Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have given him the power to appoint the chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

“I admit it is very tempting to sign this bill and assure that the Chief Justice would need to stay in my good graces to retain his or her position,” Cox wrote in a four-page letter explaining his veto.

“Knowing the head magistrate of our state’s highest court would have to think twice before ruling against me or checking my power is difficult to reject,”

“But just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. And while I appreciate your faith and trust in extending me this new authority, I must respectfully decline,” he wrote.

The bill, SB296, was one of several clamping down on the courts after a string of rulings blocking several laws passed by the Legislature, including bills that outlawed almost all abortions, banned transgender girls from playing high school sports, limited the Legislature’s power to undo ballot initiatives and voided a constitutional amendment to undo the initiative ruling.

Sen. Chris Wilson, R-Logan, who sponsored the bill, said his aim was to mimic the process in place for the U.S. Supreme Court in which the president appoints the chief justice, who is then confirmed by the Senate.

“If that were all the bill did, it is something I could support,” Cox wrote. But the bill also required the chief justice to be reappointed and reconfirmed by the Senate every four years, as opposed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the chief justice is a lifetime appointment.

On the last night of the session, Cox suggested that he was not a supporter of the bill.

“I have no interest in appointing the chief justice,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t ask for it. It was not something I wanted.”

He also said he would have vetoed two other bills targeting the judiciary — one that would have created a legislative panel that could recommend that judges be voted out of office and the other that would have required judges to get two-thirds support in retention elections every six years in order to keep their positions on the bench.

In a meeting of the Judicial Council — which sets policy for the courts — during the session, Chief Justice Matthew Durrant took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the bills targeting the judiciary, saying that the appointment bill likely would not directly impact him, but taken as a whole the legislation was a “broad attack” on the independence of the courts.

The veto means that there were no major structural changes to the judiciary this session, despite the courts being in the Legislature’s crosshairs. A bill did pass that will impact when associations can bring lawsuits on behalf of the group’s members.

“I am deeply disappointed in some recent decisions that I believe are wrong,” Cox wrote in his letter. “But just because I disagree with the court, does not mean that the system is broken or corrupted. Reasonable and intelligent legal minds can and do disagree on these decisions. It is possible to vehemently oppose a ruling and still support the institution.”

In addition to the veto, according to a news release, Cox signed 200 more bills, including:

• H.B. 65 Firefighter Cancer Amendments, which creates a cancer screening program for firefighters;

• H.B. 69 Government Records and Information Amendments, which makes it almost impossible for citizens to recoup legal fees if they win a lawsuit over access to public records;

• H.B. 100 Food Security Amendments, which provides free school lunch to children in low-income families. “No child should have to learn on an empty stomach, and this bill brings us closer to that goal,” Cox said.

• H.B. 322 Child Actor Regulations, which seeks to protect money made by child influencers;

• S.B. 178 Devices in Public Schools, banning cell phones from schools during class time, which Cox said, “resets the default to encourage healthier, more connected learning environments.”

Thursday is the last day for the governor to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature.

In what some saw as a void of opportunity to weigh in on Rocky Mountain Power’s proposed rate increase, a group of the utility’s customers gathered for their own public “people’s hearing” on Saturday.

A row of five chairs reserved for utility executives and members of Utah’s Public Service Commission sat empty in the front row of a conference room at the Salt Lake City Public Library’s Marmalade Branch while electricity customers shared their personal testimony to a video camera.

“We’re going to send [the recording] to the Public Service Commission as a replacement for the hearing that they were not willing to have,” said Luis Miranda, a campaign organizer for the Sierra Club’s Utah chapter.

Utah’s Public Service Commission is currently considering Rocky Mountain Power’s request to raise its electricity rates for customers by 18% — down from a 30% increase the company initially requested last year. But pro-coal lawmakers and clean energy advocates alike say customers will end up paying the difference in the long run through Rocky Mountain Power parent company PacifiCorp’s Energy Balancing Account (EBA).

The hearing process has been mired in legislative and procedural drama. Legislators tried and failed this year to abolish the EBA for Utah customers. They have also repeatedly asked Rocky Mountain Power to separate from its parent company so that Utah customers did not pay for “poor regulatory decisions” in other states.

Saturday’s testimonies, however, were largely personal.

Jeffery White, a tiny homes architect and self-described senior citizen, said he hoped for “peace” in his retirement years.

