It felt like the first day of school up on Capitol Hill today. Lawmakers were back in the building and finding their seats, lobbyists and reporters were milling about the hallways, and legislative leadership tried setting expectations. The pace was slow, the speeches were long, and the hard decisions are still ahead, with the real work of the legislative session set to arrive in the coming days.
There’s only 44 days left!
Observations from the Hill
BACK TO WORK: The grinding wheels of the legislative process began turning today as lawmakers kicked off the 2026 session, which will include hundreds of bills and a roughly $30 billion state budget over the next 45 days. In opening speeches, leaders of both chambers used day one to frame their priorities and signal the values that will shape the session ahead.
House Speaker Mike Schultz cast the session as an exercise in long-term stewardship, invoking a 1909 fight over building roads once dismissed as serving only the wealthy. His message was that meaningful progress is often unpopular in the moment but essential for future generations. Schultz acknowledged Utahns’ anxiety around housing, childcare, education, traffic, and rising costs, and pointed to issues like the Great Salt Lake, water, and infrastructure as today’s tests of leadership. The generational framing rang true, though it glossed over how past legislative inaction has contributed to several of the crises lawmakers now claim urgency to solve.
Senate President Stuart Adams struck a more ideological tone, promoting what he called the “Utah Dream” while warning that unnamed forces are trying to undermine it. He repeatedly emphasized that Utah is a “republic, not a democracy,” attacked ballot initiatives and “out-of-state interests,” and warned against becoming “California,” signaling continued hostility toward voter-led reforms. Adams paired that rhetoric with a sweeping growth agenda, calling for Utah to triple energy production by 2050, become a nuclear energy hub, expand mining of critical minerals, and continue tax cuts, while also hyping the 2034 Olympics and futuristic projects like air taxis and a spaceport.
STATE OF THE JUDICIARY: Chief Justice Matthew Durrant directly addressed rising tensions between the Legislature and the courts, while emphasizing shared commitments to public service and the rule of law. He highlighted progress on access to justice, public outreach, and efficiency, noting that appellate courts have eliminated pandemic-era backlogs. Durrant forcefully defended Utah’s merit-based judicial selection system and warned against politicizing the courts, arguing that trial courts urgently need more judges and workforce funding far more than structural changes at the top.
Durrant also warned that declining trust in public institutions poses a real threat to democracy, urging lawmakers to welcome good-faith criticism while rejecting personal attacks on judges’ motives or integrity. His call for mutual respect was underscored by visible tension in the room: from the gallery, House Majority Leader Casey Snider appeared to refuse to stand during the closing ovation.
ATTORNEY LICENSING FEES: As the Legislature ramps up the general session, some bills that received hearings during interim meetings are already being fast-tracked to floor votes, often with limited public attention. One such bill is SJR 3, sponsored by Sen. Dan McCay, which received a preliminary vote in the Senate this afternoon.
SJR 3 would amend the Utah Code of Judicial Administration to limit how the Utah Supreme Court and State Bar set and use attorney licensing fees, requiring mandatory fees to be tied strictly to the costs of licensing, discipline, and regulation. It would prohibit using required fees to fund services for attorneys or the public, allowing those activities to be supported only through voluntary fees.
While technical on its face, the move is notable because attorney licensing and regulation are typically considered an inherent judicial power, overseen by state supreme courts rather than legislatures. By directly amending court rules, Utah lawmakers are taking an unusual step that could be read as part of broader, growing tension between the legislative and judicial branches.
PROCESS NERD NOTE: The House is quietly streamlining floor time this session by no longer reading citations in full, opting instead to waive the lengthy recitations. This coincides with HJR 2 moving out of House Rules this afternoon during the first committee meeting of the session, which shifts what were once honorary resolutions in both the House and Senate into citations. Sponsors can still make floor presentations, so the actual time savings may be modest, but it’s a notable procedural tweak for all those legislative process junkies like me out there.
