- Lawmakers introduced a record 86 criminal enhancement bills in the 2025 legislative session.
- Gov. Cox said the state Legislature needed to take a more coordinated approach to criminal justice.
- The House and Senate also introduced 59 election bills, resulting in reforms to vote by mail.
Utah
What Utah Gov. Cox said about the 2025 legislative session
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called for a more coordinated approach to the state’s tough-on-crime streak as the 2025 legislative session came to a close.
Lawmakers introduced a record 86 bills this year increasing criminal penalties — far more than at any other point in the past decade — with over half of them becoming law.
“The sheer numbers … are a little bit overwhelming,” Cox told the Deseret News on Friday night. “That’s why I honestly think you do have to take a holistic approach, and that can happen next session.”
Before the session even began on Jan. 21, House Republicans began introducing a slate of new bills to address the public safety impacts of historic immigration, persistent chronic homelessness and growing numbers of sexual offenses.
These are very real problems the legislature is responding to, Cox said. The reality and perception of increased criminal activity must be addressed — but it will be much more effective, and less costly, if criminal enhancement efforts advance an overall vision of how criminal justice needs to change in the state, Cox said.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to end up with at the end of the day, except maybe having to go to a new prison,” Cox said, “because if you keep stacking these things and adding them up, and every one might make sense, but how do they work in conjunction?”
A few years ago, the Legislature embarked on a yearslong mission to bring about comprehensive criminal justice reform, Cox recalled. This may have swung the pendulum too far one way, Cox said, and he wants to make sure lawmakers don’t swing it too far the other way by not coordinating their efforts.
This session, House lawmakers passed the Senate immigration bills enhancing criminal penalties for fentanyl distribution, human trafficking and gang recruitment; homelessness bills enhancing penalties for drug use in shelters and prohibiting syringe exchange programs in certain areas; and sexual assault bills enhancing penalties for repeat sexual offenders and creating new offenses for sexual abuse using virtual reality.
Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, told the Deseret News that Senate leadership went through each of the criminal enhancement bills at various points during the session to determine whether they were necessary, effective or overly broad.
“We were really careful this session,” Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, said, “making sure that we weren’t enhancing too much. … But you know those really egregious crimes where we were a little deficient, we did in that case where it was appropriate.”
Some bills — including proposals enabling police to impound cars of unlicensed drivers and expanding immigration enforcement for employers — reached dead ends despite extensive conversations with stakeholders.
While others, like a bill that would make immigrants convicted of some misdemeanors eligible for immediate deportation, faced serious revisions to narrow their scope before they passed through the Senate.
Steve Burton, a criminal defense lawyer, and the president of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, pointed out that increasing the severity of punishment is a far less effective deterrent to crime than increasing the swiftness and certainty of law enforcement responses.
But Burton credited the Legislature for working hard to balance its approach despite the record number of criminal enhancement bills.
“The Legislature made a more concerted effort than ever to try to identify ways to to be more targeted in their penalty enhancements,” Burton told the Deseret News. “But the problem is, when so many penalty enhancements are introduced in the first place, it’s difficult, even when it’s targeted, to keep the balance between being tough on crime and being smart.”
House Law Enforcement Chair Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, said he recognizes that criminal enhancements are “generally a one way ratchet” but he said there have been real increases in crime, particularly related to new technologies, that require new criminal justice remedies.
To counter the surge in penalty enhancements, which Wilcox acknowledged has been “out of whack,” Wilcox ran and passed a bill this session that would require state agencies to consider which criminal penalties under their purview are not needed.
Cox calls vote by mail reform ‘brilliant’
During a Friday night press conference, Cox told reporters that he thought this session’s bicameral election reform compromise bill was “brilliant.”
Following a contentious 2024 election cycle and two critical audits, House leadership proposed a bill, HB300, that would require ballots to be returned in-person with photo ID — fundamentally altering Utah’s mature vote-by-mail system.
But extensive negotiations with Senate leadership yielded a bill that would maintain most features of mail-in ballots but would require voters to place four digits of a state ID on their ballots, to opt-in by 2029 to continue receiving a ballot in the mail, and to get their ballot to county clerks by 8 p.m. on election night to be counted.
While Cox criticized those who spread inaccurate claims about mass fraud in Utah elections, he said steps are needed at the state level to ensure even election skeptics can trust the system.
“I’m concerned about the erosion of trust in elections,” Cox said. “We get the best of both worlds. We still have vote by mail for those who want to vote by mail. We have more security for those who are using vote by mail.”
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who serves as the state’s chief elections officer, spoke wearily of the 59 election bills introduced this session. Her office worked with countless bill sponsors to make sure changes were improving the election process and not decreasing access.
The biggest accomplishment?
“We saved vote by mail,” Henderson said. “Utahns love vote by mail. They trust vote by mail. They prefer vote by mail. There’s always things that we can be doing to improve the process, improve security, improve access and make voting better.”
In his review of the 2025 legislative session, Cox said the state had returned to pre-COVID-19 levels of spending and that despite the difficulty of a 45-day legislative work window, the different chambers and branches of government exemplified good process.
