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Pressured by businesses on the importance of immigrant labor, some Republican states are backing off plans to require all employers to check for legal employment status before hiring workers.
Read more from @stateline.org
Already faced with a wave of legal complaints alleging their new district court panel — created to hear constitutional challenges to state laws — is itself unconstitutional, Utah lawmakers are moving to sidestep those suits by changing the law they had just passed. #utpol
State regulators have revoked a Utah company’s license to provide day treatment after prosecutors say three Utahns with disabilities died in its care.
Faced with a new court-ordered congressional map that turned one of Utah's Republican-majority districts blue, Utah Rep. Burgess Owens has announced he won’t seek reelection. #utpol
With Utah seeking to ban most kratom products, a lawmaker asks — should the Legislature just make Latter-day Saints' Word of Wisdom a law instead?
Saying Utah's death penalty process is too slow, a lawmaker is pushing past criticism that her plan could end in an unconstitutional execution.
A Utah lawmaker's effort to require Utahns to return their by-mail ballots in person while showing a form of identification appears to have hit a dead end for a second year in a row. #utpol
A bill advancing this year aims to correct anti-DEI law by requiring universities to host public policy events promoting diverse viewpoints after an author rescinded a speaking commitment at Weber State University after receiving a list of prohibited terms and concepts.
With the stated purpose of sending a message to voters not to retain 7th District Judge Don Torgerson when he’s up for a retention election in 2028 or to pressure him to resign, the Utah House approved a resolution “admonishing and censuring” the judge. #utpol
Will Utah move to start taxing social media companies that collect user data and use it for targeted advertising?
Indigenous people in Utah are disproportionately more likely to be murdered or go missing.
A bill from Rep. Angela Romero, a Shoshone-Bannock tribal member, would help establish training for law enforcement officers on how to investigate cases involving missing or murdered Indigenous people.
An organizer of a new group supporting transgender Utahns testifying before lawmakers at the state Capitol says “doing care work for each other is the only way we make it through.”
"Baby Olivia," a computer-generated video produced by an anti-abortion organization, may become a required watch in Utah school under a bill advancing this year.
Utah lawmakers critical of a southern Utah judge's comments in a criminal case are moving to censure him, hoping voters take notice.
Notably, lawmakers have not included money to build a controversial homeless campus in Salt Lake City. State leaders say the idea hasn’t been abandoned — but rather they’re spending more time on formulating “high utilizer” programs to inform the campus concept. #utpol
Nearly half of Utah K-3 students are reported to read below grade level.
Now, Ogden Republican Sen. Ann Millner is sponsoring a bill to increase reading assessments to three times a year starting in kindergarten and allocate $16 million to provide paraeducators supporting literacy.
Lawmakers set aside $101 million for another income tax cut while cutting some programs. They also gave $130 million for prison expansion, plus $17.6 million in valuable ongoing funding for homelessness. #utpol #utleg
Currently, Utah farmers can only sell raw milk from their farm or a store they own. That could change, as state lawmakers look to ease restrictions.
Entering the final week of the legislative session, Utah lawmakers are still sorting through a flurry of complex bills that would make a wide variety of changes to Utah’s elections and voter privacy laws. #utpol
The full Utah Legislature approved a bell-to-bell default cellphone ban. The policy is now sitting on Gov. Spencer Cox's desk, as well as his list of priorities.
After previously failing on a vote in the Utah Senate, a revived and revamped “Biscuit’s Bill” won final approval from the Utah Legislature on Friday. The bill, HB87, now heads to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk. #utpol
Utah's Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy are taking steps to roll back a Biden-era plan for the management of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The Larry H. Miller Company — which is developing a 100-acre site on the west side of Salt Lake City in hopes to attract a Major League Baseball franchise — hired the architecture firm behind New York City’s iconic High Line to restore and design a one-mile loop near the Jordan River.
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed federal lawsuits against Utah and four other states — Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey — “for failure to produce their full voter registration lists upon request.” #utpol
A Utah bill aims to speed up death penalty cases while still respecting the rights of the accused, but critics say it takes away key guardrails.
Utah has faced a setback in its efforts to further regulate AI this year after the White House came out strongly against a legislative proposal for developers. But some bills on companion chatbots and deepfakes are sticking.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox may have signed a water agreement Monday, apparently ending a dispute with Idaho over a gas tax and Bear River water, but the line for Idaho Gov. Brad Little's name is still blank.
The effort to repeal Utah’s Proposition 4 is on the cusp of hitting the statewide signature threshold needed to qualify for the November ballot.
However, signatures are still lagging in some Senate districts — and voters still have up to 45 days to remove their signatures. #utpol
