Bringing Accountability Back to the Utah Legislature

1. When the Legislature Overrides Your Vote

In 2018, Utah voters passed Proposition 4, also known as “Better Boundaries.” It created an independent group to draw fair voting maps and stop gerrymandering. In 2020, the Legislature repealed it and passed S.B. 200 instead. The new law turned that group into advisors that lawmakers could ignore, and it removed the ban on gerrymandering.3 In July 2024, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that gutting Prop 4 violated Utahns' constitutional right to reform their government.5 How did the Legislature respond? Weeks later, it called an emergency session and put Amendment D on the ballot. That amendment would have let lawmakers change or repeal any law that voters pass. The courts threw Amendment D out because its ballot wording misled voters and it was never published the way the Constitution requires.2 In 2025, the courts made Prop 4 law again and struck down the unfair congressional map that had been drawn in defiance of it.3 Your vote should not be a suggestion that the Legislature is free to ignore.

2. Vote the Person, Not the Party

In June 2023, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter to congregations across the United States. The Church stays neutral on parties and candidates. But the letter warned that voting a straight ticket, or voting by tradition without carefully studying the candidates, is “a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards.”6 It asked members to study each candidate and vote for people who show integrity, compassion, and service, no matter their party. Utah reached the same conclusion in 2020, when a Democratic representative and a Republican senator worked together to pass H.B. 70, which ended one-mark straight-ticket voting statewide.4 I am asking every voter in District 61 to do the same thing: study the candidates and make each of us earn your vote.

3. Checks and Balances Only Work When Votes Are Earned

Republicans hold 61 of 75 seats in the Utah House and 22 of 29 in the Senate. That is enough to override any veto from the Governor without a single vote from the other party.1 This is not about party. It is about incentives. When lawmakers never face a close election, they answer to their party instead of their neighbors. The courts become the only check left, and the courts had to step in twice in 2024 alone.25 A healthy democracy should not need lawsuits to make the Legislature listen. The best check and balance is you: an informed voter in a district where every candidate knows they must earn the seat again in two years.