this year, (it's) something we'll have discussions around next year,' he said. The Governor has said that a special session to fix some bills from the 2025 session will be needed. That would be separate from the veto override session, and the Governor would set the agenda for that. So, it's possible that negotiations between Cox and legislative leaders also include adding a compromised version of appointing the chief justice, or any other veto, to stave off an override. Cox wants to fix H.B. 263 – Election Amendments, which would allow some sensitive election returns to be made public. Cox said he agrees with the transparency aspect of this bill, so he signed it, but said the sponsor and county clerks who largely opposed it had agreed to fix 'important changes.' He didn't elaborate on what those were. H.B. 356 – County Government Amendments will change how smaller county and city councils are elected. Instead of each member being elected 'at large' or by the entire county, this bill dictates that members are elected by districts. Large counties, like Salt Lake, already do this. Cox said this bill needs fixing because of some 'unintended consequences.' Cox also wants the legislature to reappropriate $3.5 million that was supposed to go to Sundance but won't now that they've decided to leave Utah for Boulder, Colorado. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State leaders tell Trump cabinet members that Utah should run its own federal programs
SALT LAKE CITY () — Utah's Speaker of the House Mike Schultz is among the top state leaders pushing for Utah to have control over federal programs. '(We want to be a) national experiment allowing us to keep… some of its federal dollars and tax dollars and run some programs — run the programs,' the Speaker told President Trump's Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin when they . 'We want to be a pilot project and help discontinue the federal oversight.' 'Sign us up,' he said emphatically during a press conference. Judge over gerrymandering case against Utah legislature asks for clarification over tossing maps 'Whether it's education, transportation, Medicaid, public health, public lands, we manage more effectively or more efficiently and more affordably than the federal government, certainly, but more so than any other state in the nation,' Schultz said. Schultz met with for an interview with Inside Utah Politics host Lindsay Aerts Tuesday, where he was asked to elaborate on that plan. The full interview is set to air Sunday, April 13. Specifically, he was asked about how the state would pay for a program like Medicaid since 27% of Utah's $30.8 billion dollar budget comes from the federal government, and they pay for at least 50% of the state's Medicaid costs. 'What we're saying here is block grant that money to the states and even maybe do it with less, if that's what you're trying to do — cut the dollar amounts because we can do more with less here at the state level and if we have the federal bureaucracies out of the way that create all the hoops that you have to jump through,' Schultz said. A block grant is a federal assistance grant with more broadly defined functions than other grants, allowing more flexibility for things like community development of social services. But, there's also the possibility of less oversight with a block grant. 'If you block grant the money to Medicaid, let state figure out the solutions,' Shultz said. He gave an example of what he says Utah has done this with transportation. 'Utah led the nation with doing our own NEPA studies inside of transportation. We followed the fame federal rules, the same federal guidelines (and) we do it in a quarter of the amont of time it takes the federal government to do it,' Schultz said. NEPA is the acronym for a 1970s law called the National Environmental Policy Act. It requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts a state's proposed project before making decisions, ensuring environmental considerations are part of the decision-making process. 'We would like to get some federal funds to come in and help us pay for the double-tracking FrontRunner, absolutely,' Schultz said. 'We as a state already set aside over $500 million to do that on our part, but again, we need to recognize that the majority of the money that we get from the federal government for transportation is the money that we already sent back to the federal government.' Schultz argues that Utah gets about as much money as it sends to the federal government and he believes the state can spend it more efficiently. The block grants are the same solution Governor Spencer Cox proposed as Trump made the decision to (DOE). 'We can do two things — we can get more money to the states and save the federal government money, which we need to do,' Cox has said. 'Just by eliminating (the DOE) and block granting those funds to the states. I can tell you that's very popular on the right and the left among the governors in this country.' Specifics of which programs could be run at the state level are scarce at this point, and realistically could look different for Medicaid versus public lands issues, and transportation, education, or eviornmental issues, but Secretary Kennedy seemed enthused by the idea. 'President Trump's vision for this country is that the states should be 50 laboratories around the country, that they should be able to run their own affairs and the best ideas are coming from the grassroots, are coming from the bottom up,' Kennedy said. 'We are determined to do that, and we're talking about doing it already, and we're going to move very quickly.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Utah county clerks oppose bill that seeks to make several changes to elections
SALT LAKE CITY () — The Utah Clerks Association, which represents Utah's 29 county clerks, has penned an open letter to Utah's lawmakers opposing a bill that would reform how Utahns cast their ballots. The bill is the . If passed, this bill would require voters to use the last four digits of their license or state ID on their ballot, change the deadline for when mailed-in ballots must be turned in, and — starting in 2028 — require voters to opt in to receive a ballot by mail. New bill 'goes too far,' says Utah Chief Justice Matthew Durrant in letter to lawmakers The Utah Clerks and Auditor Association said that while some concerns were addressed in the substitute version over the original bill, which sought to require mail-in ballots at a polling center, its letter to lawmakers said there are still 'critical' concerns. In an interview with ABC4's Inside Utah Politics with Lindsay Aerts airing Sunday, Davis County Clerk Brian McKenzie explained that the 2028 runway to implement the opt-in option to vote by mail is not enough time to educate voters on the shift, which will disrupt the voting process. McKenzie and Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman also argue that they don't have the equipment to efficiently verify voters' ID numbers, meaning they'll have to verify each number by hand. '(Requiring ID) does add that level of security (to elections) but with that comes a huge time and resource component,' said Chapman. 