If you hold the results of the 2025 General Session of the Utah Legislature up to the light, and squint really hard, you might see that a few positive things came out of it.
The state will no longer tax Social Security earnings for most Utahns. The state’s child tax credit will be expanded. It will now be legal to include beer in your grocery store curbside pickup order.
Much of what counts as good were ideas that got less horrible as debate went along, the best indication that the legislative process can work.
The state’s exemplary vote-by-mail system was harmed but not destroyed. Legislative threats to eviscerate the state’s independent judiciary mostly went away.
Others actions were pretty small potatoes, especially compared to some larger mistakes lawmakers made in the same areas.
For example, lawmakers and Gov. Spencer Cox were very pleased with themselves in announcing a $1,400 boost to every public school teacher’s annual salary. That’s about $27 a week, and might buy a few eggs.
The gesture may, as Cox said, make our teachers feel heard, just a little. Though not as much as the ban on collective bargaining imposed on all public employees unions in Utah makes them feel demeaned.
Lawmakers also passed their fifth consecutive income tax cut. Something that will net out all of an estimated $35 a year in savings for middle-income households, and save upper-income taxpayers just shy of $2,000 a year, while taking $127 million away from the state’s education fund.
The Legislature tightened up just a little on the things homeschooling families can spend their taxpayer-funded vouchers on. No more lift tickets or playground equipment. Which is small comfort to taxpayers, given that the total amount committed to this scheme to bleed public education has now climbed to $120 million a year.
Most of our lawmakers’ efforts this winter went into attacks on disfavored, politically weak groups, the separation of powers and democracy itself.
The Legislature passed laws that will make it more difficult for people to continue to cast their ballots by mail, undermining a process that is safe, secure, popular and accomplishes one of the greater callings of democracy — getting more people to vote.
The appalling irony of the anti-mail-voting efforts, and related moves to make it more difficult to pass voter initiatives and referendums, is that many lawmakers base their argument on the bogus threat, boosted by an out-of-state advocacy group, that our process is susceptible to out-of-state advocacy groups.
The Legislature ordered local governments to stop putting fluoride in their water supplies, required Salt Lake City to get state permission before implementing measures to calm traffic in its own downtown and leaned on Park City to approve a controversial mega-mansion the city’s own legal process had halted.
These are more examples of how our lawmakers squeal with resentment when they perceive federal overreach but hardly hesitate to meddle in decisions that properly belong to local elected officials.
The Legislature couldn’t stop itself from monkeying around with a good system of reviewing requests for public records. It passed bills that would replace the public-spirited volunteers of the State Records Committee with a judge beholden to the governor and would raise the threat that those who seek public records and are denied may be socked with legal fees as punishment.
Both of those measures should be at the top of the governor’s list for much-deserved vetos. There is still time for voters to let Cox know that that’s what he should do.
The Legislature banned pride flags from schools and other public buildings, just because some people don’t want to see them.
It refused to fund the state’s programs aimed at preventing violence against women.
So much of this session was political performance art, expressions of, and enhancements to, lawmakers’ own collective power.
The real needs of Utah and its people — protecting our air and water, building a 21st century power grid or green transit system, making our government transparent and responsive, helping our schools catch up from the blows of the pandemic — were mostly ignored.
It’s the Utah Way.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
