Taken separately, or as a whole, the fusillade of bills by which the Utah Legislature aims to weaken the state’s judicial branch may not greatly affect the way our state government works.
But Utah Chief Justice Matthew Durant, speaking Thursday on behalf of the Utah Judicial Council, was right to denounce the fleet of proposed legislation as “not only dangerous but also detrimental to the public’s trust in a fair and impartial judicial system and ultimately harmful to the citizens.”
The bills are clearly a deliberate — if not sophomoric — attempt to poke the justices of the Utah Supreme Court in retaliation for a series of rulings lawmakers didn’t like. They are a waste of the Legislature’s precious time and a show of how little lawmakers appreciate the constitutional separation of powers that have served our state and nation so well throughout their history.
It would not altogether destroy the independence of the state judiciary if, for example, the chief justice was selected by the governor rather than by his or her colleagues. Nor would it probably matter much if the Utah Supreme Court were expanded from five justices to seven or nine.
Retention elections for state judges usually see them kept in office by large majorities, more than 70% in most cases, so requiring a supermajority of, say, 66%, probably wouldn’t change much.
Worst of the bunch is a bill that would let the Legislature put a thumb on the scales by adding a note on ballots approving or disapproving of individual judges. That is truly a dangerous idea that would solve no genuine problem that anyone can think of.
This debate only exists because legislative leaders were offended by a series of state court rulings in 2024 that — correctly — voided a pair of deeply flawed proposals to amend the Utah Constitution, preserved a lawsuit seeking to save a voter-approved anti-gerrymandering initiative and continued a halt to the state’s draconian anti-abortion statute.
Republican and Democratic leaders over the years, at state and federal levels, have floated proposals intended to change the direction of an uncompliant judicial branch. They generally fail because, on balance, they are bad ideas.
Like these.