Cox touted the issues his office has led out on that the Legislature passed, including first-in-the-nation regulations for social media company data-sharing, app store accountability for young users and prohibitions on cellphones in school classrooms.
On the two priorities of his second term — increasing affordable homes by 35,000 units and doubling energy production over the next decade — Cox pointed to bills facilitating condo ownership and funding for nuclear energy development.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah athletics is making a notable change to the Huntsman Center gameday setup, but the move is about more than where the team sits.
The Runnin’ Utes are moving the team bench from the east side of the Jon M. Huntsman Center to the west side, returning the bench to the side it occupied during the Rick Majerus era. The change will also move the MUSS and band from the west side to the east side.
The shift is part of a larger effort by Utah Athletics to improve the student-section experience, create a more consistent setup inside the Huntsman Center and better connect the arena to the university’s growing College Town Magic initiative.
Enhancing The MUSS And Fan Experience
Nowlin said the primary motivation behind the change is improving the MUSS and the overall fan experience.
“The reason we’re doing this is we want to enhance the MUSS,” Utah’s Deputy Athletics Director & Chief Revenue Officer, Patrick Nowlin said. “As an ongoing effort, we’ve been working on for the past two years, how do we enhance the fan experience?”
One issue Utah identified was that the MUSS had been located in different areas for different events. Moving the student section and band to the east side gives the department a more consistent location to build around.
“We wanted to create a better fan experience,” Nowlin said. “We wanted to be able to have one spot that we can build on, which means we can brand. We can enhance everything about it.”
The move also ties directly into College Town Magic. Nowlin said the area around the Huntsman Center will include more than 2,900 total beds, including more than 1,400 new beds, giving students a direct path from nearby housing to the student-section entrance.
“There’s over 2,900 new beds that are right there, which will be right at the branded entrance, right where the student section is,” Nowlin said. “They don’t have to go far at all. So it’s just a walk straight down from the dorm, right in the door.”
And according to Utah’s Patrick Nowlin, the move is not limited to men’s basketball.
“It’s not just men’s basketball. It’s all Huntsman Center events,” Nowlin said.
A Nod To Utah Basketball History
While the move is primarily about fan experience, there is also a clear basketball-history component.
The west-side bench location is where Utah sat during the Majerus era, when the Runnin’ Utes were one of the top programs in the country and the Huntsman Center had a different level of edge. Alex Jensen was part of that era as a player, and now, as Utah’s head coach, the move reconnects the current program with one of its most successful periods.
Nowlin said the historical connection was part of the conversation, even if it was not solely Jensen’s decision.
“Yeah, it’s a nod to history,” Nowlin said. “I think Alex, him being here, he’s a steward of the program. There’s a lot of history to having it on that side.”
Still, Nowlin made clear the change was not simply pushed through by Jensen.
“It wasn’t a push from him,” Nowlin said. “It was a concerted effort from everybody to where, how do we create an area that the MUSS can have, but also how do we lean into our history, but still move forward in a way that we can honor that, but create an unbelievable environment.”
That is the heart of the move. Utah is trying to bring back a piece of its basketball identity while also reworking the building for the future.
How Fans Will Be Impacted
The change will affect some season-ticket holders, donors and fans seated near the current bench, MUSS and band areas, but Utah tried to limit the disruption.
Nowlin said the department spent months working through the seating impact and expects fewer than 200 accounts to be directly affected. Those accounts are in sections T, U and V.
“This wasn’t something that just came about,” Nowlin said. “We’ve been working on this for a few months now, and we wanted to find a way that we could minimize the accounts that were directly impacted, but still create the fan experience change we were after.”
Utah’s plan is to work individually with affected fans and mirror their seat location as closely as possible on the other end of the court.
“If you’re on one end and now you’re going on the other end, we will work with you to get you in the seat that is similar to where you were and allow you to have the same experience you’ve had, just on the other end of the court,” Nowlin said.
Utah will also hold a virtual seat-selection process from July 7-17, allowing fans who want to move to choose from available options.
“We’re going to take care of everybody, but we’re also going to allow people the choice and the freedom to be able to make the changes they want to make,” Nowlin said. “We want to create every opportunity we can to give our fans opportunities to choose their own experience.”
Not Part Of The Huntsman Renovation
The bench and MUSS move is not directly tied to the larger Huntsman Center renovation discussions. Nowlin said the change is instead connected to College Town Magic and Utah’s effort to improve the student and fan experience inside the building.
“It does not have to do with the renovation, but it does have to do with College Town Magic,” Nowlin said.
The move could create some new seating and premium opportunities, particularly around courtside and floor seating. Nowlin said Utah is still evaluating those possibilities.
“By doing this, this will create additional opportunities for us on courtside and floor,” Nowlin said. “We’re also looking to how do we enhance our premium experience across the board. So this is a step in a process that will continue.”
The Bottom Line
Utah’s bench move is not just a nostalgic callback to the Rick Majerus era, and it is not just a seating chart adjustment. It is part of a broader effort to reshape the Huntsman Center experience.
