‘It’s ugly, but it works’: How the Legislature will change Utahns’ lives this year

After 45 days and nearly 600 bills passed — including cutting taxes, revamping elections, reshaping housing policy, passing a $30.8 billion budget, prohibiting cell phones in schools and banning pride flags on government property — Republican leaders declared the 2025 session a success.

“We’ve done a lot of things that I think are positive. We’re pretty proud of what we’ve done,” said Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton. “It’s pretty amazing to be in Utah where we can cut taxes and fund education at a high level.”

Gov. Spencer Cox ran through a list of accomplishments, including, he said, making Utah a leader in nuclear development.

“It’s messy. It’s called sausage-making for a reason. It’s ugly, but it works. And I love that we have this process,” Cox said late Friday. “We’re really proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.”

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Gov. Spencer Cox answers questions from the media during a press conference on the last day of the legislative session at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 7, 2025.

Others were less complimentary, arguing that the GOP supermajority did not listen to the concerns of people whose lives were impacted by the laws being passed.

West Valley City Sen. Daniel Thatcher reached his breaking point at the end of the session, announcing midway through the final day of lawmaking that he was leaving the Republican Party. “I can’t be part of this anymore,” he said.

“There is a growing disconnect between the public we are supposed to represent and your representatives,” he said. “You’re not imagining it. We’re not listening to you.”

One veteran lobbyist, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid damaging relationships with the Legislature, said this session was the “worst I’ve ever been in.”

“A number of the issues that we’ve had to deal with are issues that aren’t nearly as important as how the state needs to be run in terms of balancing the budget, in terms of public safety, in terms of education,” the lobbyist said. “So to spend so much time on [unimportant] bills has just been frivolous and mean-spirited.”

House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, agrees with that sentiment. Democrats were able to get some wins, she said, but there was also more “partisan polarization” than she has seen in her 13 years in the Legislature and she hopes voters are paying attention.

“This was a wakeup call for the citizens of Utah to see who they keep on electing to represent them,” she said, “because if people care about public education, if people care about being able to unionize ... if people care about family members who are LGBTQ+, if people care about the environment and making sure renewable energy is part of the equation, if people care about public lands and if they care about the basic right to vote, they need to take a good look at who they’re electing to represent them on Capitol Hill.”

Changing the ballot initiative process

Last summer the Utah Supreme Court ruled that citizens have a constitutional right to change their government through the ballot initiative process and the Legislature cannot undo those reforms without making that right meaningless.

Republican legislators were alarmed, fearing it would lead to a flood of citizen initiatives fueled by money pouring in from outside the state and responded by making the already-challenging initiative process even harder.

One bill would require initiative backers to publish the text of their initiative in newspapers statewide for 60 days before the election — at an estimated expense of $1.4 million.

Lawmakers also approved putting two constitutional amendments to voters in 2026 — one that would require an initiative that would raise taxes to get 60% support from voters and another that would have the effect of removing the newspaper publication requirement, both for amendments to the Constitution that legislators want and initiatives run by the public.

Changing Utah’s elections

After a presidential election preceded by largely false claims of voter fraud, and election-related disputes that deepened rifts in the Utah GOP, lawmakers set out to make a series of changes to how Utahns choose their leaders.

Utah is one of eight states with a universal vote-by-mail system — and nearly all voters use the ballot they get in their mailbox. The most significant election bill brought by lawmakers initially would have effectively eliminated voting by mail in the state.

The bill changed significantly as it moved through the Legislature, but will still eventually transition the state away from sending a ballot to every active voter’s mailbox. If Utahns want to vote by mail, they will have to opt in to do so.

At a news conference Friday night, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah’s top elections official, said it was a “big deal” that vote-by-mail was not eliminated and that she felt the bill, HB300, had landed in a “really good place.”

“Utahns love vote-by-mail,” she said. “They prefer vote-by-mail.”

Starting in 2029, ballots will only be sent to active voters who at some point prior indicated they wanted to vote by mail.

County election officials throughout the state started out opposing the bill, but through negotiations were neutral when it passed. Democrats and voting rights advocates remained against the bill, though, raising concerns about how some measures would affect turnout, especially among the state’s marginalized communities, like those with disabilities and Native Americans.

The bill also includes guidance for cleaning up the state’s voter rolls after a bill to withdraw Utah from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, was rejected.