'In order to accomplish this successfully, we're going to have to increase the amount of people that work with us.' The bill also includes a deadline to opt in, currently set at 45 days before an election. McKenzie and Chapman argue that it is too far out and will increase the number of voters shifting to in-person voting because they didn't realize they had to opt in. In addition, the clerks say they are worried about disenfranchising tribal voters who may not have access to a state ID, which has the potential to get the state sued. 'If the State of Utah is going to be making these significant policy shifts in how people vote, we want to make sure that we are minimizing the negative impacts on our voters,' said McKenzie. McKenzie said the voters who are less in tune with politics — the ones who vote only during presidential election years — would be the most impacted by the changes proposed by Utah lawmakers. When asked whether the clerk's concerns give him pause on the bill's impact on voters, its Senate Sponsor Mike McKell (R- Spanish Fork) said, 'It doesn't give me pause, it gives me something to work on this weekend,' he said. McKell wouldn't specify which provisions he was willing to budge on, only that negotiations were ongoing. 'I think they were disappointed that some of their concerns weren't fully addressed as it came over (from the House), but we are going to continue to work with the clerks,' he said. 'I think they're probably concerns that I share and we're going to continue to work on it,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
More Justices? Utah's Supreme Court may expand under newly opened bill
SALT LAKE CITY () — A newly opened bill could pave the way for Utah's Supreme Court to expand. The bill file is titled 'Judicial Officer Modifications,' and was opened Wednesday by House Majority Leader (R-Saratoga Springs), who tells ABC 4 that he's opened a bill file to 'explore the potential of adjusting the number of justices on the Utah Supreme Court.' 'Over the past decade, we have seen growing caseloads, delays, and evolving legal complexities in Utah's highest court,' Moss told ABC 4 News. 'The Legislature has the ability to adjust the court's size in response to these growing demands,' Moss said. There is no text of the bill yet so it's unknown whether lawmakers are looking at expanding the number of justices to seven, nine, or some other number. There are currently 5 members of Utah's Supreme Court. Lawmakers propose at least 5 changes to Utah's Constitution — What to know Senate leaders acknowledged they'd heard about the proposal but were leery of commenting further. 'It's an interesting bill file, we'll see if it has legs,' said Senate President Stuart Adams (R-Kaysville). ABC4 previously asked Governor Cox about expanding the court and other judicial reforms during a Jan. 21 taping of Inside Utah Politics. 'If (expanding the court) helps improve efficiencies, that's something that I think may be worth looking at,' the Governor said then. 'When it comes to electing judges, I would veto that. That would be the fastest veto you've ever seen from me.' Utah's legislative and judicial branches have recently in the wake of some rulings on initiatives and the voiding of two amendments from being voted on. aimed to limit injunctions by the trial courts and place limits on who has third-party standing to bring cases against the legislature are also in the works. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Run-off primary elections could be mandated in Utah — What you should know
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A bill that would mandate run-off primary elections has passed a committee vote and moves on for a vote on the House floor. Passing a committee vote Thursday afternoon with 9-4, H.B. 231 would mandate that nominees that don't receive 50% of the vote in a primary race would have to compete again in a following run-off election with the candidate who received the second most votes. The bill specifies that these run-off elections would only be applied to state and federal offices and would not affect county or municipal races. It would also require the run-off election to be ran 35 days after the initial primary election. Rep. Jordan Teuscher (R- District 44), the sponsor of the bill, says that this bill will make it fairer to go back to voters to make sure they want someone to represent them on the general ballot. 'I think it's fair to go back to the voters and make sure that a majority of those within the party that they want [a candidate] to represent them on the general ballot,' Teuscher began. 'I think that is more representative, more Hippocratic in the process and its good policy.' During discussion of the bill, several legislators brought up funding concerns. Rep. Paul Cutler (R- District 18) said that though he loved the idea of run-offs, though he had concerns of how it would be paid for. 'I love the idea. It's great, I would like to do it, the challenge is the money,' Cutler began. 'I look at this over 20 years, this is a 27-[million]-dollar property tax increase. Thats how counties pay for things. If we can figure out how to pay for it, I am all for it.' Turnout was also brought up as a possible issue. Representatives sharing concerns that a run-off election wouldn't share the same turnout as the initial primary. Rep. Douglas R. Welton shared concerns that multiple rounds of voting could defeat the purpose of the second round by not getting the same turnout as the initial primary. During public comment of the bill, current and former county clerks came to oppose the legislation, along with a representative from Lt. Governor's office to express concerns about the bill. Ricky Hatch, current Weber County clerk, expressed concerns over the timing, funding, and turnout. 'The timing is so tight that it leaves no room if there is a contest, if there is a recount, it really is problematic,' Hatch told members of the committee. 'From a clerks' … perspective it really concerns us.' 'I love our clerks, I love working with them,' Tuescher began as the committee was set to vote on the measure. 'Though they can really be a bit of a stick in the mud. Every time we bring a challenge to them; they don't want to do anything. Change is very hard, and I get that, but we can figure this out.' With its passage in committee the bill will go to the House floor for a vote and will then have to move through the senate before it can become law. For more coverage on the 2025 General Session, visit Inside Utah Politics! Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