Instead, “I find myself, like so many others, at the kitchen table doing math, trying to stretch a fixed income across food, medicine and power bills,” White said. “Rocky Mountain Power’s proposed hike isn’t just a number. It’s a sentence. It leaves people like me in cold homes staring at dark ceilings.”

The meeting, organized by a coalition of clean energy advocates, focused on Rocky Mountain Power’s renewed commitment to coal and natural gas after previously promising to amp up its clean energy portfolio.

“I feel a sense of betrayal as a homeowner,” said Paul Zuckerman, who said he moved to Utah in the 1970s and “fell in love with the clean air environment.”

Utah lawmakers last year passed two bills to keep the state’s two biggest coal plants alive and allow Rocky Mountain Power to pass the associated costs onto Utah customers.

Shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway, which owns PacifiCorps and Rocky Mountain Power, will consider two proposals ahead of their May 3 shareholder meeting that ask the company to evaluate the financial impacts of its energy-saving initiatives. One proposal suggests the company’s “voluntary environmental activities” are “unnecessary” and do not benefit company shareholders, according to a proxy statement.

The other suggests Berkshire Hathaway’s fossil fuel investments are, in fact, harming the company and its shareholders due to increased insurance rates fueled by climate disasters.

Berkshire Hathaway’s board of directors has recommended voting “no” on both proposals. Organizers of Saturday’s meaning said the proposals would, at least, provide an “accounting of corporate climate change-related activities” and provide information that would benefit “shareholders and RMP ratepayers alike.”

But ratepayers are hit harder by Rocky Mountain Power’s policies, customers said.

“Don’t make the most vulnerable among us pay the price for someone else’s profit,” White said like he was addressing the Public Service Commissioners.

The utility’s customers who attended Saturday morning’s event said they were unwilling to pay more to burn coal and accelerate climate change.

“The people of Utah already pay a high enough price for climate change,” said Emma Verhamme, a Salt Lake City resident and RMP customer.

Verhamme listed, at length, the ways, she said, Salt Lake residents have “paid” for climate change: the dry Great Salt Lake, less snowfall in the winter months, more intense wildfire smoke in summer months, unhealthy air quality that keeps kids inside at recess some days.

“Personally, I don’t want any of that,” Verhemme said.

Some customers might, however, be willing to pay more to invest in renewable energy, said Ted Gurney.

“If they spend it on what we like, we’ll pay the rent,” Gurney proposed.

Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.

WASHINGTON CITY, Utah — There’s nothing too unusual about the fact there are so many short-term rentals in this Washington City neighborhood, but what occurred over the weekend has been a shock to the community.

On Monday, those seen in the Sendera at Sierra Hills neighborhood were walking to the popular pool with its lazy river and big slide, as well as those cleaning the many vacation rentals.

Maggie Adler has been part of cleaning crews in the neighborhood that service bigger family homes. She estimates that only 20 percent have full-time residents, while the other homes are rented out.

On Sunday morning, a cleaning crew came upon a gruesome discovery, finding the body of a 47-year-old woman who had allegedly been stabbed multiple times.

“I was not involved in the cleaning of that house,” Adler said. “We have another unit just right behind it. So we got to see all the action. As a cleaner, that’s your biggest fear, walking into a home and finding a dead body.

“Nobody wants to do that.”

Multiple Hazmat cleaning crews were seen arriving at the home on Monday. Washington City police said the victim was from California and had been staying at the rental since Thursday. They say the victim was stabbed late Saturday and her body was discovered about six hours later.

“You would think that a vacation rental area had a lot of cameras. Unfortunately, this one does not. But we have canvassed the ones that we do have,” explained Washington City police Lt. Kory Klotz.

With some of the video that was obtained, police were able to see two people of interest leaving in the victim’s car. That vehicle was found in another state and police are coordinating with law enforcement in that area to find the suspects.

“We do not believe that there’s anybody currently here that was involved in this incident,” Klotz added. “We do believe [the persons of interest] were acquaintances of the victim at minimum.”

Police said one thing that has been different about the investigation is the tourists, who Klotz shared have been very forthcoming and have played a larger role than usual when helping to piece together what happened.

“It just kind of left an eerie feeling through the neighborhood all day yesterday, even today, you know, it’s just so tragic,” Adler shared. “So, so tragic.”