End of the debate commission?

An independent commission of representatives from media outlets, higher education institutions and former politicians has organized debates between candidates in Utah elections for over a decade. But after multiple public tiffs between the Utah Debate Commission and Republicans, lawmakers at one point weighed giving themselves authority to oversee debates.

The bill stalled in a committee, and the state will instead split $600,000 between Utah Valley University and the University of Utah to “collaborate on a proposal to host nonpartisan candidate debates and on establishing a statewide, nonpartisan debate organization.”

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Banning collective bargaining

The session opened with a bill targeting police, firefighters, teachers and others by banning public employee unions from negotiating contracts with their government employers on the employees' behalf. Sponsors of the bill argued that when unions win concessions from the government, taxpayers lose.

After an attempt at compromise fell apart, the ban passed. Union members packed the Capitol rotunda calling on Cox to veto it, but he signed it into law on Valentine’s evening. But the fight is not over. Labor leaders have said that as soon as the session ends, they will launch a referendum, attempting to gather more than 140,000 signatures to let voters potentially repeal the law in 2026.

“They’re pushing back on us. That’s part of the process,” Adams said. “We welcome that. Even though we may not like it, we welcome it as part of the process. We’ll see how successful they are.”

A detente with the courts

After court rulings blocked laws on abortion, transgender sports bans and ballot initiatives, the courts were in legislator’s crosshairs. A suite of bills was proposed that would have given the Legislature more influence over judges, added justices to the Supreme Court, let lawmakers recommend which judges should be voted out and made it harder for judges to be retained.

After rare pushback from the courts, including statements from a pair of Supreme Court justices calling the bills “a broad attack” on judicial independence, Republican leaders struck a detente with the courts and several of the bills were shelved.

Lawmakers did pass SB296, though, that would let the governor appoint the chief justice of the Supreme Court — with Senate confirmation — every four years.

Cox said he would have vetoed both the bill letting the Legislature recommend which judges should be retained and the bill requiring a supermajority. He said he would look at SB296, but it doesn’t “rise to the level” as the others.

“I have no interest in appointing the chief justice,” he said. “I didn’t ask for it. It was not something I wanted.”

Changes were also made that would make it harder for organizations — like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU or others — to bring lawsuits on behalf of a group’s members.

They also passed a bill to remove political affiliation guardrails on the membership of over a dozen state boards and commissions — including the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission, which compiles information to help voters decide whether to retain judges.

‘Some relief for our seniors’

For the fifth year in a row, the Legislature OK’ed significant tax cuts, including a reduction to the state income tax rate, bringing it down to 4.5% from 4.55%. The Legislature also expanded the child tax credit, allowing parents with children up to five years old to claim the benefit, as well as eliminating the Social Security tax for seniors earning $90,000 a year or less. Democratic lawmakers and the governor had both pushed for fully eliminating the tax on Social Security.

“We worked hard to get some relief for our seniors,” Cox said during his Friday night news conference. “We didn’t get all we wanted with the Social Security cut but we got a significant portion of that… and that will make a big deal for our seniors. We’re grateful for the work that was done there with that.”

Adams touted the cuts Friday evening while noting that the state still funneled money into education and new raises for teachers.

Medical malpractice reform

One of the hottest-button issues in the final days of the session was a medical malpractice bill, HB503, sponsored by Rep. Katy Hall, R-South Ogden. The bill originally included a $1 million cap on medical malpractice payouts, which attracted significant pushback from patients, families and attorneys. The bill was later amended and the cap was removed, but the legislation still gives doctors personal immunity in malpractice cases as long as they have malpractice insurance.

The bill was divisive for both parties, as a number of Republicans broke with their party in both chambers to vote against the bill, and two Democrats in the Senate voted in favor. The day after the bill passed the Senate, The Salt Lake Tribune first reported that Katy Hall’s husband, Michael Hall, an orthopedist, was sued in 2023 for alleged medical malpractice, though the patient later dismissed her claim against him.

Mobile treatment centers

A bill sponsored by Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, that will regulate needle exchanges, allow for mobile medication-assisted treatment centers and ban supervised consumption sites passed both the Senate and House without a single vote against.

IVF for public employees

Lawmakers voted this session to expand an infertility treatment coverage pilot program, which allows public workers to access a $4,000 benefit toward assisted reproductive technologies. Once the bill receives the governor’s expected signature, state employees will have complete insurance coverage for treatments like in vitro fertilization starting in July.

