Though federalism hopes to let local governments find individualized solutions to their unique problems, Americans often assume it works like this: Washington D.C. deals with the most prominent political issues, and then the state governments sort out less relevant matters. Yet a look at Utah’s 2024 congressional docket proves that caricature inaccurate. Since the legislative session opened on January 16, a whirlwind of nationally contested issues has played out at the state capitol.
Many of these issues are highly divisive and related to the broader “culture war”. LGBTQ+ rights, racial diversity in hiring, gun control, religious freedom, socialism, gender equality, public school curriculum–take your pick. Whatever hot-button topic you care most about, Utah’s probably got a bill about it this year.
Serving as one of the most dramatic examples, HB269 would require every school to display a framed poster of the 10 commandments in a prominent location [1]. HB112 would remove “human sexuality” from the sex education curriculum [2]. HB119 provides financial incentives for K-12 teachers to bring firearms to school [3]. Utah’s congress is even engaged in the cultural battles of 70 years ago: House Resolution 16 would ratify the Equal Rights Amendment [4], and Senate Resolution 5 condemns communism in language that might seem heavy-handed even to McCarthy [5].
The majority of the controversial bills are education-related and copied from other Republican states. HB 374, which would remove books deemed inappropriate from school libraries, follows a national boom in censorship laws from dozens of states in the last 3 years [6]. HB 303 would demand a harsher standard of neutrality from school officials, who may not endorse, promote, or disparage a religious belief, political viewpoint, or “viewpoint regarding sexual orientation or gender identity” [7]. While HB 303 does not go as far as Florida’s infamous 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” law, that legislation seems to be its inspiration [8]. HB 261, which Governor Cox signed into law on January 30th, is nearly identical to a 2023 Texas law. It eliminates diversity, equity, and inclusion offices from public universities, K-12 schools, and government offices. These public entities would be mandated to give annual trainings on freedom of speech, but would be banned from requiring employees to attend trainings on diversity and inclusion [9].
Perhaps most controverisal is HB 257, also signed into law on January 30th. With its passage, Utah becomes one of 10 Republican state legislatures imitating North Carolina’s 2016 “bathroom ban”. The new law restricts access to public bathrooms and changing rooms to only those whose gender on their birth certificate matches the sex-designation assigned to the room (although, after revisions, individuals can only be charged with trespassing if they “enter or remain in the changing room under circumstances which a reasonable person would expect to likely cause affront or alarm”). This law introduces significant complications for Utah’s transgender community [10].
It also positions Utah’s representatives as players in national cultural debates, signaling their loyalty and acceptability to their out-of-state colleagues in the Republican party. Clearly, I am personally opposed to plenty of the ballot measures. My political opinions tend to put me in the minority in Utah, so it’s possible that these legislative actions are exactly what most of Utah wants. But I’m concerned that in their efforts to keep up with the Republican party’s race to the right, legislators may be leaving Utah behind.
It’s hard to know whether legislators’ behavior is matching what Utahns want from them, because state politics garner such minimal attention. In the last election cycle, only 3 of 68 incumbents lost their re-election campaigns–some years, it’s even less than that [11]. Legislators’ votes and decisions can fly under the radar, leaving constituents unlikely to hold them accountable, even if they (unknowingly) disagree with their representative’s actions.
But of course, whether or not they know the origins of a law, Utahns feel its impact. A transgender student who might have worried about bathroom bills in the abstract before January 30th must now sit in a school administrator’s office and work out a plan for gender-affirming privacy. Utah teachers probably hold opinions about how our country should protect students from gun violence, but that used to be theoretical. Now, if HB119 passes, they will have to decide whether to carry a weapon in their classroom. The practical impact of these policies happens when a state's elected officials take a vote–a vote that probably goes largely unnoticed, because people were distracted talking in hypotheticals about the White House.
And of course, the policies themselves are hardly “by Utah, for Utah”. Instead, they are by Florida (or Indiana, or Georgia, or Texas, or anywhere but here), for an increasingly partisan national movement. Is that how federalism was intended to work? As much as I wish it weren’t the case, the national culture war is being fought in Utah’s capitol, and until we turn our attention to what’s happening in our state, the people who have to live under these laws will have little say in how they are made.
