Utah bill could make it harder for judges to block laws that appear unconstitutional

SALT LAKE CITY — A committee of Utah lawmakers have voted to pass a bill that could make it harder for judges to block state laws that they find unconstitutional.

SB204, sponsored by Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Utah, would allow state lawyers to appeal an injunction placed on state laws by Utah judges.

The bill would require plaintiffs who sued over the law in court to present clear and convincing evidence as to why the law is unconstitutional. 

“It seems to be the standard is ‘let’s enjoin any law, and we’re going to go through the entire process and then we’ll figure it out at the end of the Supreme Court level,'” Brammer said during a Senate Committee hearing. “And I don’t think that they should be doing [that] so lightly.”

If the plaintiffs can’t present evidence to show why the law is unconstitutional, then the law would remain in effect until, or if, the Utah Supreme Court said otherwise.

“It allows us to get things in front of the Supreme Court,” Brammer said during the hearing. “And hopefully lets them know that they need to take this seriously.”

KSL Legal Analyst Greg Skordas called the proposal “problematic” and expects that it will be challenged in court if it’s signed into law.

“Anytime the legislative branch is telling the judicial branch that ‘you need to change what you’re doing, you need to change your guidelines, you need to change your priorities,’ that’s going to be challenged and that will certainly be the case in this instance,” Skordas said.

Skordas also said civil cases today normally only require you to have a stronger case than your opponent. Therefore, he thinks requiring clear and convincing evidence from the plaintiff could make it a lot harder to block laws that appear unconstitutional.

How SB204 would effect Utah

Utah has seen several examples in recent years where laws passed by state lawmakers have been challenged in court and blocked by lower court judges until, or if, the high court rules on the case. Namely the state’s trigger law, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which would ban almost all abortions in Utah, outside of a few exceptions.

That law ended up in court and was blocked by a lower court judge. The Utah Supreme Court ended up deciding to keep the law on hold.

If this proposal from Brammer were state law during that time, state attorneys would have been able to appeal and require the plaintiffs who challenged the trigger law to present clear and convincing evidence as to why the law was unconstitutional. If they couldn’t, law would’ve gone into effect until the Utah Supreme Court ruled on it.

“We can’t just run out the clock at the beginning without some really good reasons while the law does not go into effect,” Brammer said during the hearing.

Adam Small is a reporter for KSL NewsRadio. He primarily reports on the Great Salt Lake and Natural Resources. Follow him on Facebook and X.

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