When Utah Senate President Stuart Adams made committee assignments for January’s upcoming legislative session, there was one notable change: Sen. Daniel Thatcher, who has a track record of bucking Adams on several key votes, lost his leadership of the government operations committee he has chaired for six years.
Instead, that panel, which will vet a slew of important election reform bills and ballot initiative revisions next year, will be led by Sen. Ron Winterton, R-Roosevelt, who oversaw the committee when Thatcher was recovering from the effects of a stroke suffered in 2022.
Thatcher was also removed from the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee, where he has served for 14 years, and reassigned to the Health and Human Services Committee.
In addition, the West Valley City Republican will have to move into a new office, away from the private corridor where the other GOP senators’ offices are, and will be at a new desk in the Senate chamber, seated with the minority Democrats.
Under Senate rules, the Senate president has the authority to assign committees. Seniority is generally a factor in those decisions but isn’t binding. Thatcher has been in the Senate for 13 years, the second-longest tenure of any GOP senator not in leadership.
Thatcher has been a frequent thorn in the side of Adams, R-Layton, and Republican leadership.
In August, Thatcher was one of two Republicans to vote against a proposed constitutional amendment to reverse a Utah Supreme Court ruling and assert the Legislature’s authority to repeal or rewrite ballot initiatives. He warned the amendment would “give us the biggest black eye we could have as a Legislature.”
Before that, he opposed a 2022 measure that banned transgender girls from competing in high school sports. A court has blocked the bill from taking effect.
“We want to protect our girls, but this bill hurts our girls. ... It hurts the trans community; I think it violates the Constitution. And I think it wastes money,” he said during debate on whether to override Gov. Spencer Cox’s veto of the bill. “It’s political theater.”
And his vote against a massive 2019 overhaul that slashed income taxes and raised the sales tax on food left the bill one vote away in the Senate of the margin it would have needed to be exempt from a referendum — although it also fell short of the margin in the House. Legislators repealed the measure after residents quickly gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot for repeal.
More recently, Thatcher got crosswise with Republican leaders when he scheduled a hearing on a litany of problems with the GOP’s 2024 presidential preference poll. The voting was plagued by long lines and technology glitches, but Thatcher relented and removed the embarrassing item from the agenda.
In 2021, the Republican legislators significantly redrew Thatcher’s district, but he held off challengers in the GOP primary and won reelection. Earlier this year, Thatcher ran to replace outgoing Salt Lake County Council member Dave Alvord, but lost by 155 votes in the Republican primary to Carlos Moreno, who went on to win the November election.
Thatcher declined to say this week if he thought the changes to his Senate office and committee assignments were retaliatory.
“I cannot speak as to why the [Senate] president makes the decisions that he does,” Thatcher said. “It was not my decision, and I asked him not to do it. I believe there will be a lot of bills coming up that deal with elections and initiatives and referenda, and I think I probably have the most experience and expertise in the Senate dealing with those subjects.
“It certainly doesn’t seem like the right time for me to not be chairing that committee, but the president makes those decisions,” he said. “It’s his decision, not mine, and I cannot say why he did what he did, but the timing is concerning to me.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, shown in July 2024, has shuffled Sen. Daniel Thatcher's committee assignments.
In a statement, Adams said that with the recent election — which saw three new senators joining the body and a shake-up of the Republican leadership team — assignments were adjusted, “ensuring each committee comprises senators who bring different expertise and experiences. Over two-thirds of the committees have new chairs and many have new assignments.”
Thatcher, Adams said, will head the new General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, which will set the budget for the governor’s office, auditor, Department of Commerce, the Insurance and Tax commissions, the Department of Labor and the Public Service Commission.
Update: Dec. 6, 4:22 p.m. • The story has been updated to include a reference to Thatcher’s bid for the Salt Lake County council.
