It’s Week 2 of the 2026 General Legislative Session, and things are starting to heat up at the Capitol.  Personally, I was pleased to get positive feedback on my e-bikes bill  from the Transportation Committee and stakeholders, after which we all went outside to test ride the different devices (and it started snowing which made everyone happy!) I also enjoyed my first experience as a panelist on the Hinckley Report, which airs each Friday night at 7PM on PBS, and is a popular podcast with political junkies.

  
As a body, we made progress to keep power reliable and affordable, passed measures to enhance election security, and moved forward with bills that keep Utah affordable for current and future generations. My focus remains supporting families, protecting liberty, and promoting a thriving economy for Utah. You are always invited to watch sessions live, view daily agendas, and follow the status of legislation at le.utah.gov. 

Last week, I mistakenly had the wrong link to the legislative survey (sorry about that). Thanks to who let me know and to those of you who were able to access the survey via the QR code.  So I’ll ask you again to please take a few minutes to complete my short legislative survey and share your perspective. Your responses help me better understand the issues that matter most to our community: Click here to take the survey. (https://uthouse.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_25F9yNmqO8UtAAS?Q_CHL=qr)

Background: 

I support the courts and believe our judges are doing their best to provide impartial and fair justice in a system that has a number of challenges and constraints, and which has a tremendous personal impact on the lives of individuals involved in the courts.  

SB134 is a little more complex and nuanced than the news media presents.  In my opinion, there are both budget and political constraints.

For the past couple of years, there has been talk of increasing the size of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals.  Every other State that is comparable in population to Utah has 7 or 9 member Supreme Court, while Utah has 5 members.  I think it’s also no secret that, like in past years, Legislative leaders would like to see more conservative judges on the bench.

My understanding is that this year the Judicial Branch’s budget request asked for: 

0 new Supreme Court justices 

2 new Court of Appeals justices

8 new District Court/Juvenile Court justices

When you consider the support staff and operational costs, each judge costs ~$800k/year ongoing.  So 10 new judges would be roughly ~$8M/yr

On the other side, the Senate initially recommended ~$3M for:

2 new Supreme Court justices

2 new Court of Appeals justices

0 new District Court justices

On the positive side, at least there is agreement on expanding the Court of Appeals.   My understanding is that after some initial negotiations, the Senate agreed to add 3 new District Court judges in the highest priority District Courts and the version version of the bill that came to the House had 7 new justices with $1M+ one time expense and ~5M ongoing expense:

2 new Supreme Court justices

2 new Court of Appeals justices

3 new District Court justices

What I don’t like about the bill: 

On the surface, the timing of adding 2 new Supreme Court justices looks like it is a direct reaction to the problematic 2024 Prop 4 initiative ruling, or the current 2026 appeal to the Supreme Court of Judge Gibson’s redistricting ruling, and certainly those rulings have a political impact. 

I’d like to fund all the lower court justices asked for to give Utahns faster access to justice.  Given the budget problems, it's unlikely the Judiciary will get all the new judges they asked for.  Because the Senate has tied the 2 new Supreme Court justices in one package with the new Appeals Court and new District Court judges, the only way to vote for the additional district judges asked for was to vote for the whole package.  I was also disappointed that the funding for the additional 2nd District Court judge for our community (Davis, Weber, Morgan counties make up the 2nd District) was not included.

What I like about the bill 

I like that we are adding 2 new Court of Appeals and 3 new district Judges, which will improve access for many in our state.  I also appreciated that the Chief Justice seemed to communicate in his official speech last week, that he is not really opposed to the new Supreme Court Justices—as long as the higher priority lower court justices are funded.

How I voted: 

It wasn’t the bill I wanted, but I voted yes on the reasoning that the only way to get for the additional Appeals Court and District judges needed most, was to vote for the whole package.  I respect that some of my colleagues voted no based on the controversy over expanding the Supreme Court.

This year, I’m sponsoring legislation on a variety of issues to make the government work more efficiently and ethically. My bills include:

This week, I enjoyed visits from our advocates for disabled Utahns, local police chiefs, local insurance agents, PTA leaders, DSD school board, college students and local residents.

Here is a record of how I voted on the House Floor this week.  This second week, we passed the base budget (unlike Washington, we pass a minimum budget first so there is no chance of a shutdown) and most bills were still the non controversial issues that were studied over the past year and unanimously recommended to the full house, but there were one or two that had a mixed vote like SB134

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