For the first time in Utah history, Republican state school board leaders met in a closed-door caucus Friday — and the 15-member public education governing body’s only two Democrats say it sets a bad precedent that stands to shield decisions from public view.
The first meeting was planned Friday afternoon at Salt & Olive, an Italian restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City, following the board’s regular session, a Utah State Board of Education spokesperson said.
“They have given no good faith notice of this exclusive board meeting to the public, to the staff who serve them, and to the two excluded Board members,” said Sarah Reale and Carol Lear — the board’s two Democrats — in a joint statement Friday.
The four newly elected republican board members, though not yet sworn in, were also invited to Friday’s planned caucus meeting, the statement said. At least one current Republican school board member, Kristan Norton, opted not to attend, Reale told The Tribune.
This year marked the third-ever partisan elections for the state school board — and that’s exactly why some board members have opted to start a caucus: because it’s now legal.
“Two years ago was the first time that the board consisted of individuals that had participated in a partisan election,” board member Matt Hymas, a Republican, said Friday. “Before that, I don’t know if a caucus would have been legal.”
Historically, the state school board has been nonpartisan — meaning the caucus exception would not have applied and a meeting of more than half of the members would have constituted a quorum and therefore needed be open to the public.
But the Legislature changed the law in 2016, allowing party-affiliated school board candidates to run. The first partisan school board election was held in 2020. Local school boards in Utah are still nonpartisan.
Hymas said Friday afternoon that he has never participated in a caucus and is “anxious” to see how the first meeting plays out. Because of that, he said he’s not yet sure if he supports the move.
“I don’t see a meeting such as this as an excuse not to share my thoughts on why I vote the way I do or have the opinions that I have,” Hymas added, acknowledging that the public could view the caucus as “a problem of transparency.”
“Board members are already having discussions with each other, just not in this format,” he said.
In their statement, Democrats Reale and Lear said they are “especially concerned about the lack of transparency the public deserves and expects.”
“And [we] find it ironic that several of these Board members are the most vocal in demanding transparency of the Board … and other government entities — including local school boards,” their statement continued.
The Utah Open and Public Meetings Act requires public bodies, including school boards, to deliberate and vote on issues in public. But the law states that “a political party, a political group, or a political caucus” is not considered a public body, so members who belong to the same party in the Legislature frequently hold closed-door caucus meetings.
No official action or vote can take place during caucus meetings, however.
“If the question is: Does that violate the Open Meetings Act? The answer is probably no,” said Dave Reymann, a lawyer who has represented media organizations in open records and open meetings cases, “but it certainly violates the purpose and the underlying goals of the Open Meetings Act, which is to allow the public to see the substantive deliberations on issues.”
Republicans in the Utah Senate have huddled in private for decades. Until about seven years ago, most of the House Republican caucuses were open, but now all of them are closed. In the last few years, Democrats have begun closing their caucus meetings, as well.
“If we truly care about what the Open Meetings Act is supposed to accomplish, which is to allow the public to see how government works, then having these deliberations when there’s a supermajority within a caucus doesn’t serve those goals,” Reymann said. “It deprives the public of their ability to see how government is functioning.”
It’s unclear how often the newly formed caucus may intend to meet moving forward.
