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Updates and analysis from Alex on how Utah’s speech and records laws are actually working.
The office argued four separate people could be declared vexatious as a single combination acting in concert. The director used the bill sponsor's own words to say no, and warned the theory would let agencies punish lawyers for representing clients.
Equality Utah won its motion and asked for $272,000. Judge Kara Pettit gave it $65,450, on reasoning the Supreme Court would adopt the following spring.
Section 78B-25-109 points you to Rule 4. Rule 4 says 30 days. For a UPEPA appeal it is 21, and the reason it ended up there is on the record.
In 2022, Utah's own press lobby handed the Legislature a phrase. A lawmaker knew immediately what to do with it. Four years later, the one man who voted no is on the receiving end.
The State Records Committee had seven members, staggered terms, and a seat reserved by statute for the news media. S.B. 277 replaced all of it with a director the governor appoints.
Utah agencies have petitioned to cut off a citizen's records requests seven times. Six have been decided. The record is smaller and stranger than the statute suggests.
In three years the Legislature gave Utahns one of the country's strongest anti-SLAPP laws, created a way for agencies to cut off a citizen's records requests, and replaced the independent records committee with a director the governor appoints. This site tracks all of it.