SALT LAKE CITY — A vote on a congressional map, a controversial bill on redistricting and a new plan to try to help the Great Salt Lake will be part of Monday's special session of the Utah State Legislature.
Governor Spencer Cox issued a call on Friday morning, putting these items on the agenda:
- Amendments to H.B. 263, Election Record Amendments, enacted in the 2025 General Session, specifically to clarify definitions and define new terms, address retention requirements for certain election records, and modify reporting requirements related to certain election-related data;
- Consider amendments to H.B. 356, County Governance Amendments, enacted in the 2025 General Session, specifically to modify when a council member in certain counties must represent a single district, and other related provisions;
- Consider changes to the process for selection as well as term of the chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, as allowed by Article VIII, Section 2, of the Utah Constitution;
- Consider amendments to H.B. 272, Vehicle Assessment Amendments, enacted in the 2025 General Session, specifically to modify vehicle weights required to be tested for emissions compliance;
- Consider amendments to H.B. 337, Property Manager Requirements, enacted in the 2025 General Session, specifically to adjust the effective date and to amend other provisions of the bill;
- Recodify Utah Code Title 17, Counties, and to recodify certain corresponding provisions in Title 10, Utah Municipal Code;
- Recodify Utah Code Title 53B, State System of Higher Education;
- Consider technical amendments to the Utah Code in a bill entitled “Revisor’s Technical Corrections to Utah Code”;
- Consider amendments to Utah Code § 65A-17-201(14) to enable the Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands to raise the Great Salt Lake adaptive management berm under certain circumstances;
- Consider amendments comparable to S.B. 67, Local Option Sales Tax Amendments, from the 2025 General Session, to adjust local option sales and usetaxes available for qualifying political subdivisions to fund emergency services within
certain counties; - Consider amendments to Utah Code §20A-19-103 to address redistricting standards, including determining the best available data and scientific and statistical methods to use in evaluating redistricting plans;
- Consider adopting new congressional district boundaries in relation to ongoing redistricting litigation;
- Consider a resolution approving acceptance by the State of Utah of Rural Health Transformation Program funds granted under Public Law 119-21, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The map that will be chosen by the legislature's redistricting committee is under court order — and as one senator put it — under protest. A judge sided with the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, who sued over the legislature's replacement of voter-approved Prop. 4 which created an independent redistricting commission. The legislature has been ordered to draw a new map that complies with the citizen ballot initiative that goes to her for approval. If she rejects that map? The plaintiffs have their own proposal waiting in the wings.
Lawmakers will consider a controversial bill advanced by Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Highland, which would implement a single measure for redistricting — a political science philosophy known as "partisan symmetry" in redistricting, calculating districts by party strength. Critics accuse it of being another form of gerrymandering in an overwhelmingly Republican state like Utah.
The Great Salt Lake berm bill would give Utah's Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands the ability to make snap decisions on the lake's health by raising and lowering the causeway berm that divides the north and south arms of the lake.
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