SALT LAKE CITY — Attorneys for Governor Spencer Cox and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes have asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by the state’s largest teachers union.

The Utah Education Association sued the state, alleging that its “Utah Fits All Scholarship” is a voucher program that is taking money from the public education system.

In a new court filing, lawyers for the state insisted the program only applies to a handful of students and is not taking an excessive amount of funding.

“The Legislature has allocated funds for the UFA Scholarship Program amounting to less than 1% of the overall budget provided for the public education system. Nothing in the statute that creates the UFA Scholarship Program states or implies that funding for the Program will be taken from funds that would otherwise be appropriated to fund the public education system,” assistant Utah Attorney General Scott Ryther wrote.

The state also argues the legislature is within its authority to do it.

“Accordingly, if the Legislature chooses, as it did here, to create a program to support children in their efforts to seek an educational alternative outside the public education system, the Legislature may do so. The UFA Scholarship Program stands as a separately funded program to support the needs of children who wish to opt out of the public education system,” Ryther wrote.

So far, Utah lawmakers have spent $82.5 million in taxpayer funds on the program. The scholarship offers families up to $8,000 to move their student to private or pay for other school expenses. But the Utah Education Association alleges the Utah Fits All program diverts away money from public schools, in violation of the state’s constitution. The union is asking a judge to block the law from being enforced.

The state of Utah’s court filing also seeks to have Utah State Board of Education member Carol Lear removed as a plaintiff, saying she lacks standing to sue.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s democratic delegates will meet this week to talk about how they will pick the party’s next nominee following President Joe Biden’s exit. 

All of the delegates present at a meeting Monday voted in favor of endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“With MAGA Republicans attacking abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, social security, medicaid, and our country’s democratic institutions,this election is the most important of my lifetime,” said Utah Democratic Party chair Diane Lewis. “Vice President Harris is up to the challenge. In less than 48 hours, she has already built a coalition of young people, women, Latino voters, and Black voters that will carry her campaign to victory.

Harris isn’t immediately named the official nominee, despite the president’s endorsement. She needs to get 1,976 delegate votes to secure the nomination. 

“Vice President Harris said in her statement she wants to earn this nomination and there’s certainly no smokey back room saying that it has to be her,” DeSirant said. 

‘An unprecedented situation’

Utah Democratic Party Executive Director Thom DeSirant said democrats are now in an unprecedented situation ahead of the convention. A lot has changed for Utah’s 34 democratic delegates. The democratic national convention won’t go the way they’d imagined it would one week ago. 

“This is something that’s never been seen before in the modern primary practice,” he said. “This is something that hasn’t happened for over 50 years. I think to some extent we’re all kind of playing it by ear and figuring out what happens next.” 

DeSirant said he’s seen a large groundswell of support for the vice president, thought her path to securing the nomination isn’t over. 

“The Association of State Democratic Committees, all 57 state and territorial parties, did meet yesterday, and there was a formal announcement that our Association of Democratic Committees has endorsed Vice President Harris,” he said. 

He said, before Biden’s exit, they anticipated officially naming him the nominee in a virtual roll call. He said he doesn’t know what that will look like now. 

“Because of the Ohio laws, there is a virtual roll call that will happening,” DeSirant said. “We’ve known that that was planned for some time in the first week of August, but that could change based off of what the rules committee votes on on Wednesday.” 

Naming a nominee

Members of the rules committee from each state will meet to discuss how the party will name a nominee. Until that’s decided, DeSirant said he and others don’t know what to expect. 

“We have had hundreds of delegates say that they are pledged to the vice president or who have at least endorsed her, but until anyone else actually says that they’re running, I think that we’re all just kind of waiting to see what happens,” he said. 

Other candidates could run against Harris, though none have come forward at this point. 

If she or another candidate doesn’t win the majority of delegates on the first vote, automatic delegates, formerly called superdelegates, are allowed to vote. Automatic delegates are made up of sitting democratic elected officials, as well as former leaders, including President Barack Obama. 

“We could have three or four days of primetime TV of just doing a roll call vote at our national convention,” DeSirant said. “Now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen because it looks like Democratic delegates are coalescing behind the VP. But we’ll have to see what happens.”