Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- Gov. Spencer Cox advocates a coordinated approach to Utah's crime legislation.
- He highlights the need for holistic criminal justice reform amid numerous penalty-enhancing bills.
- Cox also praises election reform efforts maintaining vote-by-mail while enhancing security measures.
SALT LAKE CITY — 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 build 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 through 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.
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 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 Chairman 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.