The team bench is moving back to the west side, where Utah sat during some of the program’s most successful years. The MUSS and band are moving to the east side, where Utah believes it can build a stronger, more consistent student-section identity tied to College Town Magic.
For Utah Athletics, it is another step toward rethinking how the Huntsman Center looks, sounds and feels on game day. For Jensen, the move reconnects the program to its winning past.
The symbolism will matter to longtime Utah basketball fans. The logistics will matter to students, band members and season-ticket holders. But the larger goal is simple: make the building feel more intentional, more connected and more like home again.
Steve Bartle is the Utah insider for KSL Sports. He hosts The Utah Blockcast (SUBSCRIBE) and appears on KSL Sports Zone to break down the Utes. You can follow him on X for the latest Utah updates and game analysis.
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SALT LAKE CITY – The San Juan County assessor has resigned partway through his second term, following a recommendation that he be removed from office.
Rick Meyer’s resignation became effective on Monday, according to San Juan County Commissioner Lori Maughan. A copy of Meyer’s resignation letter was not immediately available.
This comes after the Utah State Tax Commission determined that Meyer had failed to follow the law and was “unfit to perform his duties.” In a letter last week to San Juan County commissioners, the tax commission recommended “the immediate removal of the San Juan County assessor from office to protect the public interest and restore the integrity of the property tax system in San Juan County.”
Among other things, Meyer was accused of failing to tax agricultural buildings, misclassifying property, and giving property tax exemptions to certain parcels, including vacant land, when he shouldn’t have.
The recommendation to remove Meyer from office was the first under a recent state law giving the Utah State Tax Commission more power to take corrective action against county assessors who aren’t doing their jobs properly. Assessors play a major role in the property tax process by determining the value of property throughout their counties.
Yet, it was unclear whether the San Juan County Commission could have actually removed Meyer from office had he not stepped down.
With Meyer’s resignation, the San Juan County Assessor’s Office has just one employee left. Deputy assessor Nathan Pitts will run the office until the San Juan County Republican Party recommends a replacement and the County Commission appoints one.
“It’s me holding down the fort here,” Pitts told KSL on Thursday, noting that he has spoken with the Utah Association of Counties and the state tax commission about plans for this interim period. “Everybody’s on board to assist and try to make it the best as we can, (but) I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me.”
Pitts said he does not plan to run for county assessor to replace his old boss.
“That is not my intention at all,” he said. “I’m quite content as a deputy assessor.”
Meyer was first elected as San Juan County assessor in 2020 and won reelection in 2024. His current term was set to conclude in 2029.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
FLAGSTAFF, AZ (AZFamily) — The Rock Canyon Fire, burning in northern Arizona near the border with Utah, doubled in size overnight to 4,512 acres and was 5% contained.
The fire has caused firefighters to evacuate hikers and campers in the area, and some roads in the Kaibab National Forest are closed.
People in Jacob Lake — less than 20 miles from the Rock Canyon Fire — say the new fire is stirring up anxiety after last year’s devastating fire season. They say they’re confident in firefighters, but after the trauma, they’re still holding their breath.
Memories of last year’s fires
For over 100 years, Jacob Lake Inn has been serving cookies to guests who want to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon or explore the Kaibab National Forest. Melinda Rich Marshall’s family has owned the inn since 1923.
Last year, they were evacuated during the White Sage Fire that burned close to 60,000 acres, and then the Dragon Bravo Fire, which destroyed nearly 150,000 acres, shut down the North Rim.
Now the Rock Canyon Fire has already burned thousands of acres north of the inn.
“I mean, honestly, our reaction was not again,” Rich Marshall said. “I mean, that’s really what it was.”
Rich Marshall said last year was hard enough, so once they heard about this new fire, it brought back bad memories.
“I’d say we have a little PTSD from it, seeing smoke and smelling smoke and all those things,” she said.
Fire burning in old burn scar
The Rock Canyon Fire was sparked over the weekend by a lightning strike.
Parts of it are burning in the White Sage burn scar. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Dolores Garcia said old burn scars will usually slow down a new fire, but this time it’s actually fueling the flames.
“In some of those areas, we’re seeing quite a bit of fuels,” Garcia said. “We’re not seeing that the burn scar is helping much, especially with the winds as strong as they’ve been in some days and as dry as it’s been, those fuels are just tender and cured and really flammable.”
She said firefighters are attacking it from the ground and the air, but the high winds are limiting their ability to make water drops.
Hikers and campers were evacuated from the area. Garcia said she knows how stressful this must be to the surrounding communities after last year’s fires.
“We still understand that, it’s still a very fresh wound to many of the people who live up there, who’ve recreated up there for years,” she said. “That’s definitely at the forefront of our minds.”
Rich Marshall said while it’s scary, they have full trust in the firefighters.
“We’re really just grateful to see them and know the work that they are doing,” she said.
Rich Marshall said this is usually their peak season, but they’ve seen a bit of a slowdown even after the North rim reopened. She said people can support them by staying there or even just stopping in and getting some of their famous cookies.
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