Coordinating with ICE

Five years ago, the Utah Legislature passed a bill to limit the maximum jail sentence for a class A misdemeanor to 364 days in an effort to avoid federal deportation proceedings, which are triggered after a one-year sentence in jail. A bill sponsored this year by Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Riverton, aimed to undo that legislation in an effort to support President Donald Trump’s mission of mass deportation.

The bill has been narrowed in recent weeks and no longer applies to all class A misdemeanors, instead focusing on some violent crimes, though it still would apply in some cases to some people in the country legally. Despite the changes, Republican leaders in the Legislature have said they support the underlying goal of assisting ICE.

Gender-affirming care

Two years after Utah passed a ban on access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a freshman Republican lawmaker introduced a bill to stop any public funds from going toward such treatments for adults. But, House leaders never advanced it to a debate.

While that bill didn’t succeed, another barring gender transition care for people incarcerated in correction facilities did pass. People who enter custody receiving hormone therapy would be able to continue that care.

The proposal came nearly one year after the Justice Department sued Utah alleging the state discriminated against a transgender woman incarcerated at the state prison by providing inadequate and delayed medical care. Under the Trump administration, the department has since withdrawn the lawsuit.

Outlawing pride flags

After two failed attempts last year to ban pride flags in schools, lawmakers succeeded in passing a bill that would do exactly that and more — going so far as to ban any non-sanctioned flag in all public schools and government buildings. The allowed flags, if the bill is signed into law, would include Utah and U.S. flags, military flags, flags for other countries or Native American tribes, Olympic flags and the official flags for colleges and universities. The bill also includes a carveout for flags displayed temporarily as part of an approved school curriculum.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, has said explicitly that his aim is to ban pride flags, and he attracted additional controversy over the bill after he said in a House hearing that it would allow teachers to hang Nazi or Confederate flags in some instances.

Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Salt Lake, proposed an amendment to strip the bill of its provisions related to government buildings in an effort to avoid lawsuits over the legislation, but the amendment failed on the Senate floor.

Asked Friday night at a news conference if he planned to veto the bill, Gov. Spencer Cox said, ”I’m not going to talk about vetoing any bills tonight. I don’t know if I’m going to sign that one. I’ll probably sign that one. I need to look at it.”

In an interview later Friday, Cox said he wished the bill had not been expanded to government buildings. “I wish we would have kept it at schools and let adults make those decisions,” he said. “That would be really cool if I could just strike out half a bill and keep the other half of a bill,” he said, “but I don’t get to do that.”

If you build it

Legislators passed a multipronged bill making changes to how and when officials with the Utah Fairpark Area Investment and Restoration District — the state-created entity overseeing the development of a proposed Major League Baseball stadium in Salt Lake City — can spend public dollars. SB336, now awaiting Cox’s signature, allows officials to spend sales tax revenue on building the stadium and related infrastructure before a ball club is awarded to the Beehive State.

An earlier version of the legislation would’ve allowed multiple stadiums to be built with public funding in the west-side neighborhood. Those provisions were cut just before the bill passed both chambers on the last day of the session.

The bill also allows the district to spend public dollars on “cleanup or security relating to outdoor recreation infrastructure,” likely a nod to the Jordan River Trail and the long-held public safety concerns attached to it.

Parking lot beers

Utahns buying groceries online and picking them up in the parking lot would be able to add beer to the order, under one of the provisions of the annual liquor bill that passed both houses late in the session. SB328 also would clarify the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services’ commission’s authority to deny liquor licenses to businesses with a history of violations and permit bartenders to perform a “straw test” to taste tiny amounts of the drinks they’re making.

The Legislature also passed HB414, which, if signed, will provide a protocol for what would happen to producers when raw milk is suspected as the source of a foodborne illness outbreak. Another bill that passed both houses, HB138, requires specific labeling for so-called “cultivated” meat — or edible tissue grown in a lab — and also mandates labeling for plant-based meat substitutes.

Lawmakers also passed HB84, which would require labeling if vaccines are put in food. A spokesperson for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food said that at present, the bill “doesn’t do much as there are not any vaccines for food authorized by the FDA.”

Salt Lake Tribune reporters Kolbie Peterson and Jose Davila IV contributed to this story.