‘Could have been a phone call’: Spencer Cox thinks Utah lawmakers are passing too many bills

SALT LAKE CITY — With only 20 days to review bills that passed the legislative session, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s office has been swamped reviewing the nearly 600 bills before the clock runs out at midnight Thursday.

In Cox’s mind, the record number of bills passed by lawmakers this year is too many, and he thinks many of the policies included in bills could be accomplished through communication rather than new legislation.

“My greatest concern with this legislative session is just the sheer number of bills,” Cox said during his monthly PBS Utah news conference Thursday. “There are several bills that maybe started out as something substantive but they didn’t have the support so they removed the substantive pieces. … We often get bills that could have been a phone call.”

The governor has already signed the majority of bills passed by lawmakers this year and has until the end of the day Thursday to sign or veto any additional pieces of legislation.

Cox told reporters to expect some vetoes Thursday. Although he declined to hint at what those bills might be, he suggested he’s eyeing some of those less substantial bills to block and said he expects “several” vetoes. He also said it’s “very possible” the Utah Legislature convenes a special session to override some of those vetoes, as they did in 2022 after he vetoed a controversial bill barring transgender girls from competing in high school sports.

The governor said he doesn’t plan to “flippantly” veto bills — partly for political reasons to preserve a working relationship with lawmakers — and prefers to work with lawmakers throughout the year to change legislation he doesn’t like.

Still, he said he doesn’t like some of the bills he has signed or plans to sign, but said, “I would never sign something that would do lasting harm” to the state.

He noted Congress passed only 27 bills last year and — while he described the federal legislative branch as “dysfunctional” — said he thinks the state would operate just fine with fewer bills from state lawmakers.

Cox has spoken with legislative leaders about reducing the number of bills proposed each session, but said even the most junior members of the House and Senate have the same ability to propose legislation, so there’s not an easy way to reduce the number of bills passed in future sessions. When he was a lawmaker, Cox said legislators generally tried to keep the number of bills under 400, adding, there are some “cultural pieces of this that have changed” in the Legislature.

You can watch the entire press conference below: