All the things the 2022 Utah State Legislature did to your life: Here's this year's utleg session recap from BenWinslow.
The legislature was clearly done with COVID-19, but the virus wasn’t done with them. The Senate President, House Minority Leader and others tested positive right before and during the session. Cases continued to decline statewide and Governor Spencer Cox announced an easing of the state’s emergency response.The governor said he’d liked to have seen the legislature be done with COVID bills, but they pursued them anyway.
Rep. Jon Hawkins passed a bill that requires ID for first-time voters , surveillance cameras on ballot drop boxes and other measures. It had the support of Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson, the state’s top elections officer. Bills to remove the state portion of the sales tax on food went nowhere, but House Speaker Brad Wilson signaled he was supportive of the idea — if the state can address tax volatility with the earmark on the income tax for education. That idea was floated in the 2022 session, but faced some opposition from education groups. To remove the earmark, it requires a constitutional amendment .
Lawmakers allowed “lane filtering” for motorcycles to move forward and introduced a new method of merging: “the zipper method” that forces you to merge into a single lane right, left, right, left, like a zipper. “Selfies while driving,” filming yourself while in traffic, will soon be illegal under a bill that passed.
A bill to make all public transit free in Utah did not advance in the legislature. Rep. Joel Briscoe told FOX 13 News he will try again next year.Afghan refugees who have settled in Utah will be able to use translation assistance in taking driver license exams under a bill passed by Rep. Carol Spackman Moss. Senate Minority Whip Luz Escamilla also passed a bill expanding driver exams to other languages.A pair of controversial bills on transgender children were introduced. Rep.
A big bill expanding secondary water metering passed the legislature. It requires cities to implement outdoor water monitoring devices by 2030. For cities exempted, they have to impose water conservation plans. Rep. Carl Albrecht passed a bill requiring a study on water shortages and who gets preference. The bill expresses a desire to have agriculture get the top preference, but that could change and water rights holders would be compensated.
Lawmakers advanced bills on intergenerational poverty, including more reporting on state efforts to break the cycle of poverty.Bills restricting some police interviews with internal investigators from Utah’s Government Records Access Management Act passed. A bill cracking down on “vexatious” requesters advanced, adding some new fees. Lawmakers agreed to carve out news media requests.
Bereavement leave has been expanded for state employees to include stillbirths and miscarriages. A second bill expanding it for counties and cities.Diacritical marks will be allowed on vital records under a bill passed by Rep. Andrew Stoddard. There are still some incentives to purchase electric vehicles, but owners will soon have to start paying for the roads they drive on. The legislature approved a penny a mile “road user fee” for them to help offset declines in the gas tax which helps pay for road repairs.
A bill stalled that would have allowed law enforcement to have more access to genealogical DNA databases had opposition from Ancestry.com, which warned it could lead to police “fishing expeditions” with millions of people’s DNA info. School fees were going to be eliminated under a bill proposed by Rep. Adam Robertson. He told FOX 13 News on the last night of the session that the bill faced too much opposition as it moved forward so it would not pass this year. He plans to bring it back in the 2023 session.
A bill that emerged late in the session by Sen. Kirk Cullimore and Rep. Sandra Hollins creates curriculum in Utah to teach the contributions of minority communities to state history. It had broad support across the legislature. Rep. Suzanne Harrison passed a bill urging school districts to hire more school nurses, bringing down the ratio from one nurse per 5,000 students to one nurse per 2,000.
Charter schools must consider a foster child in the same household as a current student for admission and can give preference to siblings and those who withdrew in COVID-19. A bill expanding a special needs scholarship program passed, extending the invitation to a child’s siblings. Contraception medication will continue to be offered to people incarcerated under a bill passed by Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost. She also passed a bill creating an ombudsman program in the state to investigate complaints and promote rights for people with disabilities.
More tax incentives were shifted to rural Utah under a bill passed in the legislature. There were also incentives offered for companies seeking to relocate to rural areas, which still continue to perform less economically than the Wasatch Front. There will be timelines for completing use of force investigations into police conduct, and police have new deadlines for releasing body camera video.